Isabel Hardman

What was the point of Rishi Sunak’s landmark AI summit at Bletchley Park? The Prime Minister has just given a press conference at the end of it in which he tried to underline his achievements. These included bringing together more than 100 of the leading AI nations and leading companies handling the technology and reaching a commitment to state-backed testing and evaluation before any AI technology is released. For Sunak, Britain being at the front of conversations about AI is also about the country’s identity post-Brexit He did, though, have to acknowledge that the UK is not going to be leading the world on AI safety and regulation. He made reference to the institutes set up by both the UK and the US – rather than just one institute as he has previously proposed.

In the past few minutes, Labour has suspended Andy McDonald from the party whip after comments he made that were ‘deeply offensive, particularly at a time of rising anti-Semitism which has left Jewish people fearful for their safety’. Those comments, which the Labour backbencher made at the weekend, included the phrase ‘between the river and the sea’. He will now be investigated by the party’s disciplinary process. The suspension highlights the difference between the two main parties on disciplinary matters arising from the Israel-Hamas conflict. The Tories have sacked one frontbencher, Paul Bristow, for calling for a ceasefire against the party line. Labour now has more than a dozen frontbenchers making the same defiant call, and no sackings.

Keir Starmer is under increasing pressure from Labour frontbenchers to change tack and back calls for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. There are now more than a dozen such MPs who have defied the party line to call for one, along with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham. This morning, shadow science, innovation and technology secretary Peter Kyle appeared to introduce a new line into the debate, saying it was ‘dancing on the head of a pin’ to differentiate between a ceasefire and a humanitarian pause. Starmer has backed the latter.

Why won’t the government proscribe the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps? MPs have been asking that question for more than a year now, but it has gained impetus since the Hamas attack on Israel, given the suspicion that Iran has been aiding Hamas. So far, the line from the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary has merely been that the government never comments on sanctions or which organisations are being considered for proscription. But today at Foreign Office questions in the Commons, James Cleverly offered a little more insight, presumably because the parliamentary pressure is growing. A number of MPs asked why nothing had yet been done, including Liberal Democrat Layla Moran, who has spoken movingly about her family in Gaza.

Rishi Sunak’s update to MPs on the Israel-Hamas conflict today included the revelation that the UK security services had concluded the strike on the al-Ahli Arab hospital had come from a rocket fired within Gaza and aimed at Israel. He announced this within a section about the importance of tone and language, and pointed out that the rush to attribute blame in the reporting had a significant impact on the conflict, including the meetings organised by the US. Sunak’s statement was meatier than the one he gave last week. It included the line, which he didn’t fully elaborate on, that this was a ‘watershed moment’ for the region.

Most of the questions to Rishi Sunak today at Prime Minister's Questions can be usefully summarised by the point put to him late on by SNP MP Stewart McDonald. McDonald said: ‘Of course the sadism of Hamas can only be condemned and there’s no question of Israel’s right to defence and security. But international law is very clear, Mr Speaker, that acting against international law in response to terrorism is unjustified. So in all of these packages that the Prime Minister has announced vis a vis humanitarian aid, and the military package he announced last week, can he tell the House how the government will ensure that international law is adhered to beyond just statements from Israel’s head of state?

Yesterday’s statement on prison reforms from the Justice Secretary Alex Chalk was very much one of those why-didn’t-you-see-this-coming affairs. Chalk has only been in the brief since April, but he has had more warning than the past fortnight that prison capacity was running out. One of the problems Chalk has is that he is mopping up thirteen messy years for the Ministry of Justice Yesterday he sought to reframe the story by arguing he had in fact seen it coming. He told MPs: ‘I have been candid from the moment I took on this role that our custodial estate is under pressure.

Should the UK warn Israel about its response to the Hamas attack? The Prime Minister was very pointed as he told the Commons that people ‘should call [the 7 October attack] what it was: a pogrom’. His statement was grave and included full support for Israel and for Jewish people in Britain. He repeatedly told MPs that ‘we will continue to stand with Israel... not just today, not just tomorrow, but always’. He continued: ‘This atrocity was an existential strike at the very idea of Israel as a safe homeland for the Jewish people. I understand why it has shaken you to your core.