Jawad Iqbal

The Labour party is pretty useless when it comes to getting rid of its leaders. That’s the only reason Keir Starmer is still squatting in Downing Street after an extraordinary 48 hours of resignations and plots. The PM is badly wounded, his premiership hanging by a thread, but there appears to be no one yet capable of delivering the fatal blow.Part of the problem in trying to get shot of Starmer is that his would-be assassins know all too well the party’s chequered history of failed and aborted coups. It gives them cause to pause. The Labour party has never successfully mounted an official challenge against a serving prime minister. It is a point that Starmer, ‘Mr Rules’, knows all too well.

Even those who dislike Keir Starmer might feel a smidgen of pity – on a human level – for his plight as he tries to cling on in Downing Street. The Prime Minister is being assailed from every direction of his divided government and party with blunt advice about what he needs to do in order to survive following Labour's disastrous performance in last week's local elections. Starmer won’t quit. Every Prime Minister has to be dragged kicking and screaming from office Starmer, to use Norman Lamont’s withering political putdown of John Major, is in office but not in power. His future and that of his ailing administration now rests apparently on the speech he will deliver later today. Get it wrong and his political assassins are ready to strike him down.

Labour is facing a collapse in support among British Muslim voters in this week’s local elections. The votes of many Muslims are instead likely to go to pro-Gaza independents and the Green Party. The bad news doesn’t end there for Labour: if there was a general election tomorrow, only a third of Muslim voters would support the party, according to a poll released ahead of today's local elections. If there was a general election tomorrow, only a third of Muslim voters would support Labour The scale of disaffection with Labour on the part of many British Muslims is laid out in research undertaken by JL Partners for the Policy Exchange think tank.

Even those who don’t think much of New York city mayor Zohran Mamdani’s politics might grudgingly concede he has a knack for jumping on causes that resonate with his achingly progressive voter base. The idea of righting the wrongs of imperial history – anywhere, even thousands of miles away – is high on the tick list. Hence Mamdani’s call for King Charles to return the Koh-i-Noor diamond, one of the world’s largest and most controversial jewels, to India. The 105-carat diamond, part of the Crown Jewels, is the subject of a fierce historical dispute, with India claiming that it was stolen during British colonial rule. Leaving aside Mamdani’s political opportunism, what is it about the fate of the Koh-i-Noor diamond that seems to agitate so many Indians?

It is judgment day in the Commons for the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, over what he knew, and when, about the process that led to Peter Mandelson being appointed as ambassador to Washington. Starmer has promised to “set out all relevant facts in true transparency” to MPs this afternoon. It is a tall order. Starmer has to make a convincing case of his version of events – which basically comes down to saying he did not know until a few days ago that Mandelson had failed his security vetting – to a sceptical audience of MPs from all parties.

The official report into the Southport attacks — in which 17-year old Axel Rudakubana murdered three girls at a Taylor Swift themed dance class in July 2024 — paints a damning picture of multiple serious failings by government agencies. Sir Adrian Fulford, the high court judge overseeing the public inquiry, said the attack could have been prevented if officials had not dismissed Rudakubana’s increasingly erratic and violent behaviour as symptoms of his autism. Officials used his autism diagnosis to excuse his behaviour and failed to recognise that this condition heightened, rather than lessened, the risk he posed.

Pakistan, the world’s only Muslim nuclear power, has traditionally been an international sideshow. No longer. The country has reportedly been passing messages between Washington and Tehran in efforts to bring an end to the Iran war. It is has a five-point plan aimed at restoring “peace and stability” across the region. How have the Pakistanis pulled off this remarkable diplomatic makeover? The answer starts with some critical decisions the Pakistanis took last year. After the four-day armed conflict between Pakistan and India in May 2025, both sides claimed “victory”. But crucially Islamabad publicly acknowledged Washington’s role in achieving a ceasefire (something India refused to do). Pakistan later nominated President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Talking nonsense about football is a lucrative and growing business, hence the explosion in podcasts in which former players exchange inanities about the game. A surprising new entrant to this festival of footballing gibberish – a right winger fresh from the subs’ bench, so to speak – is Suella Braverman. The former Conservative home secretary, who joined Reform UK in January, has called on the Football Association to scrap its ‘woke’ diversity and inclusion policies. She wrote to the FA’s chief executive, Mark Bullingham, this week claiming its strategy was ‘fundamentally flawed, inherently racist and bad for the game’ because ‘the best coaches should get the job, not because of their skin colour, but because they are the best person for the job.

Sir Keir Starmer wants everyone to know how sorry, really sorry, he is for giving Lord Mandelson the job of Ambassador to the United States. On a visit to Belfast yesterday, the Prime Minister issued his latest and perhaps most abject mea culpa so far. It came just hours after the publication of embarrassing government documents detailing the process (or more accurately, the lack of one) that existed when it came to appointing the now disgraced peer to the plum diplomatic role in Washington. Sir Keir told reporters:   The release of the information shows what was known. That led to further questions being asked…But that doesn’t take away from the fact that it was me that made a mistake, and it’s me that makes the apology to the victims of Epstein, and I do that.