Steerpike

To the fires linked to Sir Keir Starmer’s property and car that have been probed this week. It now transpires that a 21-year-old man has been charged with arson with intent to endanger life over attacks at properties linked to the Prime Minister. Roman Lavrynovych, a Ukrainian national living in Sydenham, London, is alleged to have started fires outside two properties and torching a vehicle in north London. He has been charged with three counts of arson with intent to endanger life and is due to appear at Westminster magistrates’ court on Friday. It comes after the London Fire Brigade and the police had attended the property shortly after 1.30 a.m. on Monday. While the door to the four-bedroom home owned by the Prime Minister was damaged, no one was hurt.

While Nigel Farage's Reform party has seen success in the local elections this month, their former MP Rupert Lowe has received a bit of good news himself. It transpires that the Greater Yarmouth politician will not face criminal charges in relation to an allegation of threats towards the party's chairman Zia Yusuf – with Lowe taking to Twitter to blast the party's 'brutal smear campaign' in a statement on the matter this morning. He's certainly pulling no punches now… Lowe was suspended in March after Yusuf and chief whip Lee Anderson announced they had referred their former colleague to the police over 'threats of physical violence', while reports emerged that the Met Police had launched an investigation into the parliamentarian.

Will Gary Lineker ever learn? As if the BBC Sports pundit hadn't caused enough controversy, now the left-wing centre forward has sparked outrage over a pro-Palestine post he shared on Instagram. The Match of the Day pundit took to the social media site to share a reel first posted by the activist group Palestine Lobby featuring an emoji of a rat – prompting criticism that he was pushing an anti-semitic slur. Hardly a display of the impartiality the Beeb promotes, eh? The former footballer shared a video titled 'Zionism explained in less than two minutes', with text written across it: 'Why does this still have to be explained? Why?' Next to the title sits a cartoon rat, which stayed on the screen throughout the film – where lawyer Diana Buddu blasts Israel's attacks on Gaza.

To north London, where the Metropolitan Police are investigating a fire that broke out at Sir Keir Starmer's personal home early this morning. Shortly after 1.30 a.m., the force attended the property alongside the London Fire Brigade after receiving a report of the fire. While the door to the four-bedroom home owned by the Prime Minister was damaged, no one was injured. In a statement, the Met police noted: On Monday 12 May at 01:35hrs, police were alerted by the London Fire Brigade to reports of a fire at a residential address in north London. Officers attended the scene. Damage was caused to the property’s entrance, nobody was hurt. The fire is being investigated and cordons remain in place while enquiries continue.

The row over Lucy Powell's outrageous comments are not going away anytime soon. It was on Any Questions last week that the Leader of the House of Commons suggested that discussing the subject of grooming gangs effectively amounted to a 'dog whistle.' She has now been forced to issue a grovelling apology in the House, having, er, conspicuously failed to do so in her original post on X. But among the victims of those disgusting gangs, there is anger and dismay at the attitudes of politicians like Powell. This morning one of them was interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg on her flagship BBC show. Steph, who was abused when she was 12, was asked on what it is like to hear the political conversation about grooming gangs.

It seems that Reform are not content to just take the Tories' seats. After coming for their MPs, councillors and members, now Nigel Farage's party is turning its guns on one of the most visible remaining bastions of conservatism in the north of England: working men's Conservative clubs. This morning, a new sign appeared above the Talbot pub in Blackpool, a onetime Tory club. It now reads thus: 'The Talbot: Reform UK Club.' Members and supporters will mix with locals there, as Reform aims to go after the Blackpool South constituency where they finished second last July. A senior party source confirmed to Mr S that the new Reform UK Club was the first of many, saying: First we replaced the Tories last week at the local elections, now we are replacing their clubs too.

Sir Keir Starmer's jubilation over sealing the UK-US trade deal with President Donald Trump may be short-lived as problems loom closer to home. It now transpires that the Labour Prime Minister could be facing his biggest rebellion yet – as up to a quarter of the parliamentary Labour party flag their frustrations about proposed cuts to disability benefits. Dear oh dear… As reported by the Times, more than 80 Labour MPs have signed a letter – to be sent to the chief whip at the start of next week – setting out their concerns about welfare cuts, while many more have relayed their worries to government ministers.

Well, well, well. It transpires that civil servants working across Whitehall are turning to artificial intelligence to figure out how different policy proposals will be received by their real government ministers. Mandarins from the Department for Education, the Home Office and even the Cabinet Office have been clocked signing up to software that enables them to chat with and test new ideas on AI 'clones' of senior politicians – before they take them to their human equivalents. How very interesting… Civil servants working across Whitehall are turning to artificial intelligence to figure out how different policy proposals will be received by their real government ministers. The new tech, created by Nostrada.