| Keir Starmer has fended off the biggest challenge to his leadership to date, telling Labour MPs he was "not prepared to walk away". After Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar broke ranks yesterday and urged the PM to resign, other senior Labour figures, including leadership hopefuls Wes Streeting and Angela Rayner, rallied around. Benjamin Netanyahu has brought forward a planned trip to Washington by a week after Donald Trump boasted of having had "very good talks" with Iran. The Israeli PM, who was due to travel to the US on 18 February, will now arrive today to argue that any deal with Tehran must curb its ballistic missile programme as well as its nuclear ambitions. Elon Musk says he will build a "self-growing city" on the moon within the next 10 years. SpaceX has "shifted focus", he says, from colonising Mars to founding a lunar city because planetary alignment means the six-month voyage to Mars can launch only once every 26 months, whereas a two-day moon journey can set off every 10 days. | | |  | Stefan Rousseau/AFP/Getty |
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| Starmer's departure could trigger "full on factional war" | A chicken that loses its head can still, for a short while, "run around and flap its wings", says Owen Jones in The Guardian. After the fall of our "de facto prime minister" Morgan McSweeney, this is the phase the government has now entered. There will be some flapping, but the head is gone. Those of us on the left always knew this would happen. We said as much when Keir Starmer abandoned all those left-wing pledges he'd made to win the leadership campaign, without which he lacked any sort of coherent policy vision. We warned that the faction around the PM, who received more freebies than every Labour leader on record – "including Tony Blair" – was one dangerously mesmerised by "wealth, proximity to power and elite approval". We warned that Labour winning barely a third of the vote amid record low turnout was not the crushing mandate everyone claimed. No one listened. | Personally, "I have disliked almost every Starmer policy to date", says Mary Harrington in UnHerd. But I'm certainly not cheering his demise. "Have you seen what the rest of his party is like?" Labour's mass of backbenchers is a "monstrous hybrid" of different factions and interest groups. If Starmer cuts taxes he'll anger MPs representing net welfare recipients. If he raises them he'll further immiserate the country's "net contributors". Let more migrants in and he'll upset one group; keep them out and he'll disappoint another. The only way all these internal disagreements could be held in balance, "even superficially", was through the ferocious political manoeuvring and dark arts at which McSweeney clearly excelled. The prospect of Starmer trying to "hold the madder daydreams of his party in check" without the Northern Irishman at his side is certainly "ominous". But if the PM goes, it'll be "full on factional war". | | | | Advertisement | | How to invest like the ultra-wealthy do: Free guide | The ultra wealthy have been able to access Private Equity to grow their wealth for years. And it has paid off, as the asset class outperformed global stock markets over the past 25 years, although that is not a guide to the future. However, until recently Private Equity funds were strictly off-limits to individual investors, unless you had tens of millions to spare. | That is now changing: the doors to Private Equity are being pushed open. This free guide from Wealth Club explains the new generation of Private Equity funds – how they work, the risks, and how experienced investors can get access to the asset class from just £10,000. Download it here. |
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| | | | Booking.com has put together a list of the world's "most welcoming" destinations, based on more than 370 million traveller reviews. Among them are Montepulciano in Italy, with its sweeping vineyards and medieval architecture; Swakopmund in Namibia, where golden dunes meet the Atlantic; Japan's Takayama, known for its traditional sake breweries and bustling market; the panoramic views and hidden coves of Noosa, Australia; the "Patagonian haven" San Martín de los Andes in Argentina, set on the tranquil shores of Lake Lácar; and Britain's own Harrogate in North Yorkshire, a spa town full of historic charm. To see more, click on the image. |
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