Good Monday morning. This is Sam Francis.
DRIVING THE DAY
STRAIT TALKING: Keir Starmer has invited energy, shipping and insurance bosses to Downing Street as all sides cast around for ways to handle the economic fallout from the Iran war. Leaders from BP, Shell, Goldman Sachs and Lloyd’s of London will get a Navy briefing this afternoon, before being asked to spell out how they plan to protect consumers from being clobbered by the shortages and price hikes expected in the coming weeks. The firms will be keen to hear the government’s plans too. Though whether anyone other than Donald Trump can stop oil and transport costs spiraling is another matter.
Room where it happens: No. 10’s press release overnight said the firms will hear from the Navy’s maritime operations chief, Richard Cantrill, on how the conflict is unfolding as it enters its fifth week. The meeting is behind closed doors, but there is plenty for those in the room to ask about — and for political hacks to pose at 11.30 a.m., in the only No. 10 Lobby briefing of the week. Such as …
Only fuels rush in: The Times’ Oliver Wright reports senior industry figures warning the U.K. could start to see diesel shortages from around the middle of April, while some flights could also be disrupted as a result of a global shortage of jet fuel. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson confirmed on Sunday that the government was drawing up contingency plans in the event of fuel shortages, but insisted there’s no need for consumers to change their behavior — revealing she’d already booked her own summer holiday, as covered in Sunday Crunch.
**A message from Instagram: Instagram Teen Accounts automatically filter content and comments to help make sure what teenagers see is age-appropriate. Learn more.**
Around the same time … Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband will join a virtual G7 meeting of energy and finance ministers, alongside central bank governors. The chancellor is expected to argue that unless global supply chains are stabilized, existing shortages will be made worse, hitting growth across the world.
Rachel says: be more Ed! Reeves will also “encourage the G7 to follow the UK’s lead by accelerating investment in renewables and nuclear,” the Treasury said. Just don’t mention “windmills” to the U.S. too loudly.
TRUMP CARD: Ahead of the meeting, Trump threw in a customary curveball, telling the FT’s Edward Luce his “preference” would be to “take the oil in Iran” and is considering seizing strategic Kharg Island. Once again he insisted negotiations were going well after Iran allowed 20 more ships through the strait … before adding: “You never know with Iran, because we negotiate with them and then we have to blow them up.” Good good.
Crude awakening: The economic picture this morning is looking grim, with markets sliding and oil prices rising above $115 a barrel during early trading in Asia — close to the highest level since the conflict began. Keep an eye on U.K. and U.S. markets when they open this morning after a weekend pause in trading.
Latest in war: The rise in oil prices came as the conflict escalated over the weekend, with the Houthis — Tehran’s allies in Yemen — joining the fray and adding another maritime threat to the conflict, and Israeli’s military hitting infrastructure around Iran and expanding its invasion of Lebanon. On Sunday, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of Iran’s top wartime leaders, accused the U.S. of talking up its diplomatic efforts as cover to prepare for ground operations. Whoever gave him that idea?
ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL: Before the meetings, Starmer will take a short pool interview and a round of questions from regional media when he launches Labour’s May elections campaign in the West Midlands this morning. The Westminster press pack wasn’t invited for a full Q&A, but events in SW1 — and the Gulf — could dominate all the same. Many questions will inevitably focus on what levers he could use to shield U.K. consumers from global shock waves.
Here’s one idea: Australia’s government, from which Labour has taken a few tips, announced overnight that it will halve fuel duty for three months. Stick that one on the maybe pile?
Déjà vu: Believe it or not, this is the second year in a row that Starmer has spent local elections launch day in crisis meetings with business … over an economic shock that began in the White House. Avid Playbook readers will recall Labour’s 2025 launch landed the morning after Trump rolled out his “Liberation Day” tariffs.
War of words: Labour is braced for heavy losses in May’s elections. But Starmer will try to use the Iran war to persuade voters to stick with his party, arguing that a vote for opponents risks derailing the progress his government is making on the cost of living. It’s a tough sell given the current economic picture. In pre‑released lines, Starmer also targets Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage for their early support of the U.S.–Israeli strikes on Iran, calling it “a question of judgment.”
VAT’s all folks: The Conservatives are also going all-out on the cost of living in their local election campaign, launched last week. Overnight they added a new plank to their Cheap Power Plan, calling for VAT to be scrapped from household energy bills for three years — the BBC’s Becky Morton has a write-up. Combined with reopening North Sea drilling and scrapping the windfall tax, the Tories claim this would shave £200 off the average energy bill. Reform, which already promised to scrap VAT and green levies on energy bills, tells Playbook the Tories have copied its homework — and needed “two weeks to plagiarize our policy.”
For what it’s worth: Both the Lib Dems and Reform have also claimed to be the party to cut consumer bills in their local election launches last week.
Bloodbath and beyond: The Guardian’s Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot reveal Labour has been holding crisis meetings about this May’s election since a week after its 2024 landslide at the general election. Despite so much forward planning, it seems the mood is still fairly apocalyptic. Fearing a “bloodbath,” officials have drafted a three‑step plan to head off any potential leadership challenge — including an instant king’s speech and reshuffle to distract MPs. But don’t expect a return to frontline politics for leadership rival Angela Rayner. Instead any reshuffle will be used to bring some more experienced hands into a whips’ office that has lost the trust of its MPs.
TRADE SECRETS: Adding to Labour’s growing list of problems, the Times’ Daisy Eastlake has found Green Party Leader Zack Polanski has been quietly ingratiating himself with the unions that usually bankroll Labour. He has spoken to 10 so far and is set to make five keynote speeches at union conferences. One Green source said Polanski’s goal was to stop the unions funding Labour, rather than getting them over to the Greens outright.
TODAY IN WESTMINSTER
PARLIAMENT: Not sitting.
BRAKE-ING POINT Talks on a U.K.–E.U. youth mobility deal now appear to be properly stuck. Brussels has been resisting Britain’s efforts to impose a cap on numbers, but this morning’s papers are full of reports the E.U. has offered an “emergency brake” to be used in case numbers coming into the U.K. are too high. The impasse is threatening progress in the Brexit reset talks.
Playbook hears the offer is still not acceptable to Whitehall, teeing up a testy Lobby briefing where reporters are likely to push the PM’s spokesman for clarity on whether negotiations are simply drifting or dying. My colleague Jon Stone has a good read on how the EU is tooling up for a tricky negotiation on other matters too.
IT’S NOT EASY BEING GREEN: No. 10 could also be asked about reports over the weekend that ministers have launched a review of electric car sales quotas, which could lead to changes to the government’s Zero-Emission Vehicle mandate. Watering down the mandate requiring carmakers to meet annual quotas of zero-emission car and van sales would be seen as a pretty chunky U-turn on one of Labour’s flagship green policies.
AWAY FROM OIL AND GAS: Britain is looking far and wide to make deals on critical minerals — starting in copper-rich Chile, where Climate Minister Katie White has been kickstarting talks with the new right-wing government. My colleague Abby Wallace interviewed White in Santiago.
DIAL TONES: Just 1 percent of all phone thefts resulted in a criminal charge in 2024-25, Lib Dem FOI digging has found. The party says that nicking phones has “effectively been decriminalized,” with nine out of 10 cases being closed before a suspect is found. The Telegraph has a write-up.
Come on in: 92 percent of burglaries went unsolved in Britain last year, with police failing to crack a single case in one third of the country, the Sun’s Thomas Godfrey reports.
PROMPTING SOCIAL MEDIA OUTRAGE: Paul Holden, one of the journalists investigated by the Labour Together think tank, has criticized the BBC for not contacting him for his views ahead of a lengthy Newscast interview with former Labour Together boss Josh Simons published Saturday. Ex-minister Simons told the podcast he had been “naive” in commissioning the report by PR company APCO.
SAR wars: Ian Byrne has claimed he is one of several backbench Labour MPs to have submitted “subject access requests” to Labour Together, believing they may have been monitored by the Starmerite think tank and the U.S. firm it hired.
YELLOW LIGHT: The Financial Conduct Authority will announce details of its motor finance redress scheme just after markets close, around 4.30 p.m. The scheme could result in millions of consumers who were unfairly sold car finance deals receiving billions of pounds in compensation.
TAKE A LOOK AT THIS: GPs have been told to seek advice from specialists about potential referrals before sending patients for treatment in at least one out of every four cases, as the NHS tries to cut down on hospital appointments, the Telegraph reports. But critics say the move, which takes effect Wednesday, could delay some patients from receiving the care they need.
The NHS is set to miss key targets for shortening waiting times in accident and emergency departments, cancer care and planned hospital treatment, a Guardian analysis of health service data has found. That’s a headache not just for patients but for Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who last week pledged to get key waiting times back on track by the end of the parliament in 2029.
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO TALK ABOUT: Ministers have unveiled £165 million of funding for its new Growth and Housing Accelerator Fund to build road infrastructure around developments that have stalled.
SW1 EVENTS: Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy speaks tonight at a live recording of Matt Forde’s Political Party podcast, which will be out on Thursday (tickets here).
 |
BEYOND THE M25
HEADLINE ACTS: The Welsh political press pack will have to make a revealing decision today. Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru are each staging major events for the Senedd elections in May at almost the same time, and the Welsh pol eds will have to decide which one to attend. Given Plaid is miles ahead of Labour in the polls, will they ditch the party of government en masse?
Tale of two launches: Plaid is launching its election campaign in Caerphilly at 10.30 a.m., where party Leader Rhun ap Iorwerth will describe the upcoming election as a “straight choice between Plaid and Reform.” Meanwhile, Welsh Labour is launching its Senedd manifesto in Swansea, with First Minister Eluned Morgan announcing a pledge to freeze Welsh rates of income tax if the party wins the election.
PROFESSIONALISM LATEST: Reform Senedd candidate Patrick Benham-Crosswell quit the party over the weekend, saying it has “betrayed its early members’ vision, labour and achievements.” Benham-Crosswell was placed fifth on Reform’s list of candidates for the Gŵyr Abertawe seat. WalesOnline has a write-up.
CLOSE CALL: Three people have been arrested in connection with a suspected foiled bomb attack on Bank of America’s headquarters in Paris, France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office said, according to the BBC.
CRASH: Two drones entered Finland’s airspace and crashed on Sunday, according to the country’s defense ministry, which is investigating the incidents. Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said the drones likely came from Ukraine, which has been conducting attacks on Russian territory along the border with Finland. Read more on POLITICO.
DOWN TO THE WIRE: Israel’s Knesset voted to approve the largest state budget in the country’s history late on Sunday night, avoiding the collapse of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government and early elections. Reuters has a write-up.
**A message from Instagram: Instagram Teen Accounts with automatic protections to limit who can contact teens and the content they can see. These accounts are automatically defaulted to the strictest content controls to help make sure what teenagers see is age-appropriate. And teenagers under 16 will need parental approval to change any of these settings. Learn more.**
MEDIA ROUND
Environment Secretary Emma Reynolds broadcast round: Times Radio (7.05 a.m.) … Sky News (7.15 a.m.) … BBC Breakfast (7.30 a.m.) … LBC (7.50 a.m.) … GMB (8.15 a.m.).
Shadow Energy Secretary Claire Coutinho broadcast round: BBC Breakfast (7.15 a.m.) … Times Radio (7.45 a.m.) … GB News (8 a.m.) … Talk (8.15 a.m.) … LBC (8.50 a.m.) … Sky (9.15 a.m.).
Also on Nick Ferrari at Breakfast: U.K.’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation Jonathan Hall (7.05 a.m.).
Also on Times Radio Breakfast: NEU General Secretary Daniel Kebede (8.20 a.m.).
Also on Sky News Mornings: Federation of Small Businesses Executive Director Craig Beaumont (9.30 a.m.).
TODAY’S FRONT PAGES
POLITICO UK: Keir Starmer’s pick-and-choose Brexit deal faces uphill battle.
Daily Express: Kemi: My plan will cut bills by £200 a year.
Daily Mail: Betrayal of the strivers.
Daily Mirror: Horror on the street.
Daily Star: Bad Friday.
Financial Times: Vulture funds say private credit woes offer ‘biggest opportunity since 2008.’
Metro: Solar sales go through roof.
The Daily Telegraph: Labour to ration NHS referrals to hit targets.
The Guardian: ‘Nothing left’: Parents tell of day US bombed Iran school.
The i Paper: Brexit visas for under-30s at risk as EU talks reach deadlock.
The Independent: Afghans stranded by MoD blunder asked for help.
The Sun: Broken-in Britain.
The Times: PM to meet fuel bosses as fears grow over shortages.
LONDON CALLING
WESTMINSTER WEATHER: Partly sunny. High 13C, low 7C.
BIG NEW POLITICO GIG: Jonathan Greenberger has been named POLITICO’s global editor-in-chief, effective May 1. Greenberger, who has spent the last two years as the company’s executive vice president, will oversee all aspects of POLITICO’s global newsroom. He succeeds John Harris, who becomes POLITICO chairman.
CLASSIC SPOTTED … Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson reciting the opening passages of “The Iliad” in Ancient Greek at a Young America’s Foundation event at the University of Dallas (h/t Christopher Kratovil).
CONGRATULATIONS … to former Downing Street Director of Communications Nerissa Chesterfield and former No. 10 deputy chief of staff Rupert Yorke, who got engaged over the weekend.
WRITING PLAYBOOK PM: John Johnston.
WRITING PLAYBOOK TUESDAY MORNING: Sam Francis.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO: Crossbench peer and former Bank of England Governor Mervyn King … Luton South and South Bedfordshire MP Rachel Hopkins … former Labour MP Liz McInnes … Labour peer Beverley Hughes … LBC presenter Tom Swarbrick … Scottish Tory MSP Miles Briggs … broadcaster Piers Morgan … Times columnist Hugo Rifkind … journalist Rachel Shabi.
PLAYBOOK COULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT: My editors Dan Bloom, Alex Spence and James Panichi, diary reporter Bethany Dawson and producer Hugh Kapernaros.
SUBSCRIBE to the POLITICO newsletter family: Brussels Playbook | London Playbook | London Playbook PM | Playbook Paris | Berlin Playbook | POLITICO Confidential | Sunday Crunch | EU Influence | London Influence | Berlin Bulletin | D.C. Playbook | D.C. Influence | Canada Playbook | POLITICO Forecast | All our POLITICO Pro policy morning newsletters
