PMQs LIVE: Kemi Badenoch to blast Keir Starmer after huge net zero blow

Cars and vans used by fly-tippers will be crushed as part of campaign to get “much more aggressive” on cowboy waste operators, under new measures announced today. Drones and mobile CCTV cameras will be deployed to identify vehicles so they can be destroyed by police and local authorities.

It's a new policy on the eve of local elections that may prove popular with voters. But some Conservatives are angry, not about the policy itself but with the way it's been announced.

They say it's a political announcement and Labour is using government machinery to try to win votes tomorrow.

Voters in 23 local authorities in England will go to polling stations between 7am and 10pm to choose their new councillors in the first big test at the ballot box for political parties since Labour won the general election in July 2024.

A total of 1,641 council seats across the 23 authorities are up for grabs, and Reform is standing 1,631 candidates, according to PA news agency analysis of nominations data, more than either Labour or the Conservatives.

There are also contests for six mayors in England, and the first by-election of this Parliament, for Runcorn & Helsby, after the resignation of the previous MP Mike Amesbury.

All-out war over “irrational” net zero policies has broken out within Labour after Environment Secretary Steve Reed backed Tony Blair’s claim that the current strategy “isn’t working”. Sir Tony, the former Labour Prime Minister, has provoked fury by calling for a full-scale rethink of net zero plans and warning that voters are being told to make “financial sacrifices and changes in lifestyle” for no good reason.

Labour sources have described the comments as a “public tantrum” and called them “really unhelpful” as party activists campaign for Thursday’s local elections. But Mr Reed defended the former Prime Minister. While he is Environment Secretary, the net zero policy is overseen by Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy and Net Zero.

A source close to Mr Reed denied there was any disagreement.

Read more details here

Campaigning for the local elections has entered its final day ahead of the first major test of public opinion under Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership.

Politicians and candidates will make their closing pitches to voters before the polls open across England on Thursday.

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage will be among those out canvassing.

Voters will go to the polls in 23 council areas across England and six mayoral contests across devolved regions on Thursday.

Running alongside them will be a by-election in former MP Mike Amesbury’s vacated seat of Runcorn and Helsby, which is expected to be closely fought by Labour and Reform.

Labour and the Tories are seeking to defend seats amid opinion poll momentum for Mr Farage’s party ahead of the first big electoral test under Sir Keir’s premiership and Kemi Badenoch’s opposition leadership.

Lord Hague, former Tory leader, has said Reform UK is beatable but both the Tories and Labour must undergo radical change.

He warns both main parties not to panic if this Thursday's local elections go badly, but warned: "both parties must ditch the 'business as usual' approach, and drive significant progress on cutting migration, growing the economy, and embracing patriotism and belonging."

Union barron Sharon Graham has spoken ahead of a new round of talks aiming to end Birmingham's bin chaos.

Ms Graham, the leader of Unite, said: "Unite will not stand by and allow the council to inflict these savage pay cuts on workers. It will not be accepted."

"No worker should be expected to lose these eye-watering amounts of money from their pay packet.”

Sir Keir Starmer has been left humiliated after Donald Trump downgraded UK-US trade deal negotiations as “second-order priority”.

It’s reported that US officials have ranked all trade deals currently under negotiation based on their importance.

The UK has been placed in either phase two, or phase three.

One person with knowledge of the talks told the Guardian: “The US has now decided to negotiate its trade deals in three phases."

"The Government has been told it will not be in phase one – though that leaves the door open to be in either phase two or three.”

Nigel Farage has revealed that he used artificial intelligence to help vet his local election candidates.

Reform has put a big emphasis on candidate vetting as part of its 'professionalisation' plan between now and the election in order to reduce gaffes and media pile-ons.

He said the party rejected around 30% of those who applied to be Reform UK council candidates.

Cabinet Minister Steve Reed has insisted that Tony Blair wasn't demanding an end to Net Zero, following the former PM's intervention yesterday.

Sir Tony has warned that the current approach to Net Zero by rich western countries is "doomed to fail" as voters feel punished despite not being responsible for most global warming.

Environment Secretary Steve Reed has told LBC: "I don't think that's quite what Tony Blair said to be fair,"

"This government is transitioning the economy away from fossil fuels to clean energy, because we saw under the last government

how energy prices, energy bills, shot up to unaffordable levels because we are too dependent on fossil fuels, and the price for that is dictated by the behaviour of the likes of Vladimir Putin, for instance, with his illegal invasion of Ukraine"