UK

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailA celebrity Tory election hopeful has dropped out of the race to represent Tunbridge Wells after 48 hours because a clip emerged of him saying he never liked the area.LBC presenter Iain Dale, who quit on Tuesday night to run for the Conservatives in the general election, announced he was throwing in the towel on Friday morning.It came after a clip from his For the Many podcast from 2022 was widely shared in which he said he lived in Tunbridge Wells “slightly against my will”.Iain Dale is no longer standing to be an MPHe told his co-host, former Labour home secretary Jacqui Smith: “I have lived in Tunbridge Wells since 1997, slightly against my will.“I’ve never liked the place. Still don’t, and would happily live somewhere else.”On Friday he revealed the Liberal Democrats had contacted his local Conservative association about the clip, which made him fear it would be “on every single Lib Dem leaflet that was put out in the election campaign”.Announcing his decision to withdraw from the race, Mr Dale said: “I thought to myself, well, if they’ve got this on day one, I mean, I’ve done thousands of hours on LBC over the last 15 years, I’ve done hundreds of hours in podcasts… what if they had got something else that I have said?”He added: “I wasn’t willing to suffer death by a thousand cuts. I mean, imagine if the day before nominations close next week, they had found something else that was even worse than this.“And I don’t know what that would be, but they could have done.”Mr Dale, who has been a staple on the channel since 2010, was hoping to replace retired Tory MP Greg Clark, who won the seat in 2019 with a comfortable 14,645 majority. But the seat is expected to be a difficult contest, with the Liberal Democrats and Labour enjoying significant support.Iain Dale and Jacqui Smith will continue to host the For the Many podcast More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster email The U.K.’s first Black female member of parliament will be allowed to stand for the Labour Party in the upcoming general election, leader Keir Starmer said Friday following a fractious few days over her political future.Starmer told reporters that Diane Abbott, who has been a Labour lawmaker since 1987, is “free to stand as a Labour candidate in the election on July 4.“She is free to go forward as a Labour candidate,” Starmer said.Her future in the party has been in question over the past year, particularly in the wake of the announcement of the election last week from Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. At the time of that announcement, Abbott, 70, had been in limbo as she was serving a suspension for comments last year that suggested Jewish and Irish people do not experience racism “all their lives.” Though she apologized instantly for those remarks, the party’s machinery only reinstated Abbott earlier this week, but had not made a decision whether she would be the candidate for her constituency in northeast London. Over the past few days, Starmer’s attempt to get his party’s message across on a range of issues, including the economy and health, have been overshadowed by questions over Abbott. Though praising Abbott as a “trailblazer,” Starmer faced accusations that he was purging the more left-wing elements of his party, especially those with a close connection with former leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has been expelled from Labour and is standing as an independent candidate in his constituency in north London. More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailDiane Abbott is “free” to stand as a Labour candidate in the general election, Sir Keir Starmer has said.After days of back and forth about whether the veteran MP would be blocked, the Labour leader confirmed she will be able to contest the election as a Labour candidate. Sir Keir told reporters: “The whip has obviously been restored to her now and she is free to go forward as a Labour candidate.”Diane Abbott is ‘free’ to stand as a candidate in the election, Sir Keir Starmer has said (Jonathan Brady/PA) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSir Keir Starmer has distanced himself from Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner and refused to say if he would like Diane Abbott to stand in the general election as tensions in the party about a “leftwing purge” mount.The Labour leader broke with Ms Rayner and declined to give a view on whether the veteran left-winger should be allowed to run as a Labour candidate.A day earlier, the Labour deputy said “as the deputy leader of the Labour Party… I don’t see any reason why Diane Abbott can’t stand as a Labour MP going forward”.Sir Keir Starmer refused to say if he would like to see Diane Abbott stand More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailSir Keir Starmer has said he will work with Donald Trump if both men are in power later this year after the former president’s hush money conviction.The Labour leader described Mr Trump’s guilty verdict as an “unprecedented situation”, but promised to “work with whoever is elected president”. “That’s what you’d expect,” he added.A New York jury found Mr Trump guilty of 34 charges relating to the falsification of business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who said the two had sex. Mr Trump intends to appeal the convictions.Former US president Donald Trump on the 15th hole at Trump International Golf Links & Hotel in Doonbeg, Co. Clare, during his visit to Ireland (Brian Lawless/PA) More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailJust days after Sir Keir Starmer was spotted wearing a £500 hoodie from luxury French fashion house Sandro, it has emerged that a peer donated nearly £20,000 to help the Labour leader with a pre-election glow-up.Former ASOS chairman Waheed Alli, who sits in the House of Lords, gave stylish Starmer £16,200 for “work clothing” and a further £2,485 for “multiple pairs of glasses”, according to the latest update to his register of interests. The Labour leader appears to have put that donation to good use after he donned a chic Sandro Orion jacket – which currently retails at £519 at Harrods – while meeting voters in Brighton and pledging to tackle the cost of living crisis. The donations were received on 17 April and 29 April and pledged by Lord Alli, the former boss of Chorion, fashion retailer Koovs, and was the chairman of online clothing giant ASOS. Lord Alli is also the director of multiple companies including SGIF 2 investments, Silver Star Productions and SGIK 3 Investments. Earlier this year, Sir Keir was spotted wearing a pair of £500 glasses by Danish luxury brand Lindberg, according to Guido Fawkes. The Labour leader has now reportedly switched out his glasses on the campaign trail to a humbler pair – a snip at £220. The Sandro Orion jacket has a detachable hood and currently retails at £519 on high-end retailer Harrods More

Sign up to our free Brexit and beyond email for the latest headlines on what Brexit is meaning for the UKSign up to our Brexit email for the latest insightBrexit has reduced Britain to tears, France’s prime minister has said in a bid to quell support for French populists in next month’s European elections.Gabriel Attal, who was appointed prime minister by president Emmanuel Macron in January, said: “Don’t let’s be like the British, who cried after Brexit.”Speaking in a radio interview, the 35-year-old was seeking to drum up support for Mr Macron’s centrist candidate list for the European Parliament elections in June.Gabriel Attal is seen as a protege of Emmanuel Macron More

Sign up for the View from Westminster email for expert analysis straight to your inboxGet our free View from Westminster emailAI-powered voice cloning tools can be used to create disinformation using the voices of prominent political figures, an online safety group has warned.The Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said researchers used six different AI voice cloning tools and attempted to create false statements using the voices of a range of well-known political leaders, with around 80% of their attempts producing what they called a convincing piece of content.The CCDH said all but one of the tools it tested claim to have built-in safeguards to prevent misuse for the production of disinformation, but that its report found these measures to be “ineffective” and easy to circumnavigate.The online safety organisation said its testing included using the voices of both Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, and said AI and social media companies needed to do more to protect the integrity of the upcoming General Election from such content.The group said its researchers were also able to create audio-based disinformation of other global figures including former US president Donald Trump, US President Joe Biden and French President Emmanuel Macron.The examples included various political figures warning people not to vote because of bomb threats, declaring election results had been manipulated and “confessing” to the misuse of campaign funds.The organisation said AI companies need to introduce specific safeguards to prevent users from generating and sharing false or misleading content about geopolitical events and elections, backed up by more work from social media firms to detect and stop such content from spreading.The CCDH said existing election laws should be updated to take into account AI-generated content.Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the CCDH, said: “AI tools radically reduce the skill, money and time needed to produce disinformation in the voices of the world’s most recognisable and influential political leaders.“This could prove devastating to our democracy and elections.Disinformation this convincing unleashed on social media platforms – whose track record of protecting democracy is abysmal – is a recipe for disasterImran Ahmed, Centre for Countering Digital Hate“By making these tools freely available with the flimsiest guardrails imaginable, irresponsible AI companies threaten to undermine the integrity of elections across the world at a stroke – all so they can steal a march in the race to profit from these new technologies.”Mr Ahmed added that it was vital that social media platforms do more to stop the spread of AI-powered disinformation, particularly during such a busy year of elections around the world.He said: “Disinformation this convincing unleashed on social media platforms – whose track record of protecting democracy is abysmal – is a recipe for disaster.“This voice cloning technology can and inevitably will be weaponised by bad actors to mislead voters and subvert the democratic process.“It is simply a matter of time before Russian, Chinese, Iranian and domestic anti-democratic forces sow chaos in our elections.“Hyperbolic AI companies often claim to be creating and guarding the future, but they can’t see past their own greed.“It is vital that in the crucial months ahead they address the threat of AI election disinformation and institute standardised guardrails before the worst happens.” More