Ed Miliband shared a message from the King as an international energy summit began in London.
The energy secretary said that King Charles had asked him to read out a message to attendees because he was “really interested” in the summit.
Quoting the King, Miliband said: “As we all navigate the transition to cleaner energy for our planet and energy security for our citizens, summits such as these are vital for facilitating shared learning between nations, particularly those in the global south and across the Commonwealth.
“Events over recent years have shown that when well-managed, the transition to more sustainable energy sources can itself lead to more resilient and secure energy systems.
“While each country will follow an individual path, there are many shared challenges and opportunities on which we can work together as partners.”
Ofcom’s online safety rules ‘nowhere near enough’
The prime minister needs to step in on online safety for children, Molly Russell’s father has urged.
Ian Russell, the father of 14-year-old Molly who took her own life after viewing thousands of images promoting suicide and self-harm, also told Times Radio that he had “lost trust” in the technology secretary Peter Kyle.
Russell said that Ofcom’s new rules to protect children online were “nowhere near enough to prevent deaths like my daughter Molly’s”.
He said: “Every week that Keir Starmer delays doing something about it, there’s online research about online activities that show there’s another young child in the UK that has lost their lives with a connection to online harms.”
Russell added that he has “pretty much lost trust” in Kyle as although the technology secretary was “deeply concerned”, his priority was “to build trade and to build data centres, for example, and invest in big tech”.
Rani Govender, policy manager for child safety online at the NSPCC, said that the new Ofcom rules were a “pivotal moment” but “unless Ofcom goes further to deliver the strong protections children need and deserve, they will continue to face preventable harm online”.
Duffield: ‘Starmer should apologise over trans issue’
Rosie Duffield resigned in September over Labour’s position on gender and sex
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL
The former Labour MP Rosie Duffield said that Sir Keir Starmer should have apologised to her over their disagreement on trans issues.
The prime minister refused to apologise to Duffield, who resigned from the party in September over its position on gender and sex, at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday after he U-turned on his view that transgender women are women following a Supreme Court ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex.
• Keir Starmer’s many U-turns — from tax to trans rights
Duffield told Times Radio: “He’s been asked about it for about four years just in terms of good politics. If I were him I’d just have done it and then no one gets to ask that question over and over and over again. But also it would be just quite nice and quite good manners.”
When Starmer’s remarks at PMQ’s that “we should treat everyone with dignity and respect” were put to her, Duffield said that “absolutely isn’t how I was treated”.
She also said that she was “not convinced” that politics was Sir Keir Starmer’s thing as he had “no obvious political views on anything much”.
Reeves prepared to slash car and farm tariffs to seal US deal
The chancellor has insisted that she is “not going to rush into a deal”
KIRSTY O’CONNOR/TREASURY
Britain is prepared to slash tariffs on US cars and agricultural products such as beef and chicken to secure a trade deal.
Rachel Reeves said on Wednesday that she wanted to see trade barriers between the UK and the US reduced as part of negotiations with the Trump administration. Ministers are understood to be willing to reduce long-standing UK import tariffs of 10 per cent on cars and 12 per cent on agricultural products.
“I want to see tariff and non-tariff barriers reduced between the UK and the US,” Reeves told the BBC before a meeting on Thursday with Scott Bessent, President Trump’s most senior economic official.
• Read in full: Chancellor considers reducing import tariffs
Trump is a swaggering bully, says Shapps
The former defence minister Grant Shapps has said that he has “some theories” as to why President Trump “seems to support the tyrant” President Putin, but he is barred by the Official Secrets Act from sharing why.
He told Times Radio: “I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch, and many of your listeners will already know because it’s publicly reported that he’s had previous run-ins with Kyiv, unrelated to the war, and people may come to their own theories as to why he seemed to be in cahoots with Putin, who after all is a dictator who wants a completely different type of world to the one which has been constructed after the Second World War.”
Shapps added that he found it “really disgusting” that the leader of the free world is “coming out as nothing more than a swaggering bully and choosing tyranny over democracy”.
Farage: ‘I’m eating the Tories for breakfast’
Nigel Farage has said he is “eating the Tories for breakfast” before the local elections on May 1.
In a post on X, the Reform UK leader shared a photo of himself eating a bowl of “Special Kemi”, a take on the popular breakfast cereal Special K.
Farage tagged Sir Keir Starmer in the post.
Miliband refuses to rule out ‘postcode pricing’
Ed Miliband has refused to rule out zonal pricing for parts of the country based on local energy supply and demand.
The energy secretary told Sky News that he would make a “calm and considered decision” on zonal pricing, which reportedly could lead to higher bills in places such as the southeast of England compared with Scotland.
Miliband insisted his aim was to cut energy bills in a “way that’s fair”. Speaking to LBC, he added: “I’m not going to take a decision that is going to raise prices in some parts of the country. That is not what I’m going to do.”
