Politics latest: Reeves gives update on energy bill support as Iran war fallout continues

political reporter Millie Cooke reports:

Rachel Reeves has stated that she will not announce any discounts on household energy bills for another month; Today’s announcement instead focused on extra powers to crack down on “price gouging” by fuel providers.

Making a long-awaited statement to the House of Commons full of previously announced recycling policies, the chancellor said: “I will be updating on fuel pricing within the next month.”

Meanwhile, he said ministers would “go further to ensure the Competition and Markets Authority has the powers they need to detect and prevent price gouging and introduce a new anti-profiteering framework.”

He added: “This week, the business secretary and I will meet the Regulators Council to discuss work to protect consumers. This government will not tolerate any companies exploiting this crisis to the detriment of consumers.”

“It’s time to put our country first,” said Rachel Reeves.

The Chancellor said: “When prices rise and incomes squeeze, people look at the government and ask: ‘What are you doing to help?’ I know you’re asking.

“We’ve funded 30 hours of free childcare for parents, salaries have been rising faster every month since I became chancellor, and free breakfast clubs have opened in primary schools.”

From personalized videos to crypto initiatives, UK politicians are monetizing their influence and blurring the lines between public service and private profit Cleo Watson:

For those unfamiliar with the platform, Cameo allows celebrities, politicians, and athletes to create personalized videos for fans for a fee. Cameo came to my attention last month when a friend noticed a disgraced ex. MasterChef Host Gregg Wallace is selling Valentine’s Day messages. I honestly can’t think of anything less likely to send me into love mode than a message from that creepy scrotum, but I’m reliably informed that the site has something for everyone.

Kemi Badenoch said removing taxes on energy bills would be “much better” than offering targeted support to protect against an expected rise in costs.

Asked whether targeted support would be fair, the Tory leader told the Press Association: “What we see in targeted support is taxes being paid for support given to other people. “That’s the Labor playbook.

“They keep increasing taxes on everyone else to get the benefit. There’s something much better they could do, which is remove taxes on households’ energy bills.”

“These are the green taxes that Ed Miliband is imposing on all our energy bills – both households, business and industry.”

He added: “The other thing he could do is cancel the planned increase in fuel duty coming in a few months.

“Increasing fuel duty at this time is pure madness and let’s extract our own oil and gas in the North Sea.”

Police are considering using drones, live facial recognition and behavioral analysis experts to increase protection for Jewish communities following an anti-Semitic arson attack in London.

Laurence Taylor, deputy commissioner and head of the counter-terrorism police, said teams working with Jewish communities in Britain were already maintaining a “high security posture”.

But he said authorities were exploring what else they could do, including using drones and deploying specially trained ‘Project Maid’ officers to spot signs that someone is conducting hostile reconnaissance or planning a crime.

Our crime reporter Amy-Clare Martin reports:

Our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports:

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has become known for a series of stunts in recent years in which he has done everything from falling off a paddleboard into Lake Windermere to bungee jumping.

But senior Liberal Democrats figures told the Independent the party was scaling back such eye-catching moments in response to international events.

A senior party source said these “may no longer be the default”. He added that in wartime, people want less “triviality” and a vision of stability from their political parties, as well as hope for the future.

But he joked that it might be impossible to “separate Ed from the jump rope” as Sir Ed used the Bake Off theme to launch the party’s local election campaign today, adding that this would not be the end of such stunts.

Peter Kyle appeared to deflect calls from senior Labor figures that the party should campaign to become a member of the trading bloc again.

It comes after London mayor Sadiq Khan claimed earlier this month that his party should commit to rejoining the bloc in its next election manifesto and that a return to the EU was “inevitable”.

Britain is not facing fuel shortages as public concern grows about the impact of the Iran war, an energy minister has said.

It comes as the International Energy Agency (IEA) advised drivers around the world to reduce their speed on motorways, share vehicles and work from home where possible to reduce the amount of petrol or diesel they use.

However, Michael Shanks said British drivers should “absolutely do things as normal because there are no fuel shortages anywhere in the country at the moment.”

Speaking to Times Radio, he said: “We monitor this every single day, I look at the numbers personally. There’s no issue at all with that.”