Sadiq Khan joins Labour voices calling for Israel-Gaza ceasefire Keir Starmer has come under further pressure to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as one of Labour’s most senior Muslim politicians said it was the best way to avoid further “devastating loss of life”. Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said the “terrible situation” in Gaza looked set to deteriorate further and that a “substantial military escalation” was brewing. I join the international community in calling for a ceasefire,” he said, arguing it would avoid more civilian casualties, allow aid to reach those in need and allow more time to avoid the conflict growing in the Middle East. Khan said Israel had a right to defend itself, target those responsible for what he called the terror attack on 7 October and seek to free hostages, but added: “No nation, including Israel, has the right to break international law.” He made the comments in a two-and-a-half minute video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. Pressure has been growing on Starmer this week to support a ceasefire, after calls for him to do so from hundreds of Labour councillors and nearly a quarter of MPs, including two on the party’s frontbench. Starmer has resisted calling for a total ceasefire, and instead supported the UK and US’s approach of backing the call for temporary pauses, which would be time and location specific, to allow aid to reach those without water, food and medicine. Summary Here’s a roundup of the key developments from the day: Keir Starmer is under growing pressure to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as two of Labour’s most senior Muslim politicians said doing so was the best way to prevent further unnecessary deaths. Anas Sarwar, the leader of Scottish Labour, said there should be an “immediate cessation of violence” with conditions attached. It came hours after Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, said a ceasefire was vital to avoid a “substantial military escalation”. The Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, has also called for a ceasefire. The Labour party “understand why people want to call for a ceasefire”, a spokesperson has said, as Keir Starmer faces renewed calls to strengthen his position. Hundreds of Labour councillors and nearly a quarter of MPs, including two on the party’s frontbench, have called for a ceasefire. Boris Johnson has announced he is joining the broadcaster GB News. The former prime minister is the latest Conservative politician to take up a presenting role on the news channel. “I’m going to be giving this remarkable, new TV channel my unvarnished views,” he said in the announcement. Gillian Keegan said there is no “cultural issue” among Conservative MPs after a series of scandals and allegations of sexual misconduct. When asked about the arrest of Crispin Blunt this week, the education secretary said Rishi Sunak has been “clear about high standards” and “always follows due process”. “Disgusting and misogynistic” WhatsApp messages between Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings have been disclosed to the Covid inquiry, according to the former Conservative chancellor George Osborne. Cummings, Johnson’s chief adviser when Covid struck, is due to appear before the inquiry for the first time next Tuesday. NatWest’s decision to close Nigel Farage’s bank accounts was lawful but there were “serious failings” in how it treated the former Ukip leader, an independent review commissioned by the bank has found. Lawyers hired by NatWest Group said the lender had acted “in accordance with the relevant bank policies and processes” when it decided to shut the accounts Farage held at its private bank Coutts. Gillian Keegan defended the government’s decision to invite China to next week’s artificial intelligence safety summit at Bletchley Park. On Thursday, Liz Truss wrote to the prime minister to say she was “deeply disturbed” that China has been invited. Keegan told LBC that China is one of the world leaders in AI and it was important to work with “everyone who’s got some knowledge” to understand the security threats the new technology poses. MPs in areas of England worst hit by Storm Babet have called for a review of Environment Agency failings after reporting that some residents received flood alerts only after their homes were flooded. Toby Perkins, the Labour MP for Chesterfield, said people felt “angry and let down” about the level of warning they were given. We are closing this live blog shortly. Thanks so much for joining us. More than a third of politicians in the Welsh parliament have called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Politicians from all of its political parties have supported the ceasefire calls. Plaid Cymru’s group has backed a motion criticising “the Israeli government’s indiscriminate attacks”. Meanwhile, eight Labour and three Conservative members of the Senedd (MSs) called for “an end to the siege”. In total, 24 of the Senedd’s 60 politicians have so far called for a ceasefire. A statement of opinion signed by 20 MSs condemned “the attacks on Israeli citizens and taking of hostages” and “expressed grave concern at the continuing tragedy in Israel and Gaza”. The statement calls for an “end to the siege to allow vital supplies into the area in the volume required, immediate ceasefire and release of hostages”, and urges the international community “to renew commitment and action to achieve a two-state solution and lasting peace”. Elon Musk has provoked a furious backlash in Scotland by accusing Humza Yousaf of being “a blatant racist” after the tech billionaire saw a highly selective clip of a speech by the first minister. Musk, the owner of Tesla, Space X and the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, reacted to a 45-second clip of Yousaf listing all the senior public posts in Scotland held by white people, which was posted on X by an anonymous account called End Wokeness. The account, which uses a paid-for blue verification mark, accused Yousaf, who is Scotland’s first ethnic minority first minister, of “openly despising white people. Why would Scotland’s parliament and King select a guy who hates almost 100% of the country?” Musk replied: “What a blatant racist.” Musk was quickly challenged on X, while Yousaf responded by posting a gif of an Asian shopkeeper from the BBC Scotland sitcom Still Game doing a shimmying dance in his shop with the words “racists foaming at the mouth at my very existence”. Numerous posts pointed out that Yousaf had been arguing that Scotland’s public sector and institutions were not demonstrating a clear commitment to racial diversity given nearly every one was run by white people. The Ferret news website subjected the post on X, which reused a clip from an account called ChurchillsCigar, to its factchecking service and found it was false. It said the extract was a highly selective excerpt of a broader statement, a conclusion reposted by critics of Yousaf’s government. The excerpt of Yousaf’s statement has been repeatedly amplified in Scotland by far-right nativist groups who claim it was racist. Audience members and protesters have also accused him of racism at events. MPs in areas of England worst hit by Storm Babet have called for a review of Environment Agency (EA) failings after reporting that some residents received flood alerts only after their homes were flooded. Toby Perkins, the Labour MP for Chesterfield, said some people at Tapton Terrace in the Derbyshire town, where 83-year-old Maureen Gilbert was found dead in flood water, only received a phone call from the early warning system after their houses had been deluged. Perkins said: The EA are doing their best but clearly they’re not up to the task. It just feels like an organisation ill-equipped to deal with flooding in the 21st century with the demands that are on it. We had the EA representative on TV on Thursday night telling us not to worry. There needs to be a major review, and there needs to be a bolstering of the ability and capacity of the EA to do its job. You can’t remove the context of the level of funding cuts they’ve had in the last 13 years. Perkins said people felt “angry and let down” about the level of warning they were given, and that even an extra hour’s notice could have made a significant difference to the level of damage. He said: I met a pub owner today who said: ‘If we’d had another hour [of notice] my business would probably be sustainable but I now think I’m going to go bust with the amount of damage’. In Catcliffe, South Yorkshire, where about 120 homes were flooded on Saturday after the River Rother burst its banks, the local MP Sarah Champion said a volunteer flood warden had warned the EA that nearby flood plains were swamped with water, but a flood alert was not issued for another six hours. She said: He called them at about 8.30pm, but a lot of people literally didn’t know about it until the fire brigade were knocking on their door at 4, 5 in the morning. People feel they’ve been let down and it took their choices away. If people had been properly notified then they could remove their cars at the very least. It’s been appalling. The area has got quite a few council bungalows that got flooded out and you could have literally been drowned in your bed. Scotland’s first minister, Humza Yousaf, has written to UK political leaders urging them to support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, to allow a humanitarian corridor to open. In his letter, Yousaf warns that the situation in Gaza is “at the point of being cataclysmic”. Yousaf’s parents-in-law are trapped in Gaza after travelling to visit family before hostilities flared up. In the letter he said he was “writing to ask for your support in helping to stop the staggering humanitarian disaster we are witnessing, which is set to get even worse”. He writes: We should stand together and united in unequivocally calling on all parties to commit to an immediate ceasefire to allow a humanitarian corridor to be opened, so that lifesaving supplies can get into Gaza and innocent civilians who want to leave be given safe passage out. The abhorrent terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas on 7 October must be unequivocally condemned, and I will continue to join you in doing so. Hamas must release immediately and unconditionally all hostages and cease its missile attacks on Israel. The killing of innocent civilians can never be justified, wherever it occurs. Israel, like every other country, has a right to protect itself from attack, but in doing so it must comply with international law. The Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham, has become the latest senior Labour figure to call for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. In a statement with the deputy mayor, Kate Green, and 10 leaders of Manchester councils, the group said: We are deeply concerned about events in the Middle East and the anguish being experienced by people in Greater Manchester, most acutely in our Jewish and Muslim communities. We recognise that Israel has the right to take targeted action within international law to defend itself against terror attacks and terrorist organisations and to rescue hostages. We also have profound concerns about the loss of thousands of lives in Gaza, the displacement of many more and widespread suffering through the ongoing blockade of essential goods and services. It is vital that urgent support and humanitarian aid is allowed into the area. Given the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Gaza, the mayor, deputy mayor and 10 leaders of Greater Manchester join the growing international calls for a ceasefire by all sides and for the hostages to be released unharmed. Boris Johnson to join GB News as presenter Boris Johnson has announced he is joining the broadcaster GB News. The former prime minister is the latest Conservative politician to take up a presenting role on the news channel. In a video posted on the GB News account on X, formerly Twitter, Johnson said he was going to be sharing his “unvarnished views” on the TV channel. He said: I am excited to say that I am shortly going to be joining you on GB News. I’m going to be giving this remarkable, new TV channel my unvarnished views on everything from Russia, China, the war in Ukraine, how we meet all those challenges, to the huge opportunities that lie ahead for us, why I believe our best days are yet to come. And why on the whole the people of the world want to see more global Britain, not less. “Disgusting and misogynistic” WhatsApp messages between Boris Johnson and Dominic Cummings have been disclosed to the Covid inquiry, according to the former Conservative chancellor George Osborne. Cummings, Johnson’s chief adviser when Covid struck, is due to appear before the inquiry for the first time next Tuesday. Speaking on his podcast with Ed Balls, Osborne said he had been told that the latest messages shared with the inquiry contained foul and sexist language. He said: From what I understand, there are some pretty staggering things that have been said on those WhatsApp messages … not just by Boris Johnson, but key advisers like Dominic Cummings, really pretty disgusting language and misogynistic language. The inquiry has already heard derogatory language used between Johnson’s advisers. Earlier this month it heard of the UK’s most senior civil servant, Simon Case, complaining to Lee Cain, Johnson’s then director of communications, about the power of Johnson’s then fiancee, Carrie Symonds, now his wife. Cain, who is due to appear at the inquiry on Monday, said Symonds “doesn’t know wtf she is talking about”. In another message, Case said: I was always told that Dom [Dominic Cummings] was the secret PM. How wrong they are. I look forward to telling select cttee tomorrow – ‘oh, fuck no, don’t worry about Dom, the real person in charge is Carrie.’ Osborne suggested worse language could emerge next week. He said: I think we’re going to get some pretty astonishing and frankly shocking WhatsApp messages and the like being published from that Johnson period. He said the messages would show “just what a complete nightmare it was for many people working in 10 Downing Street and who worked at the top of government at the time, and potentially some things that are going to cause some real problems for individuals who were in charge at the time.” Cummings and Johnson have not commented on Osborne’s remarks. Cummings has previously admitted he referred to Johnson as a “complete fuckwit”. The Labour party “understand why people want to call for a ceasefire”, a spokesperson has said, as Keir Starmer faces renewed calls to strengthen his position. Pressure has been growing on the Labour leader this week to support a ceasefire, after calls for him to do so from hundreds of Labour councillors and nearly a quarter of MPs, including two on the party’s frontbench. Earlier today the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, publicly joined calls for a ceasefire. In response, a Labour spokesperson said: Of course, we understand why people want to call for a ceasefire. The Palestinian people are not Hamas, and they are suffering terribly. That’s why we support humanitarian pauses so that aid, fuel, water, electricity and medicines can urgently get to those who need it. We also have to recognise Israel was subject to a vile terrorist attack. Israel has a right and a duty to defend itself, rescue the hostages and stop Hamas from being able to carry out that sort of terrorist attack ever again. Hamas are currently firing rockets into Israel and have built the infrastructure, including tunnels, from which to carry out further attacks, so that military operation is ongoing. That must be done within international law and aid must get in quickly, safely, and regularly to halt a humanitarian disaster. The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, has joined calls for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, adding further pressure on Keir Starmer to follow suit. In a video on social media, he said: We are all so desperate for peace and are desperate to see the end of violence. And that is why we need to see the immediate release of hostages, immediate access to humanitarian supplies, food, medicine, electricity, water, into Gaza ... The immediate cessation of violence, with an end of rocket fire into and out of Gaza. And let me be clear, that means a ceasefire right now. The UK government is to diverge from the EU’s standards for monitoring water quality in England, it can be revealed. Campaigners fear the change of approach could lead to more pollution in England’s rivers and waterways if the new measuring methods are less rigorous. While in the EU, England was covered by the water framework directive (WFD), which meant a national chemical and ecological survey of rivers was conducted annually. After Brexit, the WFD was transposed into English law but the government removed the requirement to conduct annual tests. This is the latest example of the UK diverging from EU environmental standards. Recent analysis found that many toxic chemicals and pesticides banned in the bloc since Brexit are not outlawed for use in the UK. Ministers are also attempting to rip up EU-derived sewage pollution rules for housebuilders. In 2019, the last time the full water assessments took place, just 14% of rivers were in good ecological health and none met standards for good chemical health. The government has said it does not intend to deliver a complete update until 2025, the latest permissible date under the new WFD. The Guardian can reveal that the government will be using its own, as yet undisclosed, methodology to assess river health. Activists say this may make it harder to compare the state of the country’s rivers against those in the EU, and will leave the public in the dark over pollution from sewage and agriculture.