Badenoch claims Labour is preparing for a general election in May ۲۰۲۷ – UK politics live

A recent lobbyist for the controversial $۴۵۰bn US tech company Palantir played a senior role in helping Andy Burnham become prime minister, it has emerged.

Martha Dalton, whose company Lodestone worked for Palantir in ۲۰۲۴ and ۲۰۲۵, campaigned for Burnham in the Makerfield byelection that secured his return to parliament. She worked closely with his team on strategic communications and rebuttals, and was among supporters who clapped him into Downing Street in July.

Lodestone, which Dalton co-founded, worked for Palantir on projects including promoting its software at events in parliament where its engineers demonstrated AI-powered systems for use in British public services to MPs.

Dalton previously worked on the autumn ۲۰۲۵ deputy leadership campaign for the current education secretary, Lucy Powell, a few months after Lodestone stopped working for Palantir.

Her role emerged as Palantir fights to retain its £۳۳۰m contract with NHS England to run the federated data platform, a national medical data system.

Burnham’s government is under pressure to scrap the deal. Campaigners are angry about Palantir’s work for the Israeli military in Gaza and Donald Trump’s ICE immigration crackdown. They have also raised concerns, acknowledged by NHS England’s chief executive, Jim Mackey, that the benefits to public health may not be as significant as has been claimed.

Zack Polanski is expected to call for a triple lock-style guarantee for private renters at his party’s annual conference in Brighton today, to ease young adults’ housing costs.

The Green party leader’s speech will set out plans for a “three-year emergency brake”, which would temporarily limit rent rises to the lowest of either Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation, wage growth or ۲%.

“For too long, landlords have been able to hike prices way beyond wages,” Polanski is expected to say. He will describe “۲۵-year-olds who can’t find a job, no matter how many tens or hundreds of applications they put in, who can’t imagine ever being able to afford to rent even a room of their own, never mind being able to put down roots in their own home”.

The party leader will also describe “۳۰, ۳۵-year-olds moving back to their parents’ place with their partners in tow, sometimes their kids too”, warning that for many of them “times get tougher and those months turn to years”.

Polanski is expected to say:

Today I’m calling for a three-year emergency brake on private rents – no rent rises above CPI, wage growth or ۲% – whichever is lower. No sudden hikes, no evictions under the guise of rent rises, no more fear and uncertainty.

That emergency brake would give renters vital breathing space. Let wages begin to catch up with the rents that have outstripped them for too long.

And give government time to develop a national fair rents guarantee – to keep rents fair and affordable for everyone, forever.

Hello and welcome to the UK politics live blog.

Tory leader Kemi Badenoch says Labour is preparing for a general election as early as May ۲۰۲۷, despite the prime minister ruling out an early contest.

Just last week Andy Burnham said he would not call a national vote before ۲۰۲۹, despite speculation that Labour’s revival in the polls could tempt him to go early.

But Badenoch said the fact that so many of the pledges in his conference speech would not come into place until after the next general election points to a spring vote.

Ahead of the Conservative party conference next week, the leader of the opposition said: “We could be having a general election next May.”

She added:

All the policies he announced are for after an election. So if he’s not calling an election, why is he talking about things happening in ۲۰۳۰?

He says a lot of things with a smile but I actually think that he’s got very different plans for us and for our country.

She added:

This is an era of political volatility and multi-party politics. When an election is called and I do think Andy Burnham is going to call an election sooner than he is saying.

Talk of an early election had grown during the last week after polls showed Labour pulling into the lead with support in the low ۲۰s, and the Conservatives and Reform neck-and-neck a few points behind them.

Westminster sources said Downing Street advisers and MPs had been discussing the merits of an early poll but that even though the right was split, Labour would be at risk of losing its majority and having to form a coalition.

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