Rishi Sunak accused of ‘gaslighting’ UK on economy as MoD ‘hacked’ by China – UK politics live

The government is reviewing the operations of a third-party contractor whose systems were hacked in a cyber attack on the Ministry of Defence, Downing Street has said.

Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said: “In relation to the specific contractor involved in this incident, a security review of that contractor’s operations is under way and appropriate steps will be taken after that.”

Downing Street has declined to attribute the reported cyberattack on the Ministry of Defence to a specific state or actor.

Asked whether China was responsible for the attack, Rishi Sunak’s official spokesman said: “The defence secretary is going to give an update to parliament on this this afternoon.

“You will appreciate I’m obviously limited in what I can say until then, other than the Ministry of Defence has already taken immediate action, isolating the network and supporting personnel affected.

“I can’t get into any further speculation around the origination of the attack.”

A Muslim campaign group has issued Sir Keir Starmer with 18 demands in order to win back support lost due to his stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.

The Muslim Vote, which aims to organise voters against MPs who did not back a ceasefire in the conflict, has called for the Labour leader to apologise for his early stance on Israel’s campaign against Hamas.

And it has urged Sir Keir to promise to cut military ties with Israel and let Muslims pray in schools and for Labour figures to return “zionist money”.

Our political correspondent Archie Mitchell reports:

Just one in five voters expect the Conservative Party to win at the next general election, new polling by Redfield & Wilton suggests.

That compares with 63 per cent who believe Labour will win – the highest proportion ever recorded by the pollster.

The situation marks an utter reversal in summer 2021, prior to the Partygate scandal, when 55 per cent of voters believed the Tories would win the next election and less than 25 per cent thought Labour would.

The two parties were tied on around 40 per cent in the early days of Liz Truss’s premiership, until Tory fortunes plummeted significantly and Labour’s rose correspondingly in the wake of her disastrous mini-Budget.

Scotland’s outgoing first minister Humza Yousaf has signed his official resignation letter to King Charles.

Mr Yousaf signed the letter at the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

He is expected to make a speech at Holyrood later ahead of a vote on new SNP leader John Swinney becoming Scotland’s new first minister.

Rishi Sunak must win back “disgruntled” Conservative voters to give the party a hope of general election victory, work and pensions Secretary Mel Stride has said.

Mr Stride insisted the Tories still have “all to play for” in the general election despite the drubbing inflicted in local and regional contests. But in a message to the prime minister’s Tory critics, Mr Stride said the party had to be “united” to win back voters.

Mr Stride, a close ally of Mr Sunak’s, said a lot of Conservative voters “stayed away” from the ballot boxes because they were “disgruntled” – but insised the upcoming general election will be an “entirely difference contest”.

Acknowledging that the results from the local elections had been “very painful”, he told Times Radio: “This is a volatile electorate, there are undoubtedly people that we need to win back to the Conservative cause.

“I suspect a large number of those people stayed away on election day last Thursday, and it’s down to us now to do absolutely everything we can in a united way as the party to bring back those people to the Conservative fold.”

Former Green Party co-leader Sian Berry has stepped down from the London Assembly just days after being re-elected, to make way at City Hall for the party’s mayoral candidate Zoe Garbett.

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has accused the government of “gaslighting” the public about the economy, saying ministers’ over-optimistic statements are “out of touch” with Britons still struggling with the cost of living, reports Sophie Wingate.

Seeking to get ahead of the Tories’ response to a raft of economic data this week, the Labour frontbencher argued that Jeremy Hunt and Rishi Sunak’s likely message of an improving economy is “deluded”.

In a speech in the City of London on Tuesday, she warned that voters at the general election have a choice between “five more years of chaos” with the Tories or “stability” with Sir Keir Starmer’s party.

As Labour celebrates a string of victories in regional mayoral contests, local elections and a by-election in Blackpool South, Ms Reeves said the results showed that people “voted for change”.

Her intervention comes ahead of the Bank of England’s latest interest rates decision on Thursday and figures covering the economy’s performance over the first three months of this year on Friday.

The UK’s security services are investigating whether China is attempting to build profiles of members of the armed forces and people in other sensitive roles through a series of hacks of different databases holding personal information, British officials familiar with the matter have told Bloomberg.

Tory MP Tobias Ellwood earlier told the BBC that the targeting of a payroll system “points to China” and could be part of “strategy to see who might be coerced”.