Glenys Roberts

Keir Starmer granted a stay of execution by Cabinet - but for how long? The Times’s weekend read as the Labour Party rips itself apart over his leadership * The cabinet is in a state of paralysis, with ministers despairing but none of them - at this stage at least - prepared to go over the top. * Their reticence is in part due to circumstance. Wes Streeting said to be ready to go but does not want to be first mover. Angela Rayner does not necessarily command support of soft left. Andy Burnham stranded, for now at least * It is delicate. The Times disclosed on Thursday that Ed Miliband, the energy secretary who is supportive of Burnham, had privately suggested that Starmer should set out a timeline for his departure a fortnight ago but had been rebuffed. * Cabinet ministers privately say results are shocking but seem to be clinging to the idea that changing leader won’t improve fortunes. One said Starmer has got to ‘improve and show the best possible version of himself’. Another said ‘Starmer has got to change but we have got to change as well’ * Cabinet ministers think the results are so bad there is no guarantee Andy Burnham can make a comeback now in the event of a by election. “After today it’s crackers to think that Andy can easily win a by-election, come back to Westminster, get eighty MPs to back him and then win a leadership contest,” they said. “Those are very, very high hurdles to clear.” * But for many MPs and people in government Burnham is the solution. “Our party is dying and sick,” one government source said. “Thank God the NEC blocked the one MP who polls as having unique Green-Reform crossover appeal.” * There is a growing schism between Labour backbenchers and the cabinet, publicly and privately. One backbencher branded ministers ‘pathetic’ and said they were only loyal because they wanted to cling to their jobs. It’s feeding into the WhatsApp groups, where MPs are directly confronting ministers * Does Starmer have another gear to go to? The pressure around his speech on Monday is huge, but the PM is still bound by his manifesto red lines. The fiscal constraints mean there are inherent limitations to what he can do * “The results are absolutely shocking,” one cabinet minister said. “Voters have cut us off at the knees. Starmer has to change. It is very clear that voters like our policies but he is not generating a sense of optimism or showing that we are up to the scale of the challenge.” * Angela Rayner poised to make an intervention this weekend. How far will she go? As of last night she wasn’t expected to go for Starmer personally - she was going to talk about the direction of the party. But given where so many of her friends and colleagues are will that hold? thetimes.com/article/a4acc3…

Beltine je starodávný keltský svátek, který se slaví v noci z 30. dubna na 1. května. Patří mezi tzv. „ohnivé svátky“ a symbolizuje příchod léta, plodnost, život a obnovu přírody. #beltine #beltane #carodky #palenicarodejnic #filipojakubskanoc

Profound words from @POTUS this morning: "Long before Americans had a nation or a Constitution, we first had a culture, a character, and a creed. Before we ever proclaimed our Independence, Americans carried within us the rarest of gifts — moral courage — and it came from a small but mighty kingdom across the sea. For nearly two centuries before the Revolution, this land was settled and forged by men, women who bore in their souls the blood and noble spirit of the British. Here, on a wild and untamed continent, they set loose the ancient English love of liberty and Great Britain's distinctive sense of glory, destiny, and pride — and that's what it is, glory, destiny, and pride. The American Patriots who pledged their lives to Independence in 1776 were the heirs to this majestic inheritance. Their veins ran with Anglo-Saxon courage. Their hearts beat with an English faith in standing firm for what is right, good, and true. In recent years we have often heard it said that America is merely 'an idea' — but the cause of freedom did not simply appear as an intellectual invention of 1776. The American founding was the culmination of hundreds of years of thought, struggle, sweat, blood, and sacrifice on both sides of the Atlantic. Fate drew a long arc from the meadow at Runnymede to the streets of Philadelphia that ran through the lives of people born and bred on the British code that 'no man should be denied either justice or right.' American Patriots today can sing 'My Country 'Tis of Thee, Sweet Land of Liberty' only because our colonial ancestors first sang 'God Save the King.'"