Trump criticises Starmer’s government for not allowing more oil drilling in North Sea
Donald Trump used his speech in Davos to renew his attack on the government’s clean energy policies. At one point in his extremely rambling, and not always coherent, speech (still going on now, after almost an hour), Trump said:
The United Kingdom produces just one-third of the total energy from all sources that it did in 1999 – think of that, one-third – and they’re sitting on top of the North Sea, one of the greatest reserves anywhere in the world, but they don’t use it, and that’s one reason why their energy has reached catastrophically low levels, with equally high prices.
High prices, very low levels. Think of that – one-third and you’re sitting on top of the North Sea.
They like to say, ‘Well, you know, that’s depleted’. It’s not depleted. It’s got 500 years. They haven’t even found the oil, the North Sea is incredible.
They don’t let anybody drill, environmentally, they don’t let them drill. They make it impossible for the oil companies to go. They take 92% of the revenues.
So the oil companies say, ‘We can’t do it’.
This is a regular complaint of Trump’s. He made the same point when he held a press conference with Keir Starmer at Chequers last year.
Starmer’s government has not banned oil and gas extraction in the North Sea, but it has said that it will not grant licences for new fields to be explored.
Graeme Wearden is covering the speech on his Davos live blog.
Donald Trump speaking in Davos. Photograph: Denis Balibouse/ReutersShare
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MoD unveils plans for ‘drone degree’
An army funded “drone degree” is to be offered at a British university based on lessons learnt from the Ukraine war, PA Media reports. PA says:
The undergraduate course, supported by a £240,000 investment from the Ministry of Defence, will train 15 civilian students and up to five soldiers a year as drone technology specialists.
The new course will be run at the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering in Hereford from September 2026 and will cover the design, build and testing of drone systems.
The devices have been used with devastating impact by both sides in the Ukraine conflict.
Russia has repeatedly launched huge waves of drones and missiles against Ukraine, striking civilian targets and energy infrastructure.
Earlier this month, defence secretary John Healey announced production would start on new type of drone for Ukraine called an Octopus, designed to intercept other drones used by Russia to attack civilian targets.
The UK aims to produce thousands of the drones per month, with each Octopus costing just 10% of the drones they are designed to intercept.
The MoD has more details on this here.
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Zack Polanski says Starmer should be taking on Trump or ‘billionaire bosses’ with same energy with which he attacks Greens
Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has hit back at Keir Starmer over what Starmer said about him at PMQs. (See 12.28pm.) He says:
Labour are low in the polls and hard on the country.
Fair play to whichever special advisor has written Keir a bit of a snarky line. Maybe Keir could take that energy to Trump on the warpath or the billionaire bosses ruining this country?
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At the post-PMQs lobby briefing, the PM’s press secretary said the exchanges with Keir Starmer showed that Kemi Badenoch and Ed Davey were not fit to be PM.
Referring to the Greenland issue, she said:
As [Starmer] set out this is a significant moment … and as you saw in the chamber there, the other party leaders have shown themselves utterly unfit and unable to rise to it.
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Here is Peter Walker’s story about PMQs.
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Donald Trump is giving his speech at Davos now. Graeme Wearden is covering it on his Davos live blog.
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PMQs – snap verdict
There is a reason why “naked opportunism” is a useful cliche in politics. Almost all political activity is in some respects opportunist. But normally it is not just that; and it does not matter if people can detect some more proper or noble motives alongside the the self-interest. In other words, “hidden opportunism” is fine. But when it is obvious that a leader is just engaged in unprincipled point-scoring, you have to be very, very partisan to respect them for it – even if they do it well.
Today Kemi Badenoch was being opportunist – not just nakedly so, but shamelessly so too. it was another example of her being handicapped by her congential oppositionism. Most British voters don’t care very much about the Chagos Islands, but they do have more respect and affection for the Danes and they are strongly opposed to Donald Trump’s threat to annex Greenland. Any other Tory leader would probably have settled for largely agreeing with Starmer on Greenland, while modestly urging him to be a tad more robust.
Badenoch tried to catch Starmer out with the argument that, if he supports self-determination for Greenlanders, he should do so for Chagossians too. The Chagossians were forcibly removed from their homeland in the 1970s when the UK and the US built their military base on Diego Garcia and they, and their descendents, are now scattered around the world. They have had almost no say over the deal struck between the UK and Mauritius transferring sovereignty of the Chagos Islands. Although there is a notional possibility for them to return to the islands under this deal, this does not include Diego Garcia. The other islands are mostly uninhabitable.
Until recently, almost the only MP in the Commons expressing an interest in the right of the Chagossians to self-determination was Jeremy Corbyn. The Tories do object to the Chagos Islands deal, but that is because they don’t really accept that the UK should be giving away colonially-acquired military assets just so the country be in compliance with international law. It is not because they care one jot about the Chagossians. The last Conservative government did not allow them to return, and Badenoch is certainly not promising to build homes for them on the Diego Garcia runway.
Which is a long way of saying – Badenoch was using a bogus argument as she aligned herself with Trump, and Keir Starmer was fully entitled to ridicule and condemn her for this. He did so firmly and effectively. It was a convincing win, and his best performance against her for ages.
Badenoch may have made life harder for Starmer if she had agreed with him. As it was, by taking a critical stance, she allowed him to hit back forcefully with his “I will not yield” line about Trump trying to strongarm him over Greenland. (See 12.05am). It sounded great, and – for a few hours or days – it might at least go some way towards silencing those who want him to sound more like Mark Carney, or Emmanuel Macron (or Hugh Grant in Love Actually).
But it was just language. Rather, just one word (“yield”). All Starmer was saying was that, whatever Trump says or does, he will not change his mind about Greenland’s future being a matter for Greenland and Denmark, not the US.
However, no one ever expected Starmer to change his mind about this. The much more interesting question is what the UK can, or should, do to get Trump to back down. And, on this, nothing much seems to have changed since Monday.
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Updated at 09.15 EST
I have beefed up some of the earlier posts, covering Keir Starmer’s comments about Greenland to Kemi Badenoch and to the Labour MP Steve Witherden, with fuller, direct quotes. You may need to refresh the page to get the updates to appear.
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Alice Macdonald (Lab) asks the PM to back calls for a dental school in the east of England, at the University of East Anglia.
Starmer says the government is trying to address the problem it was left with. He says the University of East Anglia would be a good candidate for a dental school.
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Starmer says government will respond to consultation on social media ban for under-16s by summer
Fred Thomas (Lab) welcomes the consultation on a social media ban for under-16s. He says the Tories did not do this when they were in office, and they did not even support it until last week. He calls for swift action.
Starmer says the government is having a consultation, and it will respond by the summer.
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Robert Jenrick, the former Tory who defect to Reform UK, gets called. He is booed as he stands up. He says one of his last meetings as shadow justice secretary was about a former prison officer who exposed corruption and who was subsequently murdered. Because he had left the prison service, he did not get compensation. He asks if the PM will ensure that compensation is paid.
Starmer says he will look into this as a matter of urgency.
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Starmer says South East Water’s performance ‘totally unacceptable’
Katie Lam (Con) says South East Water have been “shambolic” in their response to the water shortages in Kent. She says volunteers did a better job providing water to communities. Has the PM lost confidence in the company’s chief executive, as she has.
Starmer says the company’s performance is “totally unacceptable and needs to be fixed”.
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Lindsay Hoyle, the speaker, tells Richard Holden (Con) that he will have to leave the chamber because he is making too much noise.
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Labour MP Steve Witherden urges Starmer to respond to ‘thug in White House’ with retaliatory tariffs
Steve Witherden‘(Lab) urged Starmer to commit to retaliatory tariffs against the US. He said Donald Trump was a bully, and bullies always seek out the weakest link.
Starmer repeats his point about not wanting to yield to Trump on Greenland. But he says he does not want a trade war.
UPDATE: Witherden said:
The thug in the White House has shown that he doesn’t listen to grovelling or sycophancy. He’ll continue to harm British interests no matter how compliant we are and, like all bullies, he will always find the weakest link.
Will the prime minister close ranks with our European allies and commit to retaliatory tariffs?
And Starmer replied:
I’ve made our position clear. I’ve set out my principles.
I’m not going to yield on those principles but as I said on Monday, of course we need to protect our national interest and we will always our protect our national interest.
But simply hurtling at the first opportunity into a trade war is going to hurt working people and businesses across the country, and that is why I’m working hard to make sure we do not get to that point, and I’ll continue to act in the national interest.
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Updated at 07.53 EST
Starmer attacks Green party as ‘high on drugs, soft on Putin’
In response to a question from the Green MP Ellie Chowns about farming pollution, Starmer launched a wide-ranging attack on the Green party. He said:
I have to say, as someone who stood to lead her party, I wonder what she makes of how her leader is responding to this global uncertainty. Because what he’s saying is this is the moment to withdraw from Nato. This is the time to kick the US out of our military bases. This is the time to negotiate this with Putin, to give up our nuclear deterrent.
Starmer joked that Putin would be “quick on the line for that one”. Starmer went on:
It’s just reckless. As irresponsible as their plan to legalise heroin and crack cocaine. That’s the Green party now. High on drugs. Soft on Putin.
Starmer may have been reading, or listening to, the Guardian’s interview published yesterday with Zack Polanski.
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Ed Davey compares Trump to ‘crime boss running protection racket’, as Starmer says cutting ties with US ‘foolhardy’
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, says Tony Blair ignore warnings from the Lib Dems and “tied himself to an unpopular American president and a disastrous foreign policy while close allies like Canada and France looked on in horror”.
He goes on:
With Donald Trump increasingly acting like a crime boss running a protection racket threatened to smash up our economy unless he gets his hands on Greenland.
Will the prime minister avoid Blair’s historic mistake, take our advice this time and join Prime Minister Carney and President Macron in standing up far more strongly to President Trump?
Starmer replies:
I said I will not yield on the principles and values that I uphold [and] this country’s policy in relation to the future of Greenland.
But the relationship with the US matters, especially on defence, security and intelligence, on nuclear capability, also on trade and prosperity.
Whilst [Davey is] trying to get sound bites, we mustn’t forget a war is raging in Europe. It is in its fourth year. The Russians are raining bombs down on Ukrainian civilians day and night. Temperatures were minus 25 last night. 60% without power. People are erecting tents to keep themselves warm. We have to work with our allies, including the US, on security guarantees, to make sure we can do what we must do in relation to Ukraine.
Now, that does not mean we agree with the US on everything … But it is foolhardy to think that we should rip up our relationship with the US, abandon Ukraine and stabilise all the things that are important to our defence, security and good.
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Badenoch claims Starmer is consistently weak.
Starmer says he is trying to hold his party together. Badenoch is trying to hold her party together. He says she has terrible judgement, including saying Greenland was a second order issue.
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Badenoch says she sacked Jenrick for undermining her party. If Starmer sacked everyone who undermined his party, there would be no one left on the front bench, she says.
Starmer says Badenoch is claiming sacking Jenrick was a sign of strength. But at that point she had already read his defection letter. What else was she going to do? Correct the typos and give it back.
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