The US Air Force has been sending unmarked planes from Britain’s base on Cyprus to Israel since it began bombing Gaza, it can be revealed.

The planes are all C-295 and CN-235 aircraft, which are believed to be used by American special forces.

Declassified has found 18 of these aircraft which have gone from the sprawling British air base on Cyprus, RAF Akrotiri, to Israel’s coastal city Tel Aviv since October 7.

[RAF] Akrotiri is the key node in the international effort to arm and provide logistical support for Israel’s assault on Gaza.

But the UK government has always refused to divulge any information about US activities at Akrotiri, which is known to include transporting weapons to Israel.

Asked in May how many US Air Force (USAF) flights had taken off from the base since October 7, [then] defence minister Leo Docherty said: “The Ministry of Defence does not comment on the operations of our Allies.”

But Declassified discovered the unmarked planes that flew from Akrotiri to Israel from November to June have a serial number showing they are operated by the USAF. Most of these journeys had the flight number GONZO62.

Six more unmarked C-130 planes have gone from Akrotiri to Tel Aviv since the bombing of Gaza began, which are believed to be USAF, but it was not possible for Declassified to locate their operator.
[…]
A spokesperson for the UK Ministry of Defence would only tell Declassified: “In response to the situation in Israel and Gaza, we are working with international partners to de-escalate the conflict, reinforce stability and support humanitarian efforts in the region. Any use of UK bases will be in line with these objectives.”

The new health secretary said the service has been “wrecked” by the Conservatives and launched an independent investigation.

He has appointed Lord Ara Darzi, a health minister in the last Labour government, to carry out the review and ordered officials to hand over whatever information is needed.

Writing in The Sun, Mr Streeting said: “Honesty is the best policy, and this report will provide patients, staff and myself with a full and frank assessment of the state of the NHS, warts and all.

“It’s going to take time to turn the NHS around - we were honest about that before the election.

"Sticking plasters won’t be enough to heal it. It will require fundamental reform.” It comes after Mr Streeting declared the NHS “broken” on his first day as Britain’s health secretary.

He went on to declare the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) is “no longer simply a public service department” but an “economic growth department”, because health and the economy are “inextricably linked” and improving the health of the nation can help to “drive the economic growth of the country”.

“That is a major shift in mindset,” he said. “It’s a rethinking of the role of the department.

“It also means ending the begging bowl culture, where the only interaction the Treasury has with DHSC is that we need more money for X, Y and Z.

“The starting point has got to be, ‘We will help you achieve your mission for growth and improve the prosperity and lives of everyone in this country by making sure that we are with you lockstep in driving growth’.”
[…]
Experts from the Nuffield Trust point out that Labour has inherited a waiting list for pre-planned hospital treatment of around 7.5 million in England – a 66% increase since the start of the pandemic.

While progress has been made in some areas, such as cataract surgery, waits for some major surgeries have been slower to get back to pre-Covid levels, experts said.

Rachel Reeves has promised to "get Britain building again" by bringing back compulsory housebuilding targets as part of a wide-ranging plan to reboot the UK economy.
[…]
She and her team worked through the weekend on the speech to business leaders and investors who have held back on investment in Britain in recent years amid the political chaos of the post-Brexit years and the Liz Truss mini-budget.

It is hoped her plans will unleash tens of billions of pounds of investment in green industry and housebuilding.

Ms Reeves made a pitch to investors who might have avoided the UK in recent years by promising stability.
[…]
Speaking to business leaders at the Treasury, Ms Reeves said:

• Planning decisions for major infrastructure projects in Britain will be made nationally rather than locally in an attempt to stop important projects becoming tied up in years of red tape
• Green belt boundaries will be reviewed to prioritise brownfield and so-called "grey belt" land, which are poor-quality areas in the green belt such as disused car parks or areas of wasteland
• The transport and energy secretaries will prioritise decisions on infrastructure projects that have been "sitting unresolved for far too long"
• Additional planning officers will be recruited to speed up the planning process
• An assessment of the country's public finances has been ordered and the results will be presented before parliament's summer break, before a full Budget is held later in the year

[…]
In the absence for now of a surge of public money, Labour will need the private sector to deliver its homebuilding plans.

In his first interview since finishing third last week in the [Clacton] election, Owusu-Nepaul insisted he had fought hard, and said he understood the need for the national campaign to take priority. But he warned that Reform should be a cause for concern “because of the type of politics they represent”.

“It was my first time standing in a parliamentary election and I would be lying if I said that at times I didn’t feel concern for the safety of those around me on the campaign,” he said.

“I am not saying this was a direct consequence of Farage but from his supporters there was vitriol and from the very beginning a sense of intimidation. I had people tear my leaflets up. We had people come out and spit at us. I had my name constantly interrogated about where I was ‘really from’.

“On social media I got a torrent of abuse all day, every day. It has only given me further resolve to keep going because it made me realise that there are many people online, trolls or whoever they are, who want to silence me and silence others who share a similar belief system.”

He added: “It felt like I had become a proxy for some of the things they hated. My profile had kind of got bigger and with that there was endless abuse. It was from people who were quite explicit about their intentions and who they were going to support, and that was Reform.

“The campaign was never about me. It was about ensuring that principles and values were communicated to voters. But I did learn a lot about the role of ethnic minorities in public life.”
[…]
Owusu-Nepaul said he believed the political atmosphere had permeated through to the local community. He said: “I spoke to a lady who was telling me her eight-year-old son was beginning to experience racial abuse in the playground. She said that [I] have to vote for you because Nigel Farage’s party has been whipping up emotions. She was desperately sad and angry.

“That really brought things home to me, the extent to which divisions were being stoked, and they were even manifesting in the school playground.”

He echoed Neil Kinnock – who has warned Labour not to ignore the nationalist threat posed by Farage – and said he believed the best way for the left and progressive politicians to defeat the surge in support for the populist right was to address people’s material concerns.

“In Clacton I saw the type of endemic poverty which is a problem all over the country and goes back generations. It’s also been juxtaposed with a lot of over-promising and under-delivery. It’s become ingrained while the scapegoating of others has become a way of avoiding doing anything,” Owusu-Nepaul said.

He predicted that Farage would be a “one-term MP” because he would use the platform to serve his own ideological interests while local people in Clacton would lose out.

Archive

Starmer spoke to his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and said he was committed to continuing the “vital co-operation” between the two nations to deter malign threats.

On the Israel-Hamas war, Starmer set out the “clear and urgent need for a ceasefire”, the return of hostages and an immediate increase in humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza.

He stressed the importance of ensuring the long-term conditions for a two-state solution in the region, including that the Palestinian Authority had the “financial means to operate effectively”.
[…]
The UK prime minister also turned to the topic of “ensuring international legitimacy for Palestine” and said that his “long-standing policy on recognition to contribute to a peace process had not changed”, adding that it was the “undeniable right of Palestinians”, according to his statement.
[…]
Three aspects of the Labour administration’s policy on the conflict remain unclear, starting with its assessment of the lawfulness of continuing to license arms exports to Israel.

The second is whether it will reinstate funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, which the UK suspended following Israeli claims that some of its staffers belonged to Hamas and had participated in the October 7 attacks.

There is also the question of what the UK will do if the International Criminal Court presses ahead with issuing arrest warrants, for which its chief prosecutor has applied, against Netanyahu and Israel’s defence minister Yoav Gallant for suspected war crimes in Gaza.

While Lammy said in May that the UK would seek to enforce such warrants if they were granted, Starmer has been more circumspect, commenting that: “I will deal with that when the court has made its decision.”

A projection of how the election results would look if we used Additional Member System (AMS), like in Scotland and Wales.