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Moving forward, the weekly SLF Newsletter will move to the monthly frequencies, being published at the end of the month.

2. Social Liberalism in Westminster

Starmer on the Brink

It has been a punishing week for Sir Keir Starmer. The convergence of the ongoing Mandelson scandal, catastrophic polling ahead of the May local elections, and the first openly stated call from within his own party for him to go have created a political atmosphere of unusual fragility around a prime minister who won the largest parliamentary majority in a generation less than two years ago.

At the centre of the controversy continues to be Starmer's decision to appoint veteran Labour figure Peter Mandelson as Britain's ambassador to the United States — a move that has become a source of sustained political damage, with critics arguing it reflects poor vetting, weak oversight, and over-centralised decision-making inside his administration. Starmer himself has reportedly expressed frustration that critical advice from vetting bodies was not properly escalated to him before the appointment was finalised. This week, the Foreign Affairs Committee continued to pursue the matter, with former Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Philip Barton and former Downing Street Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney called to give evidence about the vetting process.

Three Labour regional mayors — Liverpool's Steve Rotheram, London's Sadiq Khan, and West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker — have warned that the widespread unpopularity of the Prime Minister, fuelled by Westminster "psychodrama," is hitting the party hard on the doorstep. The party has been told to prepare for "existential" results on 7 May. Jonathan Brash, MP for Hartlepool, became the first Labour MP this week to call publicly for Starmer to resign over the Mandelson saga, saying he was "completely fed up to the back teeth of this psychodrama in Westminster."

2. Local Elections Approach

With polling day on 7 May now under a fortnight away, the scale of what is coming into focus is increasingly extraordinary. These are the second set of local elections under Keir Starmer's premiership, and they are taking place against a backdrop of sharply rising support for both Reform UK and the Green Party (even if they are both starting from very low floors)

Ward-level projections suggest Reform is set to take control of county councils in Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk — a potential historic realignment in England's rural heartlands — while Labour is projected to lose control in Wigan, Sunderland, and Barnsley. In London, a new YouGov MRP poll projects Labour winning the highest vote share in only 15 of 32 boroughs, down from 21 four years ago, with the Greens leading in four boroughs and Reform in three — having previously run no London councils at all. Liberal Democrats are expected to retain their South West "Golden Triangle" adding Merton to their list of London Councils.

For Liberal Democrats, the picture is more encouraging. The Liberal Democrats are defending just under 700 seats and are projected to make modest net gains, particularly in wealthier progressive areas of southern England where the party has demonstrated a consistent ability to hold ground. With voters looking for alternatives to both major parties and a demonstrable record in local government, this is a genuine opportunity — not just to win seats, but to show what values-based politics in practice looks like.

Find out more about the elections here.

3. House of Lords Flexes its Muscle

Perhaps the most constitutionally significant story of this parliamentary session has unfolded largely out of the spotlight: the House of Lords has spent recent weeks engaged in simultaneous ping-pong battles across a remarkable number of major government bills — and on the question of assisted dying, has effectively exercised a veto that has now killed the Bill for this session.

Legislative ping-pong between the two Houses has been ongoing this week on no fewer than six significant bills: the English Devolution Bill, the Victims and Courts Bill, the Pension Schemes Bill, the Crime and Policing Bill, the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, and the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. This is an unusually heavy simultaneous load of inter-chamber disagreement, reflecting both an ambitious government legislative programme and a House of Lords increasingly willing to push back.

But it is on assisted dying that the upper chamber's resistance has been most dramatic — and most contested.

On Friday 24 April, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill — which had passed the House of Commons last June — failed as parliamentary time ran out. Opponents in the House of Lords managed to hold up its passing by filing more than 1,000 amendments to the bill, with only seven of its 59 clauses discussed across almost 120 hours of debate.

The House of Lords Committee stage of the debate surpassed the word count of War and Peace — over 607,000 words across 75 hours of debate — leading to just three minor changes. Around three-quarters of the 1,200 amendments were tabled by just nine Peers who oppose assisted dying in principle. Lord Falconer, the Bill's sponsor in the Lords, described what had taken place as "an absolute travesty of our process," characterising it as "pure obstructionism by a small number."

More than 100 Labour MPs have written to Starmer urging him to ensure the Bill is given additional parliamentary time in the next session. Supporters have confirmed they intend to bring the Bill back when the new parliamentary session begins after the King's Speech on 13 May, and constitutional experts have confirmed that the Parliament Acts provide a legitimate protection against a minority of Peers blocking the reform a second time if the Commons passes it again.

3. Reports out this week

Economy and Investment

• New Economics Foundation: The Private Finance Myth (21 April)
  • Investigates how the EU and UK can build and invest in infrastructure, following decades of underinvestment. Criticises usual economic theory that places private finance as more efficient or more cost-effective.

• Resolution Foundation: The Macroeconomic Policy Outlook Q2 2026 (22 April)
  • Analyses and predicts the Macroeconomy of the UK in the coming months, considering the war in Iran and its impacts on global energy markets, and how fiscal and monetary policy should respond.

• IPPR: Flex factor: How government can keep network costs on bills down (22 April)
  • Advocates for Government striking a better balance between bringing down energy bills now and building a system fit for the future, through expanded and modernised electricity networks.

Education

• The Sutton Trust: School funding and the pupil premium 2026 (22 April)
  • This report analyses challenges for schools, in particular financial constraints, and highlights that, despite overall increases in school funding over the past year, schools continue to face difficult choices on staffing, student support, extracurricular activities, and equipment.

Urban planning and Housing

• Centre for Cities: Course correction: How to densify British cities (23 April)
  • This research uses data on historic neighbourhood age and Centre for Cities’ residential densities dataset to dig deeper into where densification needs to occur and what policy needs to do differently.