UK politics: West Midlands crime commissioner resists calls for immediate sacking of chief constable – as it happened

Cordons of police separated pro-Israeli from pro-Palestinian groups in Birmingham during the Maccabi Tel Aviv-Aston Villa match in November 2025 Photograph: Lab Ky Mo/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

6.16pm GMT

Early evening summary

• West Midlands police is so far ignoring calls for its chief constable, Craig Guildford, to resign. (See 5.31pm.) In the Commons Shabana Mahmood said she has lost confidence in Guilford after a “damning” report found intelligence used to justify a ban on fans of an Israeli football team from a game was “exaggerated or simply untrue”. Most MPs who spoke backed her critical assessment, but Mahmood said that she did not have the power to sack Guildford herself. She said that was up to Simon Foster, the Labour police and crime commissioner for the West Midlands. Foster has indicated he wants to take his time before making a decision. (See 4.43pm.)

• Keir Starmer has promised action against union activists and campaigners who pushed for the cancellation of a school visit by an MP who is vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel.

• A make-or-break auction for the UK government’s goal to create a clean electricity system by 2030 has awarded subsidy contracts to enough offshore windfarms to power 12m homes.

• South East Water could lose its operating licence after residents across Kent and Sussex faced up to a week without water.

• Ministers have rolled back plans for a central element of the proposed digital ID plans, leaving open the possibility that people will be able to use other forms of identification to prove their right to work.

For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.

5.58pm GMT

Green party now in third place in Senedd race in Wales, poll suggests, ahead of Labour and Tories

There is one other feature of the YouGov poll for Welsh Senedd elections worth mentioning; as well as showing Plaid Cymru surging ahead of Reform UK (see 1.59pm), it also suggests the Greens are on course to beat Labour and the Conservatives.

Here are the polling figures.

And here is the seat projection for a vote with these numbers.

A party would need 48 seats to have a majority. If Wales were to vote along these lines, a likely outcome would be Plaid Cymru governing with the help of the Greens – either in a formal coalition, or a more informal confidence and supply-type deal.

When YouGov last published a Senedd poll, in December, the Greens were in fifth place, on 9%, behind Labour and the Tories, both on 10%.

Lottie Thornton, a senior research executive at YouGov, said Zack Polanski’s popularity was probably behind the Green rise in Wales. She said:

These polls show that Plaid and Reform are establishing themselves as the anti-Labour and anti-Conservative vote in Wales, and the figures follow the general trends we’ve been witnessing over the last 18 months.

The increase in Green vote share is somewhat in line with what we have seen in the UK, and it could be partly due to the recent appointment of Zack Polanski as leader. We will need to wait and see if the increase is maintained in future polls.