News diary 16 – 22 September: Huw Edwards sentenced, party conference season

A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda next week, from the team at Foresight News.

Sir Keir Starmer appears speaking to the 2023 Labour Party conference, sleeves rolled up and covered in glitter from a recent protest. Picture: Martin Suker/Shutterstock

A look ahead at the key events leading the news agenda next week, from the team at Foresight News.

Leading the week

The shocking downfall of former BBC newsreader Huw Edwards comes to a close on Monday (September 16), when he is sentenced at Westminster Magistrates Court after pleading guilty to making indecent images of children.

Edwards was the highest-paid journalist and presenter at the BBC when he was alleged to have paid money to a teenage boy for explicit images in July 2023, though the Metropolitan Police said at the time that Edwards was not under criminal investigation. The presenter went off-air when the scandal hit as he sought treatment for depression, but didn’t officially resign until April this year.

On July 29, the Met confirmed Edwards had been charged over child abuse images shared with him on WhatsApp between December 2020 and April 2022, including seven category A images, the most serious classification. Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring previously said the starting point for sentencing would be a year-long jail term, although there are mitigating factors. Edwards’ sentencing comes at a time when the BBC is plagued by allegations of bullying and misconduct, including flagship programme Strictly Come Dancing, which returned to screens over the weekend.

After an action-packed couple of weeks, Westminster has temporarily been abandoned and seaside towns up and down the country are bracing for the arrival of political activists, businesses, lobbyists and assorted hangers-on for what’s set to be a very watchable conference season.

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Keir Starmer’s speech to the TUC conference this week, the first by a sitting prime minister for 15 years, is a sign that we’re in a very different political landscape to this time last year, but the focus next week will be on two of the smaller success stories of 2024. Labour’s conference gets underway on Sunday (September 22), but first up are the Liberal Democrats, still riding the wave of one of the most meme-friendly election campaigns in recent memory but now facing the challenge of turning a record number of MPs into an effective Parliamentary force and alternative opposition.

The party may not go as far as the Greens in accusing the Israeli government of genocide, but a motion on the Gaza conflict on Monday (September 16) will give an idea of the Lib Dems’ future direction of travel on that issue. Ed Davey may be forgiven some grandstanding in his leader’s speech on Tuesday (September 17) after guiding his party to a record-breaking electoral performance, but his focus is likely to be on how the Lib Dems can continue to chip away at Conservative in-fighting and growing dissatisfaction with the new Labour government to capitalise at next year’s local elections.

On the other end of the political spectrum, the Reform UK gathering is sure to be a triumphant affair after the party’s own history-making election. Party leader Nigel Farage is enjoying his role as thorn in the side of both Starmer and temporary Tory leader Rishi Sunak, and his speech on Friday (September 20) will be the main draw. But the most important part of this year’s conference may be the organisational day on Saturday (September 21), as Farage and his fellow MPs look to translate their own momentum – and ongoing strong polling – into a viable seat-winning strategy for the next election and beyond.

It’s been another mixed week of economic news for the government, with the nominal gains from Tuesday’s vote on cutting winter fuel allowance payments offset by Wednesday’s stagnant GDP figures. With the Budget looming, every new piece of information is being considered in the context of its potential impact on Rachel Reeves’ decision-making. Next week’s statistical releases will shed light in some key areas for the chancellor, with inflation on Wednesday (September 18) and public sector finances on Friday (September 20) set to reveal the shape of price growth and public borrowing for the penultimate time before October 30. More notably, policymakers at the Bank of England will announce the final pre-Budget interest rate decision on Thursday (September 19), a day after the US Federal Reserve is predicted to unveil a first rate cut since 2022, though the most impactful announcement to come out of the meeting could be on the Bank’s bond sales process – a decision to speed up the quantitative tightening programme could, according to The Times, free up as much as much £10 billion in fiscal headroom.

Looking abroad

US President Joe Biden hosts Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for a Quad Summit in Delaware on Saturday (September 21). The personal touch of hosting the leaders in his hometown – the first time Biden has met foreign leaders there – may be an effort to make up for the last-minute cancellation of last year’s summit in Australia, when Biden had to stay home to oversee debt ceiling negotiations.

Moving the summit from India, which was due to host this year, will also help cement the elevation of the Quad and its counterbalancing of China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific as part of Biden’s foreign policy legacy as he moves into the final months of his presidency. Leaders will use the gathering, which comes just ahead of the UN General Assembly in New York, to discuss maritime and cyber security, climate change, natural disaster response and infrastructure.

The German government is gearing up for a tense week as new border controls come into effect on Monday (September 16) aimed at tackling illegal migration and bolstering internal security following a series of knife attacks attributed to asylum seekers. The policy has raised serious questions over the future of Europe’s free-movement Schengen Area, which has come under pressure as irregular migration flows have increased and ratcheted up tensions between member states.

The announcement came in the wake of shock victories for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party in state elections in Thuringia and Saxony (where it came second) on September 1. All three parties in Germany’s ruling coalition suffered heavy losses, including Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s SPD, with immigration and fury over the attacks seen as the catalyst for the AfD’s gains. On Sunday (September 22), a third state election is held in Brandenburg, where the AfD now tops the polls and 40% of voters say asylum and immigration are the most important political problem facing the country.

Elections also get underway in Sri Lanka on Saturday (September 21), where President Ranil Wickremesinghe is pushing for re-election against former ally and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa and outsider candidate Anura Kumara Dissanayake. The vote is the first since an economic crisis in 2022 saw the country default on its foreign debt amid food and fuel shortages and sky-high inflation, which ultimately led to the resignation of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and it’s seen as a referendum on the economic policies Wickremesinghe has implemented to rescue the economy.

Premadasa has pledged to renegotiate the country’s IMF debt restructuring program to ease the burden on the poor, who he says have borne the brunt of austerity measures while the wealthy avoid taxation. Dissanayake, meanwhile, appeals to Sri Lankans eager for a fresh start, with no links to the Rajapakasa family or the United National Party that has dominated Sri Lankan politics since independence.