Friday Briefing: Labour Party set for a landslide win in the U.K.

July 5, 2024

	By Daniel E. Slotnik

Good morning. We’re covering Labour’s likely election victory in the U.K. and Iran’s presidential contest.

Plus, a leading role for a quiet cat.

A crowd in front of a building with a projected display that shows the number of seats the Labour Party won in the British election.

If confirmed, it would be one of the worst defeats in the Conservative Party’s history. Oli Scarff/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Labour expected to win British election in a landslide

Britain’s Labour Party was projected to win a landslide election victory yesterday, sweeping the Conservative Party out of power after 14 years.

An exit poll conducted for the BBC and two other broadcasters predicted that Labour won 410 seats to the Tories’ 131 in the 650-member House of Commons. Here’s the latest.

The results were a blow for the Tories and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Britain’s electorate showed its weariness with a turbulent era that spanned austerity, Brexit, the Covid pandemic, the serial scandals of former Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the ill-fated tax-cutting proposals of his successor, Liz Truss.

“It is a classic anti-incumbent vote,” said Mark Landler, our London bureau chief. “British voters are desperate for a change.”

“They’re not persuaded that the Labour Party can deliver radically different results than the Conservatives,” Landler added, “but at this point, they’re willing to take the chance.”

Keir Starmer, the Labour leader who is set to become the next prime minister, will be faced with problems that many British voters worry are intractable. They include immigration, fixing the National Health Service — which is deeply underfunded and faces chronic staffing shortages — and righting the economy, which is struggling with high inflation that is contributing to a cost of living crisis.

Big picture: Britain’s election was a move toward the left, a potential counterweight to the growing strength of the far right in European countries like France and Germany. The result, Landler said, is that Starmer could “appear almost like a bulwark for liberal democracy.”

An outside view of a billboard featuring two presidential candidates on both sides of Arabic writing.

A billboard in Tehran featuring pictures of the runoff candidates. Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

Iranians head to the polls

A reformist and an ultraconservative will compete in a runoff election today to decide Iran’s next president. Here’s what you need to know.

The reformist candidate, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian, has said he would engage with the West in nuclear talks to lift the sanctions plaguing Iran’s economy. Saeed Jalili, the ultra hard-liner, has promised to defeat sanctions and strengthen economic ties with other countries.

Major nuclear and state policies are still decided by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. He has already approved indirect engagement with the U.S. to lift the sanctions. Those efforts are likely to continue regardless of who wins.

On the ground: We spent six days in Tehran speaking with residents. Almost without exception, they had one major demand for their next president: Fix the economy.

A large group of people chanting and holding orange flags during a demonstration.

Greek workers demonstrated in May during a strike to protest low wages. Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters

Some workweeks in Greece can now last six days

A law that went into effect on Monday will allow some companies in Greece to enforce a six-day workweek. The measure comes at a time when many countries are considering moving to four days of work per week.

The law applies mainly to workers in certain industrial or manufacturing sectors, or to those who work in a business that operates continuous shifts 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Greek government has sought to downplay the measure, but many in labor unions and on the left are livid. Syriza, the leftist opposition party, called the legislation “a return to working conditions of the 19th century.” Greece already has the longest-average workweek in the E.U.

MORE TOP NEWS

A woman and a young girl walking on a dusty path cutting between enormous mounds of rubble.

Debris covered streets in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on Thursday. Bashar Taleb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Mideast: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the U.S. that he was sending a new delegation to Gaza for cease-fire talks, but reiterated that the war would end only after Israel achieved its goals.
Biden: The president told a group of Democratic governors that he needed to work fewer hours and would curtail events after 8 p.m., but said he planned to stay in the race.
Sierra Leone: A new law allows child brides to annul their marriages and be financially compensated.
Hurricane Beryl: The storm killed at least one woman in Jamaica and knocked out power in hundreds of thousands of homes. Here’s the latest.
Ukraine: Europe is trying to cobble together another Patriot air defense system to protect the country’s battered cities.
China: Violent attacks on foreigners have prompted a debate about xenophobic and nationalistic videos spreading on China’s heavily censored internet.
France: A quarter of 18-to-24-year-old French voters are voting for the far right, many more than in recent elections. Here are some reasons.
Germany: The first African-born member of Parliament said he would not seek re-election. He has received hate mail and death threats, and his office has been violently attacked.
Tanzania: Several bull elephants were killed — likely by trophy hunters — near the border of a Kenyan national park in recent months.

Sports

Iga Swiatek fixes her gaze onto a tennis ball that she gently tossed into the air during a tennis match.

Poland’s Iga Swiatek serves against Croatia’s Petra Martic yesterday. Isabel Infantes/Reuters

Wimbledon: Novak Djokovic and Iga Swiatek won their matches. More from day four.
Soccer: It remains to be seen whether Lionel Messi will play in Argentina’s quarterfinal match against Ecuador in the Copa América.

MORNING READ

In a movie still, a woman wearing a yellow sweater and an orange beanie sits behind a dumpster in an alley, holding a black and white cat. A man in the background also crouches in the alley.

Lupita Nyong’o in “A Quiet Place: Day One.” Gareth Gatrell/Paramount Pictures

Michael Sarnoski, the director of “A Quiet Place: Day One,” wanted the main character to have a service animal. But he didn’t think a barking dog would survive long in a film about predatory aliens that hunt by sound. “I figured a cat would have a shot,” he said.

Enter Schnitzel, who played a cat that takes on the end of the world.

CONVERSATION STARTERS

What is a sun dress? Take our quiz on what makes a summer wardrobe essential.
“The Boy’s Word”: Russians can’t stop watching this nihilistic TV show about street gangs in the last years of the Soviet Union.
Legal weed: New York tried to treat an addictive substance just like any other product. Here’s what went wrong.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times .

ARTS AND IDEAS

The ocean is visible through a line of pine trees. One fallen trunk lies diagonally against the rest of the upright trees.

The coastline on Haida Gwaii in British Columbia, Canada. Amber Bracken for The New York Times

Off Canada’s coast, a big shift in power

The Haida people have lived for thousands of years on Haida Gwaii, a remote archipelago off Canada’s western coast. Known as the country’s Galápagos for its rich wildlife, it has also been coveted by loggers for its forests.

In May — after a decades-long legal battle that raised questions about Canada’s brutal colonial history — British Columbia’s government passed a law recognizing the Haida’s title to the land. It was the first time a provincial or federal government in Canada had ever willingly recognized an Indigenous people’s land claim.

RECOMMENDATIONS

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Linda Xiao for The New York Times

Cook: Celebrate summer with this berries and cream sheet cake.

Travel: You tested positive for Covid-19 just before your vacation. Now what?

Watch: “MaXXXine” is part slasher homage to 1980s Hollywood, part sleazy feminist manifesto.

Listen: These six podcasts deliver history lessons that resonate.

Play: Spelling Bee, the Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all our games here.

That’s it for this week. Have a great weekend. — Dan

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