UK politics: Starmer warns ‘lot of work to do’ to make ceasefire permanent at start of talks in Gulf - as it happened

<p>PM will meet leaders in the region to discuss diplomatic efforts to support the ceasefire agreed between the US and Iran</p><p>OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is proposing <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8x71ejrp92o">the extension of the four-day working week</a>, as a response to AI taking over some of the work done by humans. But for the Conservative party the four-day working week, at least in the public sector, is viewed as a menace. Officially, that’s a value-for-money position, but it also overlaps with their opposition to civil servants working from home, which has some of the traits of a culture war obsession.</p><p>Today the Conservatives have announced that, if they were in government, they would ban councils from letting staff work a four-day working week on full pay. Explaining why, the Tories say in a news release:</p><p>The four-day working week, as introduced by Liberal Democrat-run South Cambridgeshire district council, has left residents with more council tax for less public service. Bin collectors and social housing officials receive 100 per cent of their pay for around 80 per cent of their originally contracted hours.</p><p>The Labour government have failed to act. As communities secretary, Angela Rayner scrapped [<a href="https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/local-news/government-drops-official-concerns-cambs-30335046">Whitehall opposition to the South Cambridgeshire policy</a>]. Labour are refusing to legislate against a four-day week, giving councils an effective green light to get away with charging more for less work. Consequentially, Labour-run Cambridge City Council has become the second council to sign up to the four-day week.</p><p>Those areas which saw a statistically significant improvement include: the percentage of calls answered by the contact centre; the average number of days taken to update housing be