The government’s antisemitism Lord John Mann told PoliticsHome all school teachers should have “basic” antisemitism training. (Alamy)

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Lord John Mann, a former Labour MP who has advised ministers on antisemitism since 2019, said he was not “satisfied” with how successive governments have responded to rising levels of antisemitism in the UK, saying “everyone needs to up their game”.

Mann spoke to PoliticsHome after two Jewish people were stabbed in a terrorist attack in Golders Green, north London, on Wednesday. The Met Police announced on Friday morning that Essa Suleima, 45, had been charged in connection with the attack.

There have also been arson attacks in the wider borough of Barnet, home to the UK’s largest Jewish community, in recent months, including the firebombing of ambulances run by a Jewish charity and several synagogues, and a lethal attack on a synagogue in Manchester last year. 

Following the terrorist attack on Wednesday, the government has announced an additional £25m for community policing to protect Jewish communities and pledged to fast-track legislation banning state-linked terror groups.

In a press conference on Thursday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said ministers were looking at “further measures we can take on protests”, amid calls for tougher action against antisemitism at pro-Palestine marches. Starmer said the phrase “globalise the intifada” was an example of “extreme racism” which should result in police prosecution.

Speaking to PoliticsHome, Mann said there should be a greater police presence in Barnet permanently, as well as more government funding for security measures to protect Jews across the country, like CCTV and alarm systems in shops.

But he stressed that tackling antisemitism must go further than greater security, calling for every secondary school teacher nationwide to be “taught the basics” of identifying it: “about how to recognise antisemitism, and how to deal with it in the classroom”.

“Very basic level training, nothing particularly expensive or fancy, a basic level for every secondary school teacher, starting with the new teachers. I think that is doable, and that it needs to happen. And I’m impatient on that happening,” the peer said.

He continued: “If a Jewish child at school, or a Jewish staff member, doesn’t have people at work who understand how to recognise antisemitism, they’re clearly not going to be able to deal with it properly… and the impact on children is far more important than anything…

“I put it to the last government, I put it to this government. It hasn’t happened yet.”

Mann said the recent creation of a cross-departmental group in government focusing on antisemitism was a “really significant” development, but warned that it “would take some time for that to have a real impact”. He added that he expects his report on antisemitism in the health service to be published by Health Secretary Wes Streeting in the coming weeks.

Speaking during a visit to Golders Green on Thursday, the Prime Minister said the government was looking at “what more needs to be done in health and education” to tackle antisemitism. “So there is a lot that is being done. Of course, we need to do everything we can,” he said.

However, Mann argued that the UK does not yet have a “comprehensive approach” to dealing with antisemitism, after charity Community Support Trust said in February that 2025 saw the second-highest annual number of anti-Jewish hate incidents on record.

“We don’t have a comprehensive approach, in my opinion, to extremism. What it is, how it manifests,” he said.

“The growth of Islamist extremism has been pronounced and is very dangerous, and we’re not on top of that. We have left-wing extremism and right-wing extremism to contend with… both have grown. Older problems and newer problems all converged together.”

Last month, the cross-party Home Affairs Committee concluded that Prevent, the government’s anti-terrorism programme, is “outdated and inadequately prepared”. 

Committee chair Conservative MP Karen Bradley said Prevent “has the clear and explicit function of stopping people becoming radicalised into terrorism, but more and more it is having to support those with no ideological motivation, who may have complex needs and operate in digital spaces that are poorly understood”.

“There needs to be a comprehensive structure in place at a local level, but implemented nationwide, that triages referrals to where they can receive the right support.”

Mann believes that “very big numbers” of Jews will start to leave the UK “very quickly” if things do not change, telling PoliticsHome that “the freedom to be Jewish in this country has been significantly impaired”. 

“That’s unacceptable, because people aren’t doing that willingly,” said Lord Mann.

“They’re doing it under duress.”

The independent adviser compared what he believes could happen in the UK in the coming months to what happened in France following rising levels of antisemitism in the 2010s, culminating in a lethal attack on a Jewish supermarket in Paris in 2015, when, according to the World Jewish Congress, around 8,000 Jews left the country.

“I would define the breaking point as when a significant number of people start to move,” he said.

(Alamy)

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In a new report published on Friday, the think tank said current pensions policy is unsustainable and outdated and should be replaced by a more flexible alternative.

“Britain’s state pension system was built for a different era. We can’t keep pouring money into a system that is increasingly unaffordable,” said Tom Smith, TBI Director of Economic Policy.

Under the existing policy, pensions are guaranteed to rise by the highest of inflation, average earnings and 2.5 per cent.

However, there have been growing warnings that factors like people living longer, a falling birth rate and high inflation levels mean that it is not sustainable in the long term.

The TBI report points to the number of pensioners in Britain being expected to rise from 12.6m this year to 19m in 2070, with spending on the state pension expected to increase from 5 per cent of GDP to 7.5 per cent, costing the Treasury an additional £85bn a year.

There is also an argument that to maintain the triple lock in its current form would worsen generational inequality, given the financial challenges faced by younger people.

Despite these warnings, the triple lock continues to enjoy broad cross-party support, partly because older people are seen as a key voter group. Chancellor Rachel Reeves said last week that the government was not changing its triple lock policy.

TBI’s Smith said it would take “political leadership” to reform the policy, but that doing so would create a system “fairer, more flexible, and designed for how people live today”.

The think tank has proposed what it calls a new ‘Lifespan Fund’, which would replace the fixed pension age with a system whereby one full year of contribution would add half a year of entitlement, up to a maximum of 20 years of support.

It would also allow people to use the fund earlier in life to support them in key moments like finding work, funding child care, and looking after a sick relative, with safeguards included to ensure people do not draw out too much too early.

Smith said the model “keeps the promise of a secure retirement while making the system more flexible and financially sustainable” and would be “the upgrade Britain needs”.

The TBI estimates that these reforms would keep long-term state pension spending at around 5.5 per cent of GDP, rather than allowing it to rise towards 7.8 per cent, avoiding roughly £66bn a year in additional costs by 2070.

The intervention was welcomed by the Labour MP for Dunfermline and Dollar, Graeme Downie, who, in a recent piece for The House, called for the triple lock to be reformed to help fund greater defence spending.

“This is the kind of conversation I called for a few weeks ago,” he told PoliticsHome.

Our welfare needs to be fit for the future, helping those who need it most and being a strong safety net, effectively supporting people to get them into work and keep them in work to drive economic growth, and to fund critical national priorities like defence, which are vital to protecting our people and our democracy.”

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On Wednesday night, the former deputy prime minister campaigned in Barking and Dagenham, east London, where Nigel Farage’s party is hoping to make a major electoral breakthrough in the capital at the 7 May local elections. A YouGov poll published last week gave Reform a slender four per cent lead over the Labour Party.

The Manchester MP’s visit to the outer London area came a day after Prime Minister Keir Starmer avoided being referred to the Privileges Committee over the Lord Mandelson affair, and amid intense speculation about how much longer he has in No 10.

Speaking to Labour activists at the Trades Hall working men’s club in Dagenham, the party’s former deputy leader, who resigned from cabinet in September over unpaid stamp duty, joked about the current negativity within Labour as it braces for a bruising set of nationwide results next month. On the same night, pollster and Tory peer Lord Robert Hayward projected that Labour would lose a huge 1,850 council seats across the country.

“The one thing I say about Labour is we’re not happy unless we’re unhappy. So, we do like to know about the things we haven’t got, right?” said Rayner.

Accompanied in east London by a videographer, as well as her partner, Sam Tarry, a former Labour MP who was also previously a Barking and Dagenham councillor, Rayner sought to frame Reform UK as a threat to the area’s working-class communities.

“The kids here, he [Farage] wants those kept in poverty.

“He doesn’t want employment rights, and we’re delivering employment rights in the biggest way for a generation. We’re bringing down waiting lists in the NHS. He wants to make sure that we go to an insurance-based system. He doesn’t want a free NHS at the point of use anymore.

“So that’s not going to work for our communities here.”

Rayner added: “I talked about the poverty I grew up in when I was a child, but the one thing that never occurred to me, and was never an issue, was that I could be evicted from my council home, and that’s why we need the biggest wave in a generation of council homes, and we need to build them now.”

The local Labour MP, Margaret Mullane, who used to be a barmaid at the working men’s club, told PoliticsHome that Rayner’s working-class roots made her an effective campaigner in that part of the capital. One Labour activist described her as a “future prime minister”.

While Rayner is seen as a leading candidate to succeed Starmer in Downing Street, her political future is currently complicated by an outstanding HMRC investigation into her tax affairs, which many Labour figures believe must be completed before she can launch a bid to become prime minister.

She could also face a competition with Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham to secure the support of the Labour left and soft left. Burnham, who PoliticsHome revealed last week is also campaigning in London ahead of polling day next week, must find a parliamentary seat before launching a leadership bid of his own.

Rayner showed no signs of rebellion on Wednesday night, using her speech to campaigners to talk up the Labour government’s achievements after nearly two years in office.

“I’m so proud to have had the opportunity to represent you as your deputy prime minister, and make no apologies for being part of this Labour family and to continue believing what Labour does, because I’ve seen in action what Labour has done to give me opportunities that my mum never had,” she said.

However, should 7 May go as badly for Labour as the new Lord Hayward research suggests, then Starmer’s position in No 10 will almost certainly come under renewed pressure at the end of next week, which in turn will likely push Rayner back into the spotlight.

As well as losses in London, where Zack Polanski’s Greens are expected to be the primary beneficiaries, Labour is set to lose council seats across England, go backwards in Scotland, and fall out of power in Wales for the first time since Cardiff’s devolved institutions were established at the turn of the century.

Defeat in Barking and Dagenham would be particularly painful for Labour, with the party having won all 51 council seats when they were last up for election four years ago.

Local Labour councillor Phil Walker said that the Mandleson vetting row was being brought up by residents on the doorstep in Barking and Dagenham, compounding the PM’s unpopularity. “They think Starmer is stupid”, he told PoliticsHome. “It adds to an image that isn’t good.” Another councillor said the issue had cut through “even to kids”. 

Walker added that next week’s elections pose Labour’s biggest test in this London council “since 2006 when we kicked out the BNP (British National Party)”.

“The one thing I say about Labour is we’re not happy unless we’re unhappy,” Rayner tells activists

The Dagenham wards seen by Labour activists as most at risk of falling to Farage’s party are Village, Heath and Eastbrook. A collapse in support in this part of east London would be especially ominous for Mullane, who will be defending a majority of just over 7,000 at the next general election. “There is real pressure to keep Village – it is the heart of the constituency,” she told PoliticsHome.

Many residents who opened their doors to Labour activists on Wednesday night described themselves as undecided, which Mullane said demonstrates that “turnout will be crucial” for Labour if the party is to stave off the threat of Reform in Barking and Dagenham.

The cost of living and crime dominated doorstep conversations, as did the recent five per cent council tax rise. Labour’s decision early in government to make the winter fuel allowance means-tested, later amended after a major backlash, was cited as having caused “so much damage” with voters in the area, even nearly two years later.

Shortly after being visited by Labour activists, one resident came out of his house to dispose of the party’s literature in the recycling bin. 

Speaking earlier this week ahead of the locals, the Prime Minister’s political spokesperson said: “These local elections come down to a simple choice.

“Labour on your side, with your local Labour council working in partnership with a Labour Government, or Nigel Farage and Reform, who would put your family, your NHS and your community at risk.”