Prime minister is covering cost of Taylor Swift tickets and designer clothing rental agreement after donations row
Keir Starmer has paid back more than £6,000 worth of gifts and hospitality, including Taylor Swift tickets and rented clothing for his wife, after a row over his acceptance of freebies.
The prime minister handed back some tickets and gifts he had received since he entered No 10 in July as he vowed to overhaul the rules on what ministers are allowed to accept.
Continue reading...Announcement that PM is returning gifts comes after news Labour peer Lord Alli is under investigation by Lords commissioner
Richard Fuller, the Tory chair, is on the conference platform now introducing the morning session.
He starts with thanks to various people who have helped with the conference.
After a frenetic Conference for Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Tom Tugendhat and Robert Jenrick the tiredness will be kicking in, but also for the teams of advisers who want, and maybe need, their principal to take another go at delivering the twenty-minute speech of their career.
It’s a four hoarse race.
The problem for the party, and for me, is that none of this gossipy chatter has taken the conference attendees much further forward – nor has any of the four taken conference by storm.
Continue reading...Tory leadership contender claims at party conference that a minority leak official secrets and undermine ministers
Kemi Badenoch has said she believes up to 10% of civil servants are so bad they should be in prison, claiming they leak official secrets and “agitate” against ministers.
At a fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Birmingham, the leadership contender said she did not want to criticise all civil servants but said there were a few who were obstructive. “There’s about 5-10% of them who are very, very bad. You know, should-be-in-prison bad,” Badenoch said.
Continue reading...Ancram held role in early 2000s and also served as shadow foreign secretary before entering Lords in 2010
Tributes have been paid to the “stable voice” of the former deputy leader of the Conservative party Michael Ancram, who has died aged 79.
Ancram, known formally as the 13th Marquess of Lothian, held the role under Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard for five years in the early 2000s.
Continue reading...Senior Tories condemn leadership hopeful’s claim UK special forces are killing terrorists over fears that European laws would free detained assailants
Popular Conservatism, or PopCon, has released the results of a survey of party members suggesting more than half of them favour a merger with Reform UK. Some 30% of the respondents said they tended to support the idea, and 23% were strongly in favour. The survey covered 470 members.
Annunziata Rees-Mogg, PopCon’s head of communications and a former Brexit party MEP, said:
Every Conservative activist and canvasser knows people who had been Tories, but voted Reform UK in July. It is no surprise our panellists understand that the next leader of the party needs to take action to bring many like-minded voters back to the Tories. Almost three-quarters want a relationship with Reform in order to unite the right.
The answer I was often given by people in government at the time was that lockdowns were very popular.
They were getting 60, 70, 80% popularity ratings in the opinion polls. But you mustn’t believe those opinion polls, they’re basically nonsense.
Continue reading...Tory leadership candidate made claim in video calling for UK to leave European convention on human rights
Robert Jenrick is facing condemnation for claiming that UK special forces are “killing rather than capturing” terrorists because of fears that European laws would free any detained assailants.
In a campaign video launched on X, the Conservative leadership candidate made the statement while listing reasons for leaving the European convention on human rights.
Continue reading...Exclusive: London mayor boosts counter-hate funding as British Jewish group warns of danger of ‘reprisal’ attacks
Sadiq Khan has warned of a potential increase in hate crime in Britain triggered by the rise in Middle East violence, as a leading British Jewish group warned of the danger of “reprisal” attacks here.
The London mayor’s warning comes after a series of Israeli airstrikes against targets in Lebanon, which have killed Hezbollah’s top leaders as well as its followers, and it is feared, scores of civilians. Khan is pumping extra emergency funding into groups in London countering hate.
Continue reading...NEU snap poll shows 95% of members voting for 5.5% pay rise, ending months of industrial action
Teachers in England have voted overwhelmingly to accept a 5.5% pay rise but warned ministers that without further “corrections” pay would remain uncompetitive and teacher shortages would persist.
Of those members who responded to the National Education Union’s snap poll, 95% voted to accept the 2024-25 offer, which would give schools an additional £1.2bn to cover the pay rise.
Continue reading...The shadow chancellor said he ‘would have died’ to have had the legacy Rachel Reeves had when he took over
Robert Jenrick has used a campaign rally just outside the Conservative conference to paint the issue of migration in highly stark terms, saying his party will “die” if it does not commit to quitting the European convention on human rights. (See 8.23am.)
Speaking to supporters in a studio theatre at Birmingham Rep, Jenrick repeated his styling of the issue in Brexit terms, saying the choice was between the “leave” of leaving the ECHR or “remain” of staying in it, and that this was a chance to “get migration done”.
This is more than just, ‘leave or amend’ – frankly, our party doesn’t have a future unless we take a stand and fix this problem. It’s leave or die for our party – I’m for leave.
Foreign national offenders in our country,who we have struggled to deport because of our membership of the European Convention on Human Rights – that’s the issue I was raising.
What is the biggest challenge we face as a party?
Our biggest strategic challenge is the fact that the average age above which you are more likely to vote Conservative than Labour is now over 60.
Continue reading...Palestine Action says papers show ministers attempted to sway police and prosecutors to crack down on protesters
Internal government documents show that Home Office ministers and staff tried to influence police and prosecutors to crack down on activists targeting the UK factories of an Israeli arms manufacturer, campaigners have claimed.
Briefing notes, obtained through freedom of information (FoI) requests by Palestine Action, show details of government meetings, predating the 7 October Hamas attacks and Israel’s response in Gaza, intended to “reassure” Elbit Systems UK, an Israeli arms manufacturer, which is subject to a direct action campaign by the campaign group.
Continue reading...Former chancellor’s solicitor accused of breaching code of conduct by threatening legal action against tax campaigner
Nadhim Zahawi instructed his lawyer to threaten legal action against a tax campaigner who helped reveal that the then chancellor was under investigation by HM Revenue and Customs, according to a tribunal document.
Zahawi’s solicitor, Ashley Hurst, is accused of breaching his regulator’s code of conduct by attempting to prevent Dan Neidle from publishing correspondence threatening legal action over the tax expert’s revelations about the then Tory leadership candidate.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Former Australian PM witnessed ‘shocking act of perjury’ and says MI5 are still trying to hide something
The former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has accused the UK government of hypocrisy and concealment over the way it continues to block the release of secret files about the Spycatcher affair.
Before entering politics, Turnbull was a barrister for Peter Wright, a retired senior MI5 intelligence officer who revealed a series of illegal activities by the British security services in his memoir Spycatcher.
Continue reading...With the leadership contenders vying to out-crazy each other, it was Boris – well it would be, wouldn’t it – who outdid them all
See it from the point of view of the Fearless Four. You’ve already seen off the mighty challenge of Priti Patel and Mel Stride, latter-day Tory titans both, so now you’re through to the Birmingham eliminator.
You’ve disappeared through the wormhole into the mephitic swamp where any intelligent life comes to die. Where only the clinically deranged and terminally deluded are to be found. Where the sanest voice is Michael Fabricant’s rug pleading with its owner to be allowed to go home. Welcome to the Tory party conference.
Continue reading...Conservative leadership contenders Jenrick, Cleverly and Tugendhat reject rival’s comments, while Rosie Duffield criticises Keir Starmer
Q: Do you agree with Kemi Badenoch that some cultures are less valid than others?
Jenrick says culture matters. But he says he disagres with Badenoch on immigration numbers. He says he thinks you have to have a cap on numbers. And he also says he believes the UK has to leave the European convention on human rights. He says Badenoch is just talking about developing a plan in a few years time, and that’s “a recipe for infighting and for losing the public’s trust”.
Continue reading...Leadership contender’s team in damage control mode after she is criticised for saying burden on business is ‘excessive’
Kemi Badenoch’s campaign was in damage control mode on the first day of Conservative party conference, as rival candidates criticised comments she made on maternity pay, saying the burden on business was “excessive” and that people should exercise more “personal responsibility”.
Badenoch, the frontrunner among party members in the four-way contest, was forced to twice clarify the comments and emphasise that she “of course” believed in maternity pay. But the comments were seized upon by other candidates, who distanced themselves from Badenoch’s words.
Continue reading...A surge in claims for pension credit will make thousands more people eligible for the payments and other benefits
Rachel Reeves has been warned that her cut to pensioner winter fuel payments risks saving hundreds of millions less than anticipated, in a new blow to her attempts to close the hole in Britain’s finances.
The chancellor and her Treasury team are already re-examining parts of a plan to crack down on non-dom tax status over concerns that it may not raise any money.
Continue reading...Prime minister hopes to use talks with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen this week to prepare for a reset in the spring
Keir Starmer will use a meeting with the European Commission president this week to pave the way for a springtime overhaul of Britain’s Brexit deal, amid warnings that closer ties will be essential in his government’s desperate search for growth.
The prime minister will meet Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Wednesday. However, it comes with home secretary Yvette Cooper still vehemently opposed to an agreement that would allow young people to move more freely between Europe and the UK – a measure that EU diplomats regard as key to unlocking more serious talks in the spring.
Continue reading...‘Economically illiterate’ Defra letter sent to anti-sewage groups cites 2018 report commissioned by water companies
Labour used “economically illiterate” analysis paid for by water companies in order to argue against the nationalisation of the sector, the Guardian can reveal.
In an official letter recently sent to anti-sewage groups, civil servants cited a paper by the Social Market Foundation as a reason to avoid nationalisation as part of its review of the sector. The report from 2018 was commissioned by United Utilities, Anglian Water, Severn Trent and South West Water.
Continue reading...Latest Opinium poll for the Observer shows Labour leader got the opposite of a ‘bounce’ from Liverpool party conference
Keir Starmer’s personal ratings dropped further during his first Labour conference as prime minister, according to the latest Opinium poll for the Observer.
While party leaders hope for a conference bounce as a result of wall-to-wall media coverage, Starmer suffered the reverse effect, as his ratings plunged to their lowest ever level, and well below those of Rishi Sunak.
Continue reading...Politician cites ‘cruel and unnecessary policies’ as she lambasts prime minister’s ‘managerial and technocratic approach’
A Labour MP has resigned from the parliamentary party after criticising Keir Starmer’s “cruel and unnecessary” policies and lambasting the prime minister’s “managerial and technocratic approach” to politics.
In a furious letter announcing her decision, Rosie Duffield, the Canterbury MP, said she felt relief in making the decision. She said the row over freebies handed to Starmer and his top team demonstrated that “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale”.
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