Badenoch and Jenrick spar over visions for future of Tory party in TV debate

Jenrick pledges to ‘end the drama’, while Badenoch calls his plan to exit ECHR ‘a distraction from bigger worries’

Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick have attacked each other’s visions for the future of the Conservative party, in a sometimes low-key debate which could nonetheless prove significant in who becomes the next opposition leader.

The event on GB News, the only debate scheduled, involved the pair taking turns to tackle questions from audience members rather than going head to head, but featured notable differences of opinion on strategy and policies such as immigration.

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Labour backtracks on push for genocide ruling on China’s treatment of Uyghurs

Exclusive: Party drops plan for formal recognition laid out last year by David Lammy, who will visit Beijing on Friday

Labour has backtracked on plans to push for formal recognition of China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as genocide in the run-up to David Lammy’s trip to the country this weekend.

The foreign secretary is expected to arrive in Beijing on Friday for high-level meetings before travelling to Shanghai on Saturday.

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Millionaire business owners urge Rachel Reeves to raise £14bn from rise in capital gains tax

Group of wealthy investors argue it would have no impact on investment in the UK and would raise vital funds for public services

Rachel Reeves has been urged by a group of millionaire business owners to raise £14bn from an increase in capital gains tax at this month’s budget, arguing it would have no impact on investment in Britain.

Ahead of the chancellor’s set-piece event on 30 October, the group of wealthy investors said increasing the tax rate on asset disposals would help to raise vital funds for public services and would not lead to slower economic growth.

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Great British Energy can become a major power generator, says its chair

Jürgen Maier’s vision for company includes the potential to borrow its own money in order to rival multinationals

Britain’s new national energy company will eventually become a major power generator, running its own windfarms, tidal power and carbon capture schemes and potentially borrowing its own money, according to its new chair.

Jürgen Maier, the chair of Great British Energy (GBE), told the Guardian in an interview that his vision for the company far outstrips its current scope and would put it on a par with multinational firms such as Denmark’s Ørsted or Sweden’s Vattenfall.

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UK asylum backlog lower since Rwanda plan scrapped, figures show

Refugee Council says nearly 120,000 people await case processing with 63,000 set to be granted asylum by Labour government

Nearly 63,000 people who were waiting for their cases to be processed at the time of the general election are expected to be granted asylum by the Labour government, an analysis has found.

The Refugee Council said the government’s decision to scrap the plan to deport people to Rwanda and accelerate claims meant the asylum backlog was forecast to be 118,063 at the start of 2025 – 59,000 cases lower than if the government had continued with the policy.

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Cabinet ministers contest chancellor’s planned cuts to their departments

Rachel Reeves aims to find £40bn in budget but several ministers have written to Keir Starmer about spending cuts

Cabinet ministers have pushed back against planned cuts to their departments in the upcoming budget, with several writing to Keir Starmer to contest them.

Several are understood to have shared their concerns at the likelihood of deep cuts to unprotected departments such as housing and transport.

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PMQs live: Keir Starmer faces Rishi Sunak in the Commons

Latest PMQs comes as sources say chancellor is briefing ministers that £40bn will need to be found in the budget

Robert Jenrick has finished his speech, and he is now taking questions.

Q: Kemi Badenoch says she is Labour’s worst nightmare. Is she right?

I think that our party faces an existential challenge right now. Our party has no divine right to exist. That’s why we need to get the choice right in this leadership election, and that’s why I stand for ending the drama, ending the excuses, and actually delivering for the British people.

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Surprise fall in UK inflation badly timed for benefit recipients

Payments such as universal credit linked to previous September’s figure, meaning a rise of just 1.7% in April

Last month’s surprise fall in UK inflation lands with bad timing for millions of people who receive state benefits linked to the figure, who can now expect their payments to rise by just 1.7% next April.

A number of benefits, including universal credit, are increased each tax year in line with the cost of living figure for the previous September.

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UK inflation falls below 2% for first time since 2021 in boost to Rachel Reeves

Surprise annual drop to 1.7% in September raises chance of interest rate cuts, increasing budget leeway

Inflation in the UK has fallen to its lowest level in three and a half years, giving a pre-budget boost to Rachel Reeves as expectations grow for the Bank of England to cut interest rates.

Figures from the Office for National Statistics show the consumer prices index dropped sharply to 1.7%, down from 2.2% in August, in a bigger fall than anticipated in financial markets, driven by lower air fares and petrol prices.

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David Lammy urged to raise human rights concerns on China trip

Exclusive: Group of UK MPs says foreign secretary must ‘engage with China as it really is’ amid rapprochement drive

David Lammy must “engage with China as it really is under the leadership of Xi Jinping” and raise human rights concerns during his trip to the country, UK parliamentarians who have been hit with sanctions by Beijing have said.

The foreign secretary is expected to hold high-level meetings in China this week. The visit forms part of an effort by Labour to improve relations with China after they deteriorated under successive Conservative governments. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, plans to travel to the country next year and restart high-level economic dialogue.

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Keir Starmer met Taylor Swift at Wembley concert, No 10 confirms

Source says backstage ‘brush-by’ did not include discussion of VIP protection given to star, a decision made by Scotland Yard

Keir Starmer met Taylor Swift at one of her London concerts days after a decision was taken to grant her a “blue light” police escort, No 10 sources have confirmed.

The prime minister and his family had a 10-minute meeting with the pop megastar and her mother, Andrea, backstage at Wembley on 20 August, with the conversation covering the Southport murders, which took place at a Swift-themed holiday club.

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Rachel Reeves tells cabinet UK still faces £100bn black hole over next five years

Chancellor’s words will be interpreted as signal she will not give in to ministers over cuts she imposes in budget

Rachel Reeves has told the cabinet that the UK still faces a £100bn black hole in the public finances over the next five years amid concerns that ministers are yet to grasp the full scale of the fiscal deficit ahead.

At a meeting of the political cabinet, the chancellor said the £22bn gap this year – which the government has blamed on their poor economic inheritance from the Tories – would be a recurring cost each year of this parliament.

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Alan Milburn to be given lead role in Labour’s health ministry

Move reignites row over Labour figures with private interests having access to government

Wes Streeting is to hand Alan Milburn a lead role in the running of his health ministry, in a move that has reignited the row over Labour figures with private interests having access to government.

The health secretary is preparing to appoint Milburn, who was a radical reformer of the NHS in his time in that post under Tony Blair, as the lead non-executive director of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

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Who are the key New Labour figures in Keir Starmer’s government?

The PM is surrounded by Blairites, from Pat McFadden and Liz Kendall to Jacqui Smith and Jonathan Powell

In the run-up to the general election, Keir Starmer was regularly compared to Tony Blair. When the parallels were highlighted by the left, they were often intended as insults. When they came from the Labour right, particularly after the landslide result, they were compliments.

Starmer has mirrored Blair so far in his ruthlessness towards his own party, his efforts to build relationships with business and his pursuit of public service reform. But he is also more cautious, less seduced by glitz and more to the soft-left in his own views.

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UK imposes sanctions on seven groups that support West Bank settlers

Foreign Office declines to penalise two Israeli ministers as ex-foreign secretary David Cameron had planned

The UK Foreign Office has announced sanctions against seven organisations that support illegal Israeli settlers in the West Bank, but held back from penalising two extremist members of the Israeli government as the former foreign secretary David Cameron had been planning.

Cameron told the BBC on Tuesday that he had intended to impose sanctions on Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, and the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and said he was concerned that the Labour government had not adopted his proposal. He said he had only held back from taking the step in the spring because he had been advised that it would be too political during the general election.

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Unemployed could be given weight-loss jabs to get back to work, says Wes Streeting

Health secretary announces trials to assess impact of medicines such as Ozempic or Mounjaro on worklessness

New weight-loss jabs could be given to unemployed people to help them get back into work, Wes Streeting has suggested.

The health secretary said “widening waistbands” were placing a burden on the NHS.

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Badenoch accused of ‘stigmatising’ autism and mental health issues in comments over support – UK politics live

The Tory leadership contender came under fire from a former cabinet colleague over her comments in a foreword to an essay

More than 100 venues are backing Martyn’s law to help protect the public from terror attacks, ahead of the second reading of the terrorism (protection of premises) bill in the House of Commons today.

Parts of the bill are named for Martyn Hett, 29, who was killed along with 21 other people when suicide bomber Salman Abedi attacked the Manchester Arena in 2017 at the close of an Ariana Grande concert.

Certainly I feel this is the beginning of the end of the campaign, although there’s a bit to go still. But, yeah, I can see it’s coming to fruition now, finally.

Martyn’s law is never meant to be punitive or onerous, like some people may suggest; it literally is very proportionate.

It depends on the size of the venue, and it’s obviously in two tiers as well, and the standard tier is actually far less restrictions than the bigger venues, 800-plus, who may have to put more stringent measures in place.

One Home Office adviser said the contract notice was signed off while the immigration minister was … Robert Jenrick himself. They argued that his plans would’ve cost nearly £200 million more, over a shorter, six-year period, and lacked the break clauses that the government has now included. Another Labour official added: “It seems Jenrick has lost his memory as well as all that weight.”

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Shares in UK gambling firms fall £3bn amid talk of higher taxes in budget

Thinktank reports saying sector should be hit with extra £900m to £3bn in levies prompts market selloff

Shares in British gambling companies have dropped sharply, reducing the stock market value of large operators by more than £3bn, after the Guardian reported that Treasury officials could tap the sector for between £900m and £3bn in extra taxes.

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has come under pressure from two influential thinktanks to raise taxes on the industry, as she pulls every available lever to plug a £22bn “black hole” in the nation’s finances.

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Elon Musk was not barred from UK investment summit, says cabinet minister

SpaceX owner would be invited in future if he had investment streams the UK could bid for, says Peter Kyle

Elon Musk would be welcome at future UK investment summits if and when he had investment programmes the UK could bid for, a cabinet minister has said before a major business event in London.

The remarks came as a group of private ­equity firms, insurers and tech firms joined five major banks in writing a joint letter saying it was “time to invest in Britain”, in a boost for Keir Starmer, who was opening the event on Monday.

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Alex Salmond normalised concept of Scottish independence as he led SNP to power

Former first minister established party as a political force but questions later emerged about influence he wielded

Alex Salmond cemented his place in British political history in May 2011 when he and the Scottish National party did something extraordinary.

They won an overall majority at Holyrood, under a proportional system designed to promote coalitions, not one party’s domination. With the SNP winning 69 of Holyrood’s 129 seats, the result delivered two things that defined Salmond’s legacy.

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