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...Health secretary is examining case for a comprehensive plan for England to tackle UK’s second-biggest killer
Wes Streeting may revive the use of a dedicated cancer strategy to tackle the UK’s second biggest killer after experts warned the Conservatives’ scrapping of it was “a disaster” for patients.
The health secretary is considering publishing a new comprehensive plan for England, amid record numbers of people being diagnosed with the disease and NHS cancer services struggling to meet demand.
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...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...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...‘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”.
Continue reading...Early years experts warn of lack of staff, playgrounds and toilets
Primary schools may not have enough space, specialist facilities or staff to deliver the 100,000 new nursery places in England that the government has promised, early childhood experts have warned.
Labour is under intense pressure to create enough places to fulfil its promise of 30 hours of free childcare a week for eligible parents of children from the age of nine months to three years from next September – a commitment inherited from the previous government.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Donations worth £10,000 in October 2023 and £6,000 in February 2024 bring gifted clothes total to £32,000
Keir Starmer was given a further £16,000 worth of clothes by the Labour peer Waheed Alli, which was declared as money for his private office, the Guardian can reveal.
The donations, comprising £10,000 in October 2023 and £6,000 in February 2024, bring the total amount in gifted clothes to £32,000.
Continue reading...Suggestion would allow government to divert money earmarked for new roads to rail and other public transport
Campaign groups have urged the government to cancel major road building schemes including the Lower Thames Crossing, amid growing speculation that ministers could divert money earmarked for new roads into rail and other public transport.
The transport secretary, Louise Haigh, is due to decide in a week whether to sign off a development consent order [DCO] for the £9bn road crossing linking Essex and Kent.
Continue reading...PM says the public can make their own judgments about gifts and maintains no rules have been broken
Keir Starmer has said the row over him borrowing Labour donor Waheed Alli’s luxury flat for filming was “farcical” and that the public would come to their own judgments about his reasons for taking support from the peer.
The prime minister sought to downplay the row over the flat when he was asked about his gifts from the Labour peer while on a trip to New York, after weeks of questions about receiving clothing, spectacles and temporary use of a £18m penthouse from Alli.
Continue reading...The billionaire owner of X has reportedly not been invited to Labour’s international investment summit next month
Sunder Katwala, director of British Future, a thinktank specialising in race and identity issues, says that it is “courageous” for Kemi Badenoch to endorse Elon Musk as enthusiastically as she has done. (See 9.55am.) As he explains, he is using “courageous” in the Yes Minister sense, as a synonym for rash or unwise.
But Katwala is citing polling about the views of Conservative party voters. It is hard to know what Conservative party members think, because they are harder to poll, and so less polling is available, and they are the group that will ultimately elect the next Tory leader. If their views align with the views of Reform UK voters, then her stance on Musk might help her.
Continue reading...Stephen Schwarzman’s Blackstone Group will fund data centre bringing 4,000 jobs to north-east England
Keir Starmer is set to announce the creation of a £10bn AI datacentre, bringing 4,000 jobs to north-east England, which will be funded by a private equity firm run by a big Donald Trump supporter.
The prime minister is due to host chief executives in New York on Thursday, where he is trying to drum up interest in foreign investment into the UK. He will hail the investment in an “artificial intelligence datacentre” – due to be built in Blyth in Northumberland by Blackstone – as a “vote of confidence in the UK”.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Watchdog may conclude that emigration of wealthy individuals could actually cost Treasury revenue
Keir Starmer’s promised tax crackdown on non-doms could yield no extra funds for the Treasury, leaving a £1bn hole in the government’s planned spending for schools and hospitals.
Labour planned to use the money raised from wealthy individuals who are registered overseas for tax purposes to invest in ailing public services.
But the Guardian understands that Treasury officials fear estimates due to be released by the government’s spending watchdog may suggest the policy will fail to raise any money because of the impact of the super-rich non-domiciles leaving the UK.
Continue reading...Labour party delegates expected to condemn decision to means-test winter fuel payments as prime minister says Conservatives should apologise
One of the most significant passages in Keir Starmer’s conference speech yesterday was the passage where he talked about trade-offs in politics, and how it was important to tell people that to achieve positive outcomes, they sometimes had to accept consequences they might not like.
Speaking to reporters on his flight to New York, Starmer said this was something politicians did not talk about enough. Talking about his speech, he said:
It’s the first [conference] we’ve had for 15 years with Labour in government, but also really importantly, the first big opportunity to say not only what are we doing – the sort of ‘what did we inherit’, the doom and gloom if you like, and the immediate difficult decisions – but also why are we doing it …
I’m convinced that if we take the difficult decisions now, we can get to where we need to. So that was part of it.
Under the plans, teams of leading clinicians are being sent to hospitals to roll out their reforms and get patients treated faster.
Top doctors who have developed new ways of working are delivering up to four times more operations than normal. Operating theatres at Guys and St Thomas’s in London run like a formula one pit stop to cut time between procedures.
Continue reading...Labour leader says there should be more support to help people back into jobs, vowing to do ‘everything we can to tackle worklessness’
People who have been on long-term sickness leave and claiming benefits will need get back into the workplace “where they can”, Keir Starmer has said.
The prime minister said he wants more schemes across the country that support people back into work from long-term sickness because he believes in the “basic proposition that you should look for work”.
Continue reading...As the budget looms, where the party stands on investment in the UK economy, workers’ rights and more
For a second year running, corporate Britain descended on Liverpool for Labour’s annual conference, in an event so packed with executives that some insiders joke the socialist gathering has developed into a full-blown “Davos on the Mersey”.
Like last year, the exhibition and conference fringe had sponsored events, lounge areas and advertising from exhibitors including Gatwick, National Grid, Ikea and Specsavers. This year, however, business leaders were looking for clues about how Labour will govern after July’s election landslide.
Continue reading...PM hopes to meet both candidates on US trip but attempt to see Trump undermined by Home Office minister saying he had emboldened racists in UK
Keir Starmer has said he wants to meet Kamala Harris and Donald Trump before the US election, as he declined to back one of his ministers who said the Republican candidate had contributed to racist rhetoric in the UK.
The prime minister said he was hoping to find time with both candidates as he travelled to New York for the United Nations general assembly – his third trip to the US since taking office.
Continue reading...PM tells Labour conference he will not con people with false hope but says difficult trade-offs will help bring ‘national renewal’
Britain can become a country of pride, wealth and stability if the public accepts a series of difficult “trade-offs”, rejects nimbyism and sees through the Conservatives’ populist “lies”, Keir Starmer has said.
In his first Labour conference speech as prime minister, he urged the public to keep faith amid difficult and sometimes unpopular choices made by the government, telling them he understood their impatience for real change.
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