Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The troubled Northern rail franchise faces financial collapse within months, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has said, as the government set out a timetable to tackle the “unacceptable services” for rail passengers in the north. My colleague Gwyn Topham has the full story here.
Nadia Whittome, the new Labour MP for Nottingham East, also says she is going to nominate Clive Lewis for Labour leader without necessarily planning to vote for him because she wants his ideas to be part of the debate. Lloyd Russell-Moyle is in this position too. (See 1.55pm.)
I haven't decided who I'll endorse but Clive's steadfast commitment to migrants' rights, and electoral reform and party democracy proposals, must be part of the debate.
Shadow business secretary secretary criticises the party’s strategy in last month’s disastrous election
Rebecca Long Bailey has announced that she is standing to become leader of the Labour party with a stout defence of Jeremy Corbyn’s political programme in the general election.
Widely seen as the favoured candidate of the left of the party, the MP for Salford and Eccles announced her candidacy on Monday night with a piece criticising the party’s election strategy and lack of narrative. She promised to defend policies within the party’s current socialist programme with “unwavering determination” in the article for Tribune magazine.
Ian Murray, Labour’s only surviving MP in Scotland, is preparing to enter the contest to become Labour’s deputy leader on a platform of constitutional reform and countering nationalism.
Murray, an arch critic of Jeremy Corbyn’s and an opponent of Brexit, is expected to signal his intention to run tomorrow after being asked to stand by other Labour MPs. His plans to run are thought to depend on getting sufficient early nominations, but it would fuel the brewing conflict between the party’s pro-Corbyn wing and its centrists.
There are no doubts that constitutional and nationalist issues are engulfing our politics. I have the experience and knowledge of dealing with both, and the Labour party has ducked this issue for too long. English nationalism from the Tories and Scottish nationalism from the SNP are squeezing the Labour Party and we must stop it.
[The] danger for our party across the UK is what I have been warning of since 2015. If we don’t tackle the big constitutional issues with reference to our own values and the national interest, then we lose our core purpose.
After listening to Angela Rayner’s speech this morning, my colleague Kate Proctor concluded it was hard to see why she was running for the deputy Labour leadership when she might be a strong candidate for leader. (See 12.23pm.) It is not hard to see why. It’s a good speech, with some compelling lines and a superb opening.
Here is the opening.
I wanted to make this speech here, on the estate where I grew up and lived for most of my life.
I talk about my background because for too long I felt I wasn’t good enough; I felt ashamed of who I was. It took me time for that shame to turn into pride.
We fell into the trap of describing a platform of revolutionary change. By the standards of recent politics, it was, and rightly so.
But actually, we could have told a simpler story.
Many of the friends I grew up with, my own family even, voted to leave the EU.
They felt like we treated them as embarrassing aunts or uncles.
There are also lines beyond which there is no dialogue and no compromise possible.
And the first line in the sand is antisemitism.
Nor should we take for granted the new voters we have won over, any more than we should have done those we have lost.
For all that’s said about London, we made no net advance in seats there either. We faced a fight to hold others like Dagenham and Rainham - a place that, like my own constituency, has so much to gain from a Labour government, but where too many people felt our party had lost touch with them.
Across Europe social democratic parties are collapsing.
The once mighty German SPD, the biggest and oldest social democratic party in the world is on 11 percent
I don’t pretend that I have all the answers. That is the point of being a collectivist. That by the strength of our common endeavour, we achieve more than we do alone.
That final sentence is a quote from the new Clause IV introduced by Tony Blair.
I owe much of my life to Labour.
The Labour governments that provided the welfare state, Sure Start, and the minimum wage, which gave me the help I needed to not just survive but succeed.
The party’s defeat was a debacle, but was part of a global trend. Now leadership hopefuls must say how they would buck it
British exceptionalism – the myth that Britain is uniquely different to its European neighbours – afflicts everything from our understanding of our place in the world to our domestic political situation. The rise of Scottish nationalism, the rightwing populist surge, Brexit, Corbynism: all are seen through the confines of the UK’s borders. And so it goes for Labour’s catastrophic electoral rout. But it does not detract from the party’s own failure to understand the broader context: across the continent and even the world, social democracy and the so-called political centre are in crisis.
MP to join Clive Lewis and Emily Thornberry in race to succeed Jeremy Corbyn
Jess Phillips is due to announce she will stand as a candidate in the Labour leadership contest, it is understood.
The Birmingham Yardley MP will join Emily Thornberry and Clive Lewis as confirmed candidates. Others including Rebecca Long Bailey, Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy are expected to join the race formally in the coming days.
YouGov poll shows Starmer in lead to head party over nearest rival Rebecca Long-Bailey
Sir Keir Starmer, the favourite to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, has called for the party to become a “trusted force for good” as up to nine rival candidates consider whether to stand next week.
The shadow Brexit secretary is seen as the candidate to beat following a YouGov poll showing he has a commanding lead over nearest rival and Corbyn ally Rebecca Long-Bailey, the shadow business secretary.
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
The process to strip Northern rail of its franchise has begun after years of poor performance, Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has said. My colleague Rajeev Syal has the full story here.
The YouGov figures showing how votes might get redistributed in a Labour leadership contest (see 10.21am) are worth studying because they show that some assumptions about how people might use their second preference votes might be wrong.
For example, you might think that anyone backing Emily Thornberry would be inclined to opt for Sir Keir Starmer as their next choice because he’s another strongly pro-European north London senior lawyer who performs well in the Commons. But the YouGov figures suggest Rebecca Long Bailey would pick up almost as many Thornberry votes as Starmer in the first instance.
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen
In her Guardian articleRebecca Long-Bailey says she will be supporting Angela Rayner for deputy Labour leader. Rayner, the shadow education secretary, has been tipped as a Labour leadership candidate herself but, as the Guardian reported two weeks ago, after the election her allies said she was focusing on the deputy leadership vacancy, leading to speculation that she and Long-Bailey would run on a joint ticket.
But last night’s Sky’s Sam Coates said that Long-Bailey’s comment was premature, because Rayner is not yet ready to announce that she is running for the deputy leadership.
NEW: Flatmate Fury?
Tonight Rebecca Long Bailey announced she's backing flatmate Angela Rayner as deputy
- Rayner hasn't announced candidacy
- Rayner isn't endorsing RLB this side of the new year - perhaps never. She will make announcements after Wed
Aren't they talking?
I understand Angela Rayner is going to have more discussions with colleagues this week and make an announcement either way (about endorsing RLB back) soon in the new year.
(Whispers) Could Angela Rayner still be considering a tilt at the top job #flatmatefrenemies
I’m describing Clive Lewis as a Labour leadership candidate because he has confirmed that he wants to run, as has Emily Thornberry. Sir Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey also seem all but certain to run. Other people who are seriously considering running, or who at least have not ruled it out, are: Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips, Yvette Cooper, Ian Lavery, David Lammy and Dan Jarvis.
But it is worth pointing out that, to be a candidate on the ballot paper, it is not enough for an MP just to declare that they are standing. They also need the support of 10% of Labour MPs (ie, 21 MPs). It used to be 15%, but the threshold was lowered after Jeremy Corbyn’s election as leader. Under the new rules, candidates also need the support of 5% of constituency Labour parties (CLPs) to be included on the ballot (that’s 33 of them), or 5% of the union/affiliates vote. Luke Akehurst has a more detailed guide to the new rules here, in an article for Politics.co.uk.
Exclusive: shadow Brexit secretary calls for end to party infighting and return to being a ‘broad church’
Keir Starmer has set out his pitch for the Labour leadership with a call for his party not to lurch to the right as a result of last week’s devastating election result.
While the leadership race has not yet formally been launched, the shadow Brexit secretary confirmed to the Guardian that, as widely expected in Westminster, he was “seriously considering” running to succeed Jeremy Corbyn.
Party leader has stressed benefits of immigration, but some fear policy could hurt Labour in Tory seats
Labour activists are urging Jeremy Corbyn to incorporate the radical pro-migration policy passed at the party’s conference into its manifesto this week as the Tories prepare to weaponise the issue in the election battle.
Senior Labour figures are expected to meet on Monday to thrash out the details of the party’s policy, but a final decision will not be made until next weekend.