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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Cleverly, Badenoch and Jenrick stay in Tory leadership race as Tugendhat knocked out – as it happened

UK in a Changing Europe Sir Keir Starmer the Conservative Party
Composite of Tory leadership contenders(L-R): James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick
Composite of Tory leadership contenders (L-R): James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Early evening summary

  • Greenpeace UK has welcomed the news that John Woodcock (Lord Walney) is no longer serving as the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption. (See 2.59pm.) In a statement the group’s co-executive director Areeba Hamid said:

Lord Walney’s chief contribution as the government’s ‘anti-extremism’ adviser was to come up with a series of absurd proposals on how to criminalise peaceful protest. As our overcrowded prisons fill up with climate protesters, some facing longer terms than violent criminals, it’s clear that the last thing ministers need is more of the same advice from him.

  • Boris Johnson has been ridiculed for claiming that he had to embark on a controvesial, and expensive, refurbishment of the 11 Downing Street flat when he was PM because it “looked like a crack den”. His predecessor in the flat was Theresa May, and on social media various people have pointed out that she’s not the type to live like that. This is from Christian Calgie from the Express.

And this is from the Tory peer Daniel Finkelstein.

But, according to the LBC transcript, Johnson actually said:

Frankly, once I pulled the carpets out of the flat in Number 11, which is where we lived, because Dylan was then in the stages of being — the whole thing was looking a bit like a crack den to be totally honest, and it needed to be refurbished.

Johnson was referring to Dylan, his dog, being housetrained, and he seems to be admitting he personally made the flat a mess, by tearing out the carpets.

Keir Starmer is now about as unpopular as Nigel Farage, according to polling released by YouGov today.

Updated

Here is some more commentary on the result of the ballot for the Tory leadership.

From Daniel Finkelstein, the Tory peer and and Times columnist

This was broadly (as Times colleagues know) what I thought would happen today. Although it looks close between second & third, I think Kemi has an advantage. Few of Tugendhat’s voters will go to Jenrick & Cleverly can’t spare any votes to help him (he’d be the weaker opponent).

From Christopher Hope from GB News

Interesting that 120 out of 121 Conservative MPs voted.
Given that Rishi Sunak definitely did NOT vote it means that chairman Richard Fuller has voted (he didn’t in the past two rounds).
It also raises possibility that the candidates could be tied at 40 votes each tomorrow…

There is precedent for a tie in a Tory leadership ballot. It happened in 2001, when the late Michael Ancram and David Davis were tied in last place. There was no provision in the rules for what should happen, and so Michael Spicer, the 1922 Committee chair, ordered a rerun the following day, with the proviso that both candidates would drop out if they were tied again. But on the second vote Ancram was eliminated.

From Esther Webber from Politico

Feels like this could (just about) be good news for Kemi - Tugendhat having recently beefed with Jenrick, while Cleverly’s backers might also be keen to see off Jenrick

From Tom Harwood from GB News

Tomorrow will be absolutely fascinating.

So many dynamics at play:
Is there still a ‘stop Kemi’ vote?
Has hardline ECHR position damaged Jenrick with MPs?
Do Tugendhat MPs who want Cleverly try to be ‘clever’ and back a different candidate attempting to engineer an easier final?

Scotland's mental health minister accepts serious staffing problems in NHS psychiatry

Scotland’s mental health minister has said there is “absolutely no doubt” there is a serious staffing crisis in NHS psychiatry which has led to record spending on locums, which hit £35m last year.

An investigation by the Guardian and BBC Scotland revealed on Monday that Scotland’s NHS boards have spent £134m on locum psychiatrists over the last five years, largely drawn from recruitment agencies and private health companies.

Maree Todd was challenged about the findings by Edward Mountain, from the Scottish Conservatives, and Paul Sweeney, from Scottish Labour, at Holyrood on Tuesday afternoon.

Mountain said the data, which established that spending on locums and emergency cover was increasing year on year, showed mental health services were “at breaking point” and the consequence of poor work-force planning.

Sweeney said the response to the staffing crisis was “an extortionate sticking plaster of spending over £130m on locum psychiatrists”, with boards paying up to £837 an hour to plug the gaps. “Is the minister’s idea of a robust NHS workforce strategy, anything resembling that sort of figure?”

Todd said she is “absolutely in no doubt” there were recruitment challenges in NHS psychiatry and “certainly” accepted concerns that some locums were paid to do online consultations from outside the UK, including one who dialled in from India.

“I am absolutely aware of the challenges which exist across the workforce and which can be particularly marked in more remote and rural areas,” she said, adding that as a former mental health nurse for NHS Highlands, she was acutely aware of the problem.

She said Neil Gray, the Scottish health secretary, was meeting the Royal College of Psychiatrists on Thursday to discuss the staffing crisis, while several working groups had been formed to investigate longer-term solutions, on improved recruitment of psychiatrists and on the extensive use of locums.

Todd said medical school psychiatry places were full and significant sums being spent across mental health services in the NHS. She added:

There is undoubtedly a rise in demand that we have seen in some parts of the country. These are pressures which could not have been predicted. So that relates to the reduction in stigma associated with these causes, but it undoubtedly adds to the challenge in managing the current situation.

Sunder Katwala, head of the British Future thinktank, has posted some interesting number-crunching on tomorrow’s vote on social media.

40 votes *guarantees* a top two place. But how many it takes to finish second depends on what the leader gets. Eg, if Cleverly got 50 votes (+11) then 36 votes (secure 5-6 of 10 votes) would be enough to secure second place

Cleverly 39
Jenrick 31
Badenoch 30
[Tugendhat 20]

Eg, hypothetically, If Cleverly was net +20 then 31 votes would be enough for second place.

The two paths to secure second place are to win a higher share of Tom T voters and/or to make a net gain of direct switchers from your rival (eg Jenrick to Badenoch voters)

On the arithmetic, if all of the Tugendhat votes split +10 each to Jenrick and Badenoch, they would then both knock Cleverly out, 41-40-39!

Obviously, this isn’t going to happen politically, but the mathematic threshold to guarantee qualification is 40 rather than 39!

Technically 41 now to *guarantee* a top two slot now that 120 MPs out of 121 are voting rather than 118, 119 in the first two ballots

Team Cleverly would need a clear number of Tom T pledges to be in a position to consider starting to meddle in who his opponent is.

It makes more sense to just try to maximise votes and momentum - and let other MPs mess around at the margin if they want to.

Tory right needs to unite behind Kemi Badenoch, her team argues

According to Hugo Gye from the i, the Robert Jenrick camp is arguing that he should be in the final ballot because he has support from all wings of the party.

Jenrick campaign source: “Robert is now in prime position to make the final two. MPs want seriousness and competence. That’s why he’s won support from across the party so far - from Danny Kruger on the right to Vicky Atkins on the left.”

But the Kemi Badenoch camp is arguing that rightwingers need to unite behind her as the candidate for the right, he says.

Badenoch campaign source: “There are three candidates left in this contest, two are gaining votes and one is going backwards and losing support. The right of the Conservative Party now needs to coalesce around Kemi.”

James Cleverly and Kemi Badenoch have both posted messages on social media paying tribute to Tom Tugendhat.

Cleverly said:

@TomTugendhat is a close friend who I was privileged to work with at the Home Office. He ran a great campaign and will without doubt have a big role to play in our Party’s future.

And Badenoch said:

Commiserations to my friend @TomTugendhat. He ran a great campaign and led the debate on security and how we stand tall on the world stage in volatile times.

I’m pleased to have increased support and grateful to all of my colleagues who voted for me. This is a very tight race and I’ll continue fighting for every vote. It’s also clear from every independent poll and survey, the support from members for my @Renewal2030 campaign is surging.

And Tom Tugendhat has posted this about his defeat.

To everyone who backed our campaign - thank you!

Your energy, your ideas and your support have shown a vision of what our party could become.

Our campaign has ended but our commitment to our country continues.

James Cleverly has posted this about his victory in the third round ballot today.

I’m grateful to all my colleagues for their support today, and I’m pleased to be through to the next round.

The job’s not finished.

I’m excited to keep spreading our positive Conservative message.

Tory ballot snap analysis - how Cleverly and Badenoch now both have credible path to victory, while Jenrick's is closing

For much of the summer Robert Jenrick was the clear bookmaker’s favourite in the Tory leadership contest. Going back to a point before the general election, Kemi Badenoch was favourite for a long time, but the odds shifted when political insiders started to take the view she was unlikely to make the final ballot.

Even a week ago, at Conservative conference, Jenrick was still ahead. The big news, in polling terms, this time last week was that Jenrick had just about caught up with Kemi Badenoch in terms of popularity with members.

But the rise of James Cleverly (a distant third in the race this time last week) has been extraordinary. There were 16 votes up for grabs in the ballot this afternoon (MPs who voted for Mel Stride before he was eliminated). Cleverly’s vote went up by 18 – suggesting he could have picked up the entire Stride haul, and won over two extra people too. In reality, some of the Stride votes may have gone elsewhere, and there is likely to have been some churn (people who voted for one candidate last time switching to another). Still, it is close to a clean sweep.

Last week it was clear that Cleverly had “won” the final hustings by delivering the best speech on the final day. But I don’t think there were any commentators who realised on the day quite to what extent that speech would upend the race.

Now Cleverly and Badenoch both have a path to victory. For Jenrick, it is much harder.

A survey of Tory members by ConservativeHome at the weekend implies that, if Cleverly and Badenoch are on the final ballot, Badenoch will win narrowly. Here are the figures, which suggest she is ahead of him by 48% to 42%, with don’t knows at 9%. If Badenoch can make the final ballot tomorrow, by overtaking Jenrick, and if she can hold this lead with members, she can win.

Cleverly’s best chance of becoming leader would involve going into a final ballot against Jenrick. These figures suggest he would win quite easily, as they put him on 54% against Jenrick’s 36%. That means Cleverly supporters may be tempted to lend votes to Jenrick to get him over the line tomorrow. This happened in 2019, when Boris Johnson wanted to be up against Jeremy Hunt, not Michael Gove, in the final ballot. But it’s a risky enterprise.

For Jenrick, there is no obvious route to victory as things stand now.

Of course, a survey is just a survey and, as the last week has shown, in an electoral contest people change their mind about the candidates. Perhaps Jenrick could make the final two and turn things around. But today he’s trailing.

Here is some comment on the results from the latest Tory leadership ballot.

From my colleague Pippa Crerar

The 20 MPs who backed Tugendhat will now decide who to back in next round.
Many would assume James Cleverly as other more centrist candidate in race.
But they may have views on who they want him to go up against: Badenoch or Jenrick?

From ITV’s Robert Peston

Cleverly now a shoo-in to be in the ballot of Tory members, because most of Tugendhat’s 20 will transfer to him. The battle on the party’s right between Jenrick with 31 and Badenoch with 30 will be something to behold over the next 24 hours

From the Sunday Times’ Harry Yorke

Another Tory leadership contest producing quite the potential upset

Kemi Badenoch almost stationary but Jenrick has gone significantly backwards -- not something anyone was predicting before this afternoon

Cleverly soars ahead in Tory leadership contest, as Tugendhat voted out and Jenrick and Badenoch almost neck and neck

Here are the results.

James Cleverly: 39 (up 18 from last round)

Robert Jenrick: 31 (down 2)

Kemi Badenoch: 30 (up 2)

Tom Tugendhat: 20 (down 1)

Bob Blackman, chair of the Conservative 1922 Committee, is due to read out the results of today’s Tory leadership ballot shortly.

Labour was not ready for government, because of too much 'ambiguity' over how No 10 would operate, Mandelson says

Labour was not ready for government, in organisational terms, Peter Mandelson has said.

Speaking on the Times’ How to Win an Election podcast, Mandelson, who was a key fixer when New Labour was in government, said:

One of the problems for the Starmer administration is that there was an ambiguity about what the role of Number 10 was right at the beginning. And Keir had given a signal that he didn’t want to run a command and control Number 10 operation. He wanted to give more freedom, more autonomy to departments. He didn’t want to second guess everyone. He wanted to give people wriggle room. Well, I’m afraid that the great ship of state called the British Nation and Government doesn’t work like that.

[It] requires a very good, quite complex, quite sophisticated machine at Number 10. And the truth is that for all the preparation that was made for government by the Starmer team, it wasn’t done to the extent or in the way it should have been. There wasn’t enough sort of pinning down and agreement amongst everyone as to how it should operate. And once in government, you know, people’s different roles were not frankly communicated as they needed to be. So, it wasn’t all joined up, I’m afraid.

This is an implicit criticism of Sue Gray, who was replaced on Sunday as Starmer’s chief of staff. Gray was in charge of the transition into government when Labour was in opposition.

Mandelson also praised Morgan McSweeney, Gray’s replacement, saying he would be “a very hard taskmasker” for people working in No 10.

Morgan McSweeney, I believe, he’s the sort of person who knows what excellence is and he will insist on having the best people in the jobs. He will always be available to them. He will always counsel them. He will always give them advice, but he will expect them to get on with their jobs and to deliver. And if they do, they’ll be fine and safe. And if they don’t, then I’m afraid they will be out. He’s a very hard taskmaster.

The former Labour MP John Woodcock is no longer the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption, according to Adam Bienkov from Byline Times. The Home Office has confirmed that Woodcock has left the post.

Woodcock was elected a Labour MP in 2010 but he was very critical of Jeremy Corbyn when Corbyn was leader, left the party partly as a result of disciplinary proceedings that he said were politically motivated and at the time of the 2019 election urged people to vote for Boris Johnson, not Corbyn. He was subsequently given a peerage, as Lord Walney, and he became the political violence adviser in 2020.

In May this year he published a report with recommendations that were criticised as draconian. The then Conservative government only gave it a lukewarm reception, and Labour has not embraced the recommendations either.

Updated

In the Commons MPs are debating a Conservative opposition day motion criticising the government’s plan to impose VAT on school fees. This is one issue on which the Tories are united; all four leadership candidates have opposed the move, and said they want to reverse it.

The debate was opened by Damian Hinds, the shadow education secretary, who is not a leadership candidate.

Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, was criticised for a post on X where she justified the tax by referring to private schools cutting back on embossed stationery and swimming pools to help fund it.

Our state schools need teachers more than private schools need embossed stationery.

Our children need mental health support more than private schools need new pools.

Our students need careers advice more than private schools need AstroTurf pitches

The Conservative MP Graham Stuart said this was a “malicious and spiteful tweet” and he said James Murray, the Treasury minister speaking on behalf of the government, should apologise for it on Phillipson’s behalf.

But Murray replied:

I, nor any of my colleagues, will make any apology for wanting to improve state education across this country to make sure that the aspiration of every parent in our country to get the best possible education for their children can be fulfilled.

Updated

More in Common have now published their voting intention polling figures mentioned earlier. This is from Luke Tryl’s, its director, who also points out that the combined total for parties on the right (47% – Conservatives 28%, plus Reform UK 19%) is almost the same as the combined total for parties on the left (49% – Labour 29%, Lib Dems 11%, Greens 7% and SNP 2%).

Voters see Cleverly as Tory leadership candidate with best chance of becoming PM, poll suggests

James Cleverly is seen by voters as the Tory leadership candidate most likely to become prime minister, according to new polling by Ipsos..

In its write-up, Ipsos says:

When asked which leadership candidate would be most likely to become prime minister if they become Conservative leader, one in five Britons say James Cleverly (21%) marking a 7-point increase since late September 2024 before Conservative party conference. Robert Jenrick trails behind at 10%, with Tom Tugendhat and Kemi Badenoch at 7% each. The main shift here being between those saying don’t know (-6) and those saying Mr Cleverly is most likely (+7).

However, more than one in four still say they don’t know (27%) and 28% think none of the candidates are likely to become prime minister.

But the polling also suggests, as the public heard and read about the last four candidates in the contest while the Tory conference was happening, all of them saw their net favourability ratings with the public at large go down. Cleverly’s ratings only fell by 2 points, from -16 to -18. But Tom Tugendhat’s fell by 6 points, and Kemi Badenoch’s and Robert Jenrick’s both fell by 8 points.

On this measure, Badenoch is the most unpopular candidate, with a net favourability rating of -26, followed by Jenrick (-24), Tugendhat (-19) and Cleverly (-18).

Updated

Like many Guardian readers, including a lot of you BTL, Anushka Asthana, ITV’s political editor, is annoyed by reports that suggest Sue Gray’s departure is best understood as part of a boy’s club plot and Keir Starmer having a problem with women. She has posted these on social media.

Sorry to rant but the whole “boys club” thing irritates me. Of course there is a lot of focus on the Keir’s, Morgan’s and (admittedly numerous) Matt’s but as I’ve discovered Keir Starmer would NOT be PM without the senior women in the operation 1/

Firstly the entire campaign was field directed by a woman. Yeah yeah- totally true that they put two men in charge (don’t they so often!) but Hollie Ridley basically ran the mechanics of the campaign 2/

The strategy director was Deborah Mattinson, the now party chair Ellie Reeves was critical, and as for the new deputy chief of staffs- Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson … 3/

Ask anyone inside Labour and they’ll tell you that Jill Cuthbertson is about as powerful as they come. She was by Gordon Brown’s side in 2010 & Ed Miliband’s in 2015 and was beside Starmer’s at almost every key moment of campaign. She helped make Zelensky meet happen for eg 4/

The turnaround in the reputation with business (which was hard got and is now on shaky ground) was led by Vidhya Alakeson and Katie Martin (Rachel Reeves’ chief of staff) and the CX herself. Alakeson has run big organisations previously 5/

Obviously Sue Gray as chief of staff was also central to that (and her deputy- also a woman- Helene Reardon Bond) so its not surprising her supporters feel she’s been badly treated but they should blame the man who made decision not the women in the team!? 6/

I think the “boys club” does exist in links between boys on either side of the political and media fences - which means the roles of men are so often amplified (and obviously often with reason- I’ve written myself about McSweeney today) but it’s not true that it’s all men 7/

And for what it’s worth I’ve had more women moan about Sue Gray’s role than men. But also true that almost all these people- men & women- have been in Downing st from the start of this operation- so surely all carry blame for what has gone wrong? & Starmer ultimately in charge 8/

Btw that doesn’t mean I think Labour don’t have a woman leader problem - and I talk about this in my book. I’m sure the party- wanting to opt for “safe” option post 2019- at least in part saw Starmer as safe because as a man he was seen as more prime ministerial 9/

Anushka has got more about this in her new book about the election (reviewed here).

Updated

Keir Starmer did discuss the decision to replace Sue Gray as his chief of staff with Morgan McSweeney at cabinet this morning, the PM’s spokesperson told journalists at the lobby briefing. The spokesperson said:

He did briefly speak about the appointment made, consistently with the statement that was put out over the weekend… and in the context of the cabinet discussion on delivering for the country, delivering on the change that he was elected to deliver.

This morning the Times splashed on a story quoting unnamed government sources as saying that the removal of Gray would not solve all Starmer’s difficulties because the problems in No 10 go beyond an individual. In their story, Oliver Wright and Steven Swinford said a Gray ally was claiming “Gray had been the victim of an ‘out-of-control group’ of senior male advisers who felt threatened by her”.

Wright and Swinford report:

A Whitehall source said: “The dysfunction in Downing Street is not the fault of Sue. There are systemic issues which Starmer has not addressed. Just because she has now gone does not mean that things are going to improve.

“In some ways if you’re chief of staff all roads lead to your door and you can be blamed for everything. But in reality the ultimate responsibility lies with the prime minister.”

Another senior figure warned that Gray’s treatment by other staff in No 10 had already resulted in at least one senior woman deciding not to apply for the job as Starmer’s new cabinet secretary.

UK population up 1% to 68.3m, largest annual rise since 1971, largely due to net migration, ONS says

The UK population is estimated to have risen by 1.0% in the year to June 2023, the largest annual percentage increase since comparable data began in 1971, according to a report from the Office for National Statistics. In its report on the figures PA Media says:

Some 68,265,200 people were likely to have been resident in the UK in the middle of last year, up 662,400 from 67,602,800 12 months earlier.

The jump of 1.0% in the year to mid-2023 follows a rise of 0.9% in the year to mid-2022, according to the ONS.

It means the UK population is estimated to have increased by 1.28 million in the two years to mid-2023.

The rise of 662,400 in the 12 months to June 2023 is also the largest annual numerical increase since comparable data began in 1971.

Net international migration was the main contributor to the rise in population for all four countries of the UK in the year to mid-2023, the ONS said.

Asked about the figures at the Downing Street lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said Keir Starmer was determined to bring net migration down. The spokesperson said:

The PM and the home secretary have been clear that overall net migration does need to come down, and we should end the situation where legal migration is used as an alternative to tackling skill shortages in the UK.

And indeed, we’ve made announcements recently to achieve this, including the Migration Advisory Committee conducting annual assessments to highlight key sectors where labour market failures have led to rocketing overseas recruitment and the fact that rules around migrant sponsorship will be toughened to ensure employers guilty of flouting employment laws are banned from hiring from abroad.

Updated

No 10 dismisses claims borrowing costs going up because of concerns about budget plans

According a Financial Times report, the UK government’s borrowing costs have risen sharply, “fuelled by investor concerns about the Labour government’s budget, pushing the gap with Germany to the widest in more than a year”.

In their report, Ian Smith and Sam Fleming say:

With three weeks to go to Rachel Reeves’ first Budget, bondholders say the UK chancellor will have to walk a “tightrope” if she is to proceed with her borrowing and investment plans without triggering a gilt sell-off.

The spread between UK and German benchmark 10-year bond yields has already risen to 1.94 percentage points, its highest since August 2023, on worries Reeves will increase debt, as well as concerns about persistent inflation, investors say.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning the PM’s spokesperson said he did not accept the claim that uncertainty about what the government would do was pushing up borrowing costs. He said:

I wouldn’t accept that characterisation … One of the first steps of this government is to restore economic stability, The budget will absolutely deliver on that, delivering on the robust fiscal rules that were that were set out in the manifesto. That includes moving the current budget into balance, that includes debt as a share of the economy.

More broadly, the budget will be about fixing the foundations of the economy, delivering stability, because it’s only with economic stability that we’ll get the growth and investment that the economy needs, that public services need, and deliver the higher living standards for people across the country.

Graeme Wearden has more on the government’s rising borrowing costs on his business live blog.

The Department for Transport has today announced a £500m investment in zero-emission buses. In a new release it says:

Up to 500 UK manufacturing jobs are set to be supported as bus operator Go Ahead today announces a major £500m investment to decarbonise its fleet, including creating a new dedicated manufacturing line and partnership with Northern Ireland-based bus manufacturer Wrightbus.

The investment is set to fund the manufacturing of up to 1,200 new zero emission buses over the next 3 years. Built for operator Go Ahead, this investment will accelerate the transition to greener buses across the country including in Plymouth, Gloucestershire, East Yorkshire, London and the Isle of Wight.

The Tory leadership candidate James Cleverly attended freebie sports events twice last year accompanied by his wife, without saying she was there in the official declaration, Dave Burke reports in a story for the Mirror. Cleverly’s team told the paper the shadow home secretary always intended to be transparent, suggesting the mistake might have been made by officials unaware his wife attended when they filled in his ministerial declaration.

And, on the subject of difficulties for the government, polling from More in Common suggests the Labour lead over the Conservative party is now down to just 1 point, according to Politico’s London Playbook. It reports.

Labour’s lead over the Tories has fallen to just *1* point, according to a More in Common poll shared with Playbook. One point! The survey of 2,023 British adults has Labour on 29 percent, the Conservatives on 28, Reform UK on 19, the Lib Dems on 11 and Greens on 7. That historic landslide election victory suddenly feels an awfully long time ago.

Labour's Liam Byrne defends decision to delay budget until end of October, despite claims that's led to government drift

Yesterday Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former communictions chief, said a big reason why the government was in political difficulties was the fact that it decided to wait almost 16 weeks from the election before holding a budget.

On the Today programme this morning Liam Byrne, the Labour MP and former Treasury minister who chairs the Commons business committee, defended the government’s decision to wait that long.

Byrne said that, although there were “virtues getting the budget done fast”, there were also good reasons for waiting until the end of October.

Campbell said that after the elections in. 1979, 1997 and 2010, budgets were held respectively five weeks later, eight weeks later and six weeks later.

But now the Office for Budget Responsibility has to publish an economic assessmement alongside the budget, and that takes at least 10 weeks, Byrne said.

He also said there was an interest rate cut at the start of August, public sector pay deals were only agreed at the end of July, and new planning rules were published at the start of August. All these factors influence the budget, he argued. He went on:

You definitely can do these things fast – Liz Truss did it in 18 days – but I think the whole country will thank the chancellor for not doing a Liz Truss, because now is the time to be strategic and not slapdash.

The budget will be on Wednesday 30 October.

Lammy accused of misleading MPs when he said Chagossians kept informed about sovereignty talks with Mauritius

Yesterday, in response to a question from Andrew Mitchell, his Tory shadow, about whether the Chagossians were consulted about the government’s deal handing over sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, David Lammy, the foreign secrtary, said: “Of course we kept the Chagossians informed all along the way.”

Chagossian Voices, a group representing Chagossians, says Lammy was not telling the truth.

We will be writing to @DavidLammy and The Speaker of HOC. It was claimed in Parliament today that he and his team had met Chagossian groups to discuss the sovereignty negotiations. Neither we, nor any other groups we know have met him or his team to discuss this since the election. We learned about the announcement at 9.00am last Thursday in an email from the BBC.

At a meeting with Chagossian groups about community support for Chagossians with FCDO Minister Doughty on 30th September (the first and only meeting) attendees were told he could not talk about the negotiations and they even confirmed this in an email (last four lines of extract…

The Foreign Office has been approached for a comment. I will post their reply when I get it.

Updated

Parties would have to justify House of Lords nominations under new rules

Political parties will be required to justify offering peerages under new rules being drafted by the government to overhaul the image of the House of Lords. As Jessica Elgot reports, the move – which could involve similar citations as those when people receive honours from the monarch – is in response to a number of controversial appointments over the years including those of two of Boris Johnson’s key aides and of Evgeny Lebedev, the Independent’s largest shareholder. Jess’s full story is here.

Leading economist joins calls for 'rational adjustment' to government's fiscal rules

Today the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) thinktank has published a report saying Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, should change the government’s fiscal rules and adopt a new measure of debt. Richard Partington has written about it here.

On the Today programme this morning Mohamed El-Erian, one of Britain’s leading economists, also said the fiscal framework needs to change. El-Erian, who is president of Queen’s College, Cambridge, and chief economic adviser to Allianz, a fund manager, called for “a rational adjustment to the fiscal rules”. He explained:

Right now the government’s operating with a very arbitrary fiscal framework that it has inherited. It tends to be biased against investment, and it tends to undermine the one thing this country needs most, which is productivity and growth.

I would like to see the anti-investment biases taken out, so it means don’t treat spending on current consumption as the same as spending on investment. They are fundamentally different in terms of the impact.

He also said the rules should be changed so they don’t “apply arbitrary time horizons that have nothing to the underlying economics”. Currently the debt rule just says debt should be falling as a proportion of the GDP in the fifth year of the forecast period – which means between year 4 looking ahead and year 5 looking ahead. It is a rolling target, and so every year year 5 is another five years in the future. El-Erian said:

These are changes that are supported by the vast majority of economists, and they will be better for a government that’s seeking growth, because that is what we need.

Prison system was 'teetering on disaster' when Labour came to power, says minister

The prison system in England and Wales was “teetering on disaster” when Labour came to power, James Timpson, the prisons minister said today.

Speaking at his first Prison Governors’ Association conference in Nottingham since he took on the role, Timpson said:

It has not been easy to rehabilitate offenders in a system teetering on disaster.

We have to take the tough decisions bringing changes to release to ease the pressure on our prisons. It was quite frankly a rescue effort. If we had not acted our justice system would have grinded to a halt – we would have faced a total breakdown of law and order.

We only have to look at the recent disorder on our streets to see how close to catastrophe we came. We brought the violence to an end, but in the process we came dangerously close to running out of prisons entirely.

The last government allowed prisons to run so hot for so long, it was nothing short of a disgrace. We had no choice but to introduce emergency measures. To attempt to delay any further would have allowed our justice system to collapse.

The government will rebuild and reform the system. We will accelerate the prison building programme to make sure we have the cells we need.

Timpson was a surprise appoinment when Keir Starmer formed his government after the election. He used to run the eponymous family shoe repair business that has a good reputation for employing ex-offenders, and having him in charge of prisons has led to speculation that Labour’s policy in this area will end up being more progressive than the Conservatives’.

Union leaders have announced strike action that could close schools across Scottish first minister John Swinney’s local area for two weeks, PA Media reports. PA says:

Unison said it has given notice to Perth and Kinross Council for strike action by members in schools and early years centres.

The union, which is the largest local government trade union in Scotland, hopes targeting the action in Swinney’s constituency will “bring home to him the importance of finding a fair settlement” to the council pay dispute.

It comes after the union voted against the latest pay offer from local government umbrella body Cosla, which will see staff receive an increase of either 67p an hour or 3.6%, whichever is higher.

Council leaders in Scotland have already voted to impose the deal despite Unison’s opposition, saying that two other unions – GMB and Unite – have accepted it.

However, Unison said that its members are angry that the pay deal they have been offered lags behind that of other public services – with nurses and other NHS staff being given a 5.5% wage hike.

Here are pictures of some ministers leaving Downing Street after cabinet this morning.

UK may approve bee-killing pesticide despite election promise to ban it

UK ministers are considering allowing the use of a bee-killing pesticide next year despite promising during the election to ban it, Helena Horton reports.

Jenrick sabotaged his Tory leadership chances at conference, survey of members suggests, with Cleverly rising fast

Conservative members were more likely to be turned off by what they saw of Robert Jenrick at the party conference than impressed, a survey suggests.

Jenrick arrived at the conference as the clear bookmakers’ favourite. But, according to a ConservativeHome survey of Tory members, only 23% of them said that what happened at conference made them more likely to support him – and 43% said they were less likely to support him afterwards.

Tom Tugendhat experienced a similar loss of support – but he is expected to be out of the contest by the end of today anyway as the candidate most likely to be eliminated in today’s ballot of MPs.

Conservative members favour Kemi Badenoch for next leader, according to numerous ConHome surveys, and proper polling, but 35% of respondents said conference made them less likely to support her, while 30% said the opposite.

The survey suggests the big winner was James Cleverly. Some 55% of Tories said conference made him a more attractive candidate, while only 14% said it didn’t.

The survey also suggests that, by a large margin, he was seen as delivering the best speech on the final day. Badenoch came second.

As a result of what happened at conference, Cleverly has now become the clear bookmakers’ favourite. This chart from the PoliticalBetting.com website, showing the implied chances of winning, illustrates how that has happened.

ConservativeHome has a panel of Tory members and it regularly surveys them on leadership preferences. In the past it has been a reliable guide to Tory leadership elections – always pointing to the right winner, if not by the correct margin.

Jenrick came first in the last two ballots of Tory MPs. Some rightwingers are supporting him because they thought Badenoch would not make the final two (because she is a lot more popular with members than with MPs) and because they thought Jenrick would beat any of the likely “left” candidates in the final two. But a survey at the weekend suggests that is no longer true, which could provide an opening for Badenoch.

In Tory terms, Badenoch and Jenrick are the two “right” candidates, while Cleverly and Tugendhat are the two “left” ones. In non-Tory terms, they are all quite rightwing.

Updated

Boris Johnson hits out at ‘greedy’ Keir Starmer over freebies

Keir Starmer’s decision to accept clothing freebies “looks greedy”, Boris Johnson, the former Tory PM has claimed. As Jamie Grierson reports, Johnson, who is doing interviews to promote his much-ridiculed memoir, seems to have forgotten his own record of freebie-harvesting on a lavish scale.

Here is John Crace’s digested read of the Johnson book, which is well worth a read (John’s article – not the book, I’m told).

As Gwyn Topham reports, the government has been told by the rail industry that building HS2 all the way to London Euston and Crewe could save the government money by enabling it to lease the line out for much more.

Haigh comes close to confirming HS2 will run to Euston, saying ending it at Old Oak Common would not make sense

During her morning interview round Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, also all but confirmed that HS2 will be extended to Euston station in London.

When Rishi Sunak announced that the last government was cancelling the Birmingham to Manchester leg of HS2, he said that it would definitely run to Old Oak Common, a station in west London.

He also indicated that the final stretch, a 4.5 mile tunnel from Old Oak Common to Euston, would go ahead too. But he said this was dependent on the project attracting private sector funding, which meant the government could not 100% confim it would be completed.

As PA Media reports, the Commons’ public accounts committee issued a report in February stating it was “highly sceptical” that the Department for Transport would be able to attract private investment on “the scale and speed required” to make extending HS2 to Euston “a success”.

Labour has inherited the last government’s plans and has not yet said the Euston stretch will definitely go ahead.

But, in an interview on Times Radio this morning, asked if the Euston leg was affordable, Haigh replied:

We will be making an announcement on that soon. But it certainly would never have made sense to leave it between Old Oak Common and Birmingham.

Asked if the announcement may come in the budget, she said: “It may be made around those decisions.”

Keir Starmer does not have a problem with women, says transport secretary

Keir Starmer does not have a problem with women, the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, has said, adding that the prime minister had promoted a number of women – but she admitted the government had made “missteps”. Jessica Elgot has the story.

Labour won’t be able to rely on ethnic minority voters as ‘bloc’ of support in future, says major report

Good morning. Labour has already been in office for almost 100 days, but in some respects it still feels like we’re at the start of a new political season. This morning Keir Starmer is chairing his first cabinet since Morgan McSweeeney replaced Sue Gray as the key aide in No 10 (a move which could have radical implications, as Pippa Crerar reports here), this afternoon Tory MPs are holding another ballot to elect their next leader, and, with the conference recess over, MPs are getting down to a busy three months of parliamentary business, with the budget only three weeks away tomorrow.

Labour won a big majority at the election, but the big story of politics in recent years is the fragementation of the electorate, and this morning the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe has published a major report on the attitudes and voting behaviours of ethnic minority Britons. For anyone interested in this topic, it has lots of very good data, but two findings in particular stand out.

  • Labour will not be able to rely on ethnic minority voters as a ‘bloc’ of support in the future, the report says. In his introduction James Kanagasooriam, the pollster from Focaldata who produced the data used in the report, says that it is still the case that, overall, ethnic minority Britons are much more likely to vote left than right than white Britons. He says:

At the 2024 election, the combined vote share of Labour, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats was 66% among ethnic minorities, while that for the Conservatives and Reform UK was 26%. Among white voters, the equivalent figures were 53% and 41%. Any discussion over Labour’s problems with minority voters and Conservative gains needs to be tempered by these facts.

But he goes on:

At future elections, Labour cannot rely on ethnic minority voters as a ‘bloc’ of support. It is true that the Labour Party still convinces a far greater proportion of minorities with ‘warm’ views of the party to vote for it than the Conservative Party does. But among many ethnic groups, there is a fundamental disjunction between opinion on the salient issues of the day and voting patterns. Our polling suggests that Labour support among ethnic minorities is an ossified cultural and historical legacy that could disappear very quickly.

This chart shows how ethnic minority voting behaviour changed between 2019 and 2024.

  • Having a degree makes white voters more leftwing, but ethnic minority voters more rightwing, the report says. In his introduction Kanagasooriam describes this as the Lee Anderson-Rishi Sunak factor in Tory support. He explains:

The demography of right and left is vastly different between white and non-white voters. White voters differ hugely on their educational profile, with non-graduates drifting right over the last 20 years, and graduates to the left. Amongst non-white Britons, graduate level education makes you proportionately more likely to be Conservative. Class cleavages and patterns that have disappeared from the voting patterns of white Britons exist and are indeed getting stronger amongst non-white voters. The Conservative Party will continue to have its esoteric coalition of affluent minorities and nongraduate whites and Labour the opposite. In other words, the Lee Anderson - Rishi Sunak spectrum is a feature, not a bug, of right-wing politics.

And this chart illustrates the point.

There is a summary of the report here, the main 77-page document is here, and the technical appendix is here.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.

9.30am: The Office for National Statistics publishes its latest population estimates.

11am: The four Tory leadership candidates – James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat – are due to take part in a private hustings for Tory MPs, before the third ballot for MPs opens.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

After 12.30pm: MPs begin a debate on a Tory opposition day motion, criticising the plan to impose VAT on private school fees.

3pm: Economists from the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Institute for Government give evidence to the Lords economic affairs committee about the government’s debt target.

3.30pm: Bob Blackman, chair of the 1922 Committee, is due to announce the result of the third ballot of Tory MPs for the Tory leader.

If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.

If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).

I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.

Updated

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