Afternoon summary
Angela Rayner, the deputy PM, says she has discussed enhancing the UK-US special relationship in a call with JD Vance, the US vice president-elect. (See 5.11pm.) Hers is the latest outreach intended to ensure the Labour government can have a good relationship with Donald Trump’s administration.
Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, has played down concerns that derogatory comments made by David Lammy and other Labour MPs about Donald Trump in the past will harm relations when Trump takes office. (See 10.06am.)
McFadden has rejected suggestions that a Trump presidency will definitely be bad for the UK economy because of his tariff policies, arguing that some of the “fiery things” promised by Trump during the campaign won’t happen. (See 9.29am.)
David Hill, a former director of communications for the Labour party, and for Tony Blair at No 10, has died. (See 4.12pm.)
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Bridget Phillipson says she wants schools to be 'welcoming spaces' to tackle pupil absences
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has said that the epidemic of pupil absences in England’s classrooms can be tackled by making schools “welcoming, engaging and inclusive spaces”.
Speaking to the Confederation of School Trusts annual conference in Birmingham, Phillipson said figures showing one in five pupils in England were persistently absent “should shock us all, a failure of society and state and our children will pay the price in years to come”.
Persistent absence is defined as a pupil missing 10% or more sessions, meaning one or more days every two weeksof school.
Phillipson warned schools against diverting problem pupils, including those with special needs, to other schools nearby.
I know the current system incentivises some to adopt a competitive rather than a collaborative model … the kind that only succeeds by pushing problems on to others. That ends now.
Phillipson said including more children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) in mainstream education was the best way to overcome the crisis in provision. She announced the appointment of Dame Christine Lenehan, director at the Council for Disabled Children, as a special ministerial adviser on Send.
The increasing number of students with special needs was reflected in new figures published by Ofqual, England’s exams regulator, showing increases in the numbers being granted extra time or help sitting GCSEs or A-level exams. Last summer three out of every 10 entrants were given 25% more time to complete their exams, a rise of 52,000 compared with 2023.
Here are some pictures from Keir Starmer’s meetings at the European Political Community summit in Budapest.
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Angela Rayner says she has discussed enhancing UK-US special relationship in call with JD Vance
Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister, has spoken to JD Vance, who as vice president-elect will be her opposite number in Donald Trump’s administration when he takes office. She has posted this on social media.
Good to speak to US Vice President-elect @JDVance as UK Deputy Prime Minister.
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) November 7, 2024
We spoke about our plans for the future and how, working together, we build on the special relationship between our great countries.
Good to speak to US Vice President-elect @JDVance as UK Deputy Prime Minister.
We spoke about our plans for the future and how, working together, we build on the special relationship between our great countries.
Rachel Maclean, a former Conserative MP who was one of the organisers for Kemi Badenoch’s Renewal 2030 leadership campaign, has said she thinks the last Conservative government went too far in extending free childcare.
Speaking on the BBC’s Politics Live today, Maclean, who lost her seat at the election, said it was a mistake for the last government to expand the free childcare offer. Asked if that was the right choice, she replied:
No, I actually don’t think it was.
I personally struggle with that a little bit. I think we should talk more about families and encouraging responsibility of families … I’ve got four children as well and I’ve got two grandchildren now. So, this is not an abstract thing for me and my family. And combining work with children is very hard but it’s about the right way of doing it.
I don’t think the state can do all of it and I think we should empower women and parents, and fathers as well, to do more, as much as they possibly can.
Badenoch has said there is no need for the Conservative party to come up with new policies for some time. But at the party conference she was criticised after appearing to suggest that maternity pay was excessive, and Maclean’s comment may revive claims that under Badenoch and her allies support for working parents could be cut.
Former Labour party communications chief David Hill has died
David Hill, a veteran Labour spin doctor who started working for the party in the 1970s and who ended up as Tony Blair’s director of communications, has died. Unlike Alastair Campbell, whom he replaced at No 10 after Campbell left in the light of the Iraq/David Kelly controversy, Hill never became a public figure. But he was well known at Westminster and in Labour circles, and very well liked too.
Hill started working for Labour as an adviser to Roy Hattersley in the 1970s. Hattersley was secretary of state for prices and consumer protection in the Callaghan government (in those days it was deemed appropriate for the government to control prices – an idea that might seem less ridiculous now, given the way inflation led to Americans voting for Donald Trump). After 1979, Hill carried on working for Hattersley while he served as deputy leader under Neil Kinnock.
In 1991 Hill became Labour’s director of communications. Tony Blair took over as leader in 1994 and he had an inherent distrust of anyone associated with old Labour (even the Hattersley wing of it). But Blair trusted Hill for the same reason journalists did – he was straight, and thoroughly professional – and he became a key figure in New Labour’s election-winning machine.
After Labour won the 1997, Hill went into private sector PR. But in 2003 he went to Downing Street as director of communications, staying until 2007, when he left to work for Bell Pottinger.
After a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis some years ago, Hill died on Monday. The Guardian will be publishing a proper obituary in due course.
Last night the Conserative party voted against a series of budget resolutions in the Commons. Labour is now challenging Kemi Badenoch to explain what investment her party would cut.
In an open letter to the new Conservative leader, Ellie Reeves, the new Labour party chair, says:
Last night the Conservative party decided to vote against Labour’s plans to bring down waiting lists in the NHS and hire new teachers in state schools. Your party opposed £5.5bn of investment in public services – the equivalent of 10,200 nurses in our NHS, 27,600 teachers in our schools, or 39,100 police officers on our streets.
I am writing to you to confirm your official position – are the Conservatives against additional investment in our public services or would you make cuts to other public services to fund these pledges from elsewhere?
This government inherited a £22bn black hole in the public finances, a black hole that you and your shadow cabinet helped to create, along with broken public services after 14 years of Tory failure.
Labour’s budget is fixing the foundations to deliver the change Britain voted for. The chancellor announced £25.6bn in new funding for the NHS over the next two years – which will help to fund 40,000 additional NHS appointments a week – alongside funding to recruit 6,500 teachers in state schools.
Under your instruction, Conservative MPs have voted against these measures. This will be a slap in the face for communities across our country who voted for change.
Cost of ‘bat shed’ to protect colony near HS2 has topped £100m, chair says
The cost of a “bat shed” to protect a species in woodland along the new HS2 high-speed line has risen to more than £100m, HS2’s chair has revealed. Gwyn Topham has the story.
Katy Balls has written an article for the Spectator about the first shadow cabinet chaired by Kemi Badenoch, the new Conservative leader. Balls says Badenoch wants shadow cabinet meetings to be smaller than they used to be so they are less likely to leak. “It’s a shame our discussions in shadow cabinet were leaked,” Badenoch said in July, after what was said at the first meeting of the shadow cabinet since the general election was leaked. “If there is no private space to discuss our party’s challenges, we will never fully address what the electorate told us last week.”
Thankfully, the campaign against shadow cabinet leaking does not seem to be working. Balls seems to have had a very thorought readout, and her account is an excellent read. Here’s an extract.
Iain Duncan Smith gave a presentation on how to do opposition well. While a respected figure, it raised some eyebrows around the table given his own struggles as leader. He urged the new frontbench to wage the war of the flea. He explained that the Labour government represented a big elephant and it was the job of the remaining Tories to do the job of the flea: they can’t match their opponent in size but they can annoy and confuse.
As for the general strategy, the new Tory co-chairman Nigel Huddleston was asked what the plan was to win back Reform party voters. He said he was looking into it. The most interesting intervention came at the end of the meeting from [Robert] Jenrick. After a rather bitter leadership contest, he made a big point of calling for unity. ‘Your success is our success,’ he told Badenoch. The comments landed well with the new leader – but not everyone was convinced. ‘It was the most insincere thing I’ve ever seen,’ said one colleague afterwards.
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'Words fail me' - Scottish Greens' co-leader Patrick Harvie condemns Swinney for congratulating Trump
John Swinney was accused of “extraordinary complacency at a time of incredible danger for the world” by Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie at this lunchtime’s first minister’s questions session.
Harvie was referring to Swinney’s official response to Donald Trump’s win – issued despite the first minister having told reporters he supported Kamala Harris last week. Harvie said:
He wrote that he is sure Scotland’s cultural and social ties with the US will flourish during the presidency of a misogynist, a climate denier, a fraudster, a conspiracy-monger, a racist, a far-right politician who tried to overturn an election result, both covertly and by inciting violence. Words fail me. What social and cultural ties does the first minister really think will benefit from a relationship with such a man?
Swinney responded that, as first minister of Scotland, he had a duty to engage with other governments and that there were deep cultural, social and economic ties between Scotland and the USA.
But he added:
There are, very clearly, very big, real differences in expression and in priority and in way of life between me and Donald Trump.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has played down claims that David Lammy’s past comments condemning Donald Trump could harm UK-US relations.
Speaking to reporters in Manchester, and echoing the line taken by Pat McFadden in interviews this morning (see 10.06am), she said:
Well, look, the vice president-elect of the United States has used some choice words about the president-elect in the past, but the point is those comments were in the past.
The prime minister and the foreign secretary met with President-elect Trump just a few weeks ago in New York for dinner.
They had a really good meeting a constructive meeting and I have absolutely no doubt we will be able to work constructively with the new US administration under President-elect Donald Trump.
Trump's victory shows government must reduce wealth inequality or lose next election, says Labour's Liam Byrne
Yesterday Ed Balls, the former Labour shadow chancellor, said Donald Trump’s victory in the US showed that, if Labour did not improve living standards by the end of this parliament, it too would be voted out. During his interviews this morning Pat McFadden did not quite go that far, but he said the American election showed why Labour was focusing on the cost of living. (See 10.47am.)
In an article for LabourList, Liam Byrne, the former Labour Treasury minister who now chairs the Commons business committee, makes a similar version of the same argument; he says Trump’s victory shows that Labour could lose the next election if it does not reduce wealth inequality.
Byrne, who published a book this year called The Inequality of Wealth, says:
It will be a few days until we have time to inspect the details of Vice President Harris’ defeat. But there was one clear story about the last time President Trump sailed to victory. The places that were left behind by American growth, the places at the sharp end of growing inequality, were far more likely to vote for Trump.
But guess what?
The same dynamics hold true for the UK, France, and Scandinavia. Those places where the growth in wealth did nor keep pace with the national average were the places that voted for Brexit, Le Pen in France and the Far Right in Scandinavia.
In his article Byrne highlights recent research the Policy Institute at King’s College London and the Fairness Foundation showing that people expect economic inequality to get worse in the UK over the course of this parliament.
Byrne has also put a thread on social media summarising his argument. Here is his conclusion.
CONCLUSION: The warning is clear. Labour has to fix address the inequality tearing at our social fabric. If we fail, populism will only grow stronger. We need not just economic investment, but a path for real prosperity for the families and regions left behind
Foreign Office announces fresh wave of sanctions against Russia
The Foreign Office has said 56 individuals, firms and organisations will be covered by a fresh batch of anti-Russian sanctions announced today – the largest such package for more than a year.
David Lammy, the foreign secretary, said with new sanctions would “continue to push back on the Kremlin’s corrosive foreign policy, undermining Russia’s attempts to foster instability across Africa and disrupting the supply of vital equipment for Putin’s war machine”.
In a news release explaining who is affected, the Foreign Office said:
New targets include suppliers supporting Russia’s military production, Russian-backed mercenary groups operating in sub-Saharan Africa and a GRU agent involved in the use of a novichok nerve agent in Salisbury [Denis Sergeev].
These sanctions will directly target the supply of goods to Russia’s military and constrain vital resources crucial to conduct Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine.
Today’s action targets entities based in China, Turkey and Central Asia involved in the supply and production of goods including machine tools, microelectronics and components for drones, all of which Russia needs to support its illegal invasion of Ukraine …
This latest package also targets three private mercenary groups with links to the Kremlin, including Africa Corps, and 11 individuals associated with Russian proxies. These targets have direct links to the Kremlin, have threatened peace and security in Libya, Mali and the Central African Republic, and have committed widespread human rights abuses across the continent.
Mike Amesbury MP being charged with assault, police say
The MP Mike Amesbury is being charged with an assault after recent a late-night altercation that led to him being suspended from the parliamentary Labour party.
In a statement today, Cheshire police said:
Mike Amesbury MP, of Frodsham, Cheshire, has been summonsed to court to face the charge of section 39 assault.
The 55-year-old is set to appear in magistrates’ court at a later date.
The charge relates to reports of an assault on a 45-year-old man on Main Street, Frodsham, which was reported to police at 2.48am on Saturday 26 October.
Amesbury is MP for Runcorn and Helsby.
Starmer to sign deals with Western Balkans countries to tackle people smuggling 'criminal empire'
Keir Starmer will today sign new agreements to intercept criminal gangs smuggling migrants through the Western Balkans as part of efforts to bring down small boat crossings, PA Media reports. PA says:
Starmer will announce the deals to boost intelligence sharing, expertise and co-operation with Serbia, North Macedonia and Kosovo at a meeting of the European Political Community in Budapest, Hungary.
He is expected to urge European partners to take action to reduce deaths in the Channel during small boat crossings and tell them that lawful, international co-operation will be key to efforts.
The Western Balkans is a key route used by migrants who end up in the EU or UK illegally. Almost 100,000 migrants travelled by that route last year.
The deals will boost intelligence sharing and co-operation to intercept the criminal gangs as they smuggle people through these countries. The aim is to arrest the gangs and break their business models at source.
The UK already works with Albania to target the illicit financial flows that underpin smuggling gang operations.
In a statement ahead of today’s meeting, Starmer said:
There is a criminal empire operating on our continent, exacting a horrendous human toll and undermining our national security.
Backed by our new Border Security Command, the UK will be at the heart of the efforts to end the scourge of organised immigration crime – but we cannot do it in isolation.
We need to go further and faster, alongside our international partners, and take the fight directly to the heart of these vile people smuggling networks. I will be making this the central feature of my discussions at the European Political Community meeting today.
McFadden rejects Farage's offer to help government as intermediary with Trump
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has offered to help the Labour government establish a good relationship with the Trump administration. In an article for the Daily Telegraph, Farage says he believes that Trump’s victory is a sign that “politics, including our own, is moving rightwards”. He admits Trump’s tariff problems could cause problems for the UK, but he suggests Keir Starmer could mitigate the impact if he is willing to engage in some diplomatic schmoozing.
Farage, who counts Trump as a personal friend, says:
Perhaps the biggest worry that Sir Keir Starmer faces in policy terms is that Trump has announced a big tariff regime. Britain is, potentially, in a fortunate position. Such tariffs might be avoided – but only by direct negotiations with Team Trump, something of which Starmer’s friends in the European Union would not approve. Which way will Starmer jump?
Offering to help, Farage goes on:
Britain is really going to have to roll out the red carpet for Trump very quickly. If we don’t, a great opportunity will be squandered.
I’m overjoyed that this process has already begun, with our very sensible Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, making clear that Trump will be able to address parliament during his State visit next year.
However, there is no time to waste. If I can be helpful in any way when it comes to bridging the divide that exists between Starmer’s government and Trump, I will be glad to assist.
I might not agree with almost anything that Starmer and his cabinet stand for, but I do believe in something called the national interest.
Asked about Farage’s offer in an interview with Times Radio, Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, said the government did not need his help. “I think we’ll have our own relationships,” he said.
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Modern slavery potential victim referrals at record level, Home Office figures show
The number of potential victims of modern slavery reached a record level, PA Media reports. PA says:
A total of 4,758 potential victims were referred to the Home Office between July and September, the latest figures show.
This is up 10% compared to the previous three months and a rise of 15% on the same quarter in 2023.
The Home Office said the number of referrals for the latest three-month period is the highest since the National Referral Mechanism (NRM) began in 2009.
The previous record was 4,742 referrals between January and March 2023.
To access support and have recognition of their circumstances in the UK, victims of slavery and human trafficking have to be assessed under the NRM.
Almost a quarter (23% or 1,092) of referrals were of UK nationality, with the second most common being Albanian (11%; 523) and Vietnamese (11%; 514).
Some 74% of UK nationals referred into the system were children, while 91% of the Albanian nationals and 81% of Vietnamese nationals referred were adults.
Trump's win shows importance of living standards in political debate, says McFadden
In his interviews this morning Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, declined to criticise the way Kamala Harris ran her presidential election campaign, saying it was not for him to “lecture” another centre-left party on how it operated.
But he said the result did show the need for governments to act on living standards. He told LBC:
In the budget last week, you saw us raising the minimum wage, making sure the triple lock was kept for the next few years, keeping the freeze on fuel duty – issues which people care about on a month to month basis as they work out their budget.
And I think that was a big theme in the US election, and it’s something that was at the heart of our budget that was passed by the House of Commons last night.
McFadden suggests Karen Pierce likely to stay longer than planned as UK amassador to US after Trump's election
Two people who will have been particularly horrified by the election of Donald Trump will have been the former Labour cabinet ministers David Miliband and Peter Mandelson. Karen Pierce, the current UK ambassador to Washington, is due to leave early next year and Keir Starmer decided to wait until he knew who the next president would be before appointing a successor.
If Kamala Harris had won, given the close links between the Democratic party and Labour, Starmer was expected to appoint a politician as ambassador, and Miliband, a former foreign secretary, and Mandelson, a former business secretary and European commissioner, were both reportedly high on the shortlist.
With Trump going to the White House next year, Starmer is now expected to follow normal practice and replace Pierce with another professional diplomat.
But Pierce herself has good links with the Trump team and, in his interview on Sky News this morning, Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, implied Pierce would have her term in office extended. Asked if she would be staying, he replied:
Karen Pierce is ambassador in the United States at the moment. She is doing an excellent job. She’s got the full confidence of the British government, and we want her to keep on doing the job that she’s doing. And I think she’s going to be a very important interlocutor and adviser for the UK government in this period of transition.
Asked if Pierce would stay in post at least for the whole of 2025, McFadden said:
I can’t say exactly when her term will end. She’s been doing it for a few years. She’s there for the moment, she’ll be there for a while, and she’s doing an absolutely fantastic job for her country.
McFadden claims past anti-Trump comments by Labour MPs won't interfer with UK-US special relationship
At the weekend, in response to a story in the Independent about an allegation that Kemi Badenoch made a joke about rape in a social media post in 2008, a spokesperson for the new Conservative leader said that Badenoch has been clear “she believes this sort of ‘offence archaeology’ has no place in political debate”.
But, when it comes to what Labour politicians have said about Donald Trump in the past, Badenoch is no slouch at offence archeology herself. She devoted her first ever question as Tory leader to Keir Starmer at PMQs to the subject yesterday.
As Peter Walker reports in a roundup of what politicians have said about Trump, Badenoch herself said she was “not a Trump fan” in a post on Twitter in 2017, when she was a member of the London assembly. Labour politicians have been much, much more critical. The Spectator has a fairly comprehensive list here.
It is entirely legitimate to query what impact all these comments will have on the government’s relationship with the incoming Trump administration. Asked about all these comments, in an interview on Sky News this morning Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, insisted they would not harm the UK-US relationship.
I think a lot of things that have been said over the years, but not just here in the UK, including in the US. If you look at what vice-president-elect JD Vance said about President Trump, he mused whether this was going to be another Richard Nixon or America’s Hitler, and it’s not held him back from being the running mate.
Elon Musk as well, advised Trump to walk off into the sunset a couple of years ago, and he’s become President Trump’s biggest backer in business.
I don’t think any of these things will interfere in what is such an important alliance for the world, based on defence, security, shared values, shared history.
It’s all more important than all of those things, and that is the footing we begin on, and that’s the footing that we’ll continue on.
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Pat McFadden pushes back against Trump alarmism and says ‘fiery’ campaign pledges might not happen
Good morning. The election of Donald Trump as the next US president will create profound challenges for Labour, and for many governments around the world, and 24 hours on we are starting to get a better sense of how Labour will respond. Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister and Keir Starmer’s lead political “fixer” in government has just finished a media round where he has been talking about almost nothing else. And the strategy that is emerging? Be nice, and hope for the best.
Starmer has been working hard to establish a good relationship with Trump since he became PM and we saw more of this last night, when he had his first call with the president-elect. No 10 issues a readout when the PM has a call with a foreign leader, and normally these are among the most dry, boring and uninformative press releases to come out of Whitehall. But this is what Downing Street released last night.
The prime minister spoke to President-elect Donald Trump this evening to congratulate him on his historic victory.
The prime minister offered his hearty congratulations and said he looked forward to working closely with President-elect Trump across all areas of the special relationship.
From defence and security to growth and prosperity, the relationship between the UK and US was incredibly strong and would continue to thrive for many years to come, the leaders agreed.
The prime minister also reflected on the situation in the Middle East and underscored the importance of regional stability.
The leaders fondly recalled their meeting in September, and President-elect Trump’s close connections and affinity to the United Kingdom and looked forward to working with one another.
This might seem bland to people unfamiliar with the way these things are usually worded, but “fondly recalled their meeting in September” is not the sort of language you normally get in these statements. (It also doesn’t sound true; they just had dinner together – it wasn’t a stag night in Las Vegas, or a weekend hiking in the Rockies.) And “hearty congratulations” also sounds a bit excessive. Guardian readers will recall how they felt yesterday when they learned about Trump’s victory, but No 10 released a picture of Starmer speaking to Trump showing him beaming was if he was celebrating an Arsenal victory.
Good to speak with President-elect @realDonaldTrump to congratulate him on his historic victory. I look forward to working together.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) November 6, 2024
From defence and security to growth and prosperity, the relationship between the UK and US is incredibly strong and will continue to thrive for… pic.twitter.com/PXRFfudRIN
In his interviews this morning McFadden also insisted that the UK’s relationship with the US was strong, and that that would continue with Trump back in the White House. Inevitably he was asked about the long list of derogatory comments about Trump made by David Lammy, the foreign secretary, and many other Labour politicians in the past. He did not apologise for them, or even disown then, but he also made it clear that he was not keen to dwell on them either, and he implied that ultimately those comments would not matter much. In an interview with Sky News, asked if he would be able to forgive someone who called him a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi sympathising sociopath” (as Lammy called Trump), McFadden replied:
I think in the end the relationship between the two countries is just much deeper than stuff like that … One thing I know as a cabinet member in the British government is the friendship between the United States and the United Kingdom is really important, it’s beneficial for both countries, and it’s in our national interest to maintain that.
But McFadden also implied there was an element of ‘hope for the best’ in the UK’s approach. Asked about Trump’s plan to impose tariffs of at least 10% on British imports, which economists say could halve UK growth, McFadden replied:
I think you’ve got to understand that in an election, a lot of fiery things are said, and President-elect Trump says a lot of fiery things, and the important thing is what he actually does.
We obviously have interests as a trading nation. We want to protect and look after our interests, and we always want to have a dialogue with the US administration about those.
But for anyone speculating about what exactly will happen, I would advise let’s wait to see what he actually does, rather than take everything said in a campaign.
Labour itself offers a good example of how what a party does in government does not always correlate with what it said it was expecting to do during the election campaign that put it there.
Today parliament is having a short recess, which means there is no Downing Street lobby briefing. Keir Starmer is in Budapest for a meeting of the European Political Community. He is not due to hold a press conference, but we are expecting some broadcast clips from him in the afternoon. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is on a visit to Manchester, and it’s FMQs at Holyrood. Otherwise the diary looks light.
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