1) Badenoch does not deny anything said in the report, which amounts to an implicit confirmation that it is accurate. She claims to be disappointed that her remarks leaked. But this is unlikely to impress those in the party who will assume she, or her allies, had a role in the story ending up in the Times.
2) She says the party should pay more attention to the views of activists and members. This is an argument likely to impress the people who will have the final say in a leadership contest – activists and members.
3) She says that Tories should be less deferential to their leaders, and that they should argue more in private. The cliche about Badenoch is that she could start a fight in an empty room. Her pitch now seems to be that, if she is elected leader, she will have a lot more arguments in rooms that are full (the shadow cabinet) – but not in public.
It’s a shame our discussions in Shadow Cabinet were leaked yesterday. If there is no private space to discuss our Party’s challenges, we will never fully address what the electorate told us last week.
The views of those outside these meetings matter too. Not just backbench MPs, but our party activists, members and friends who lost seats after giving everything to the campaign.
In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it. That culture needs to change. We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards.
Filters BETA
Nato summit on a separate live blog.
Keir Starmer when they met in Washington that he welcomed Labour’s commitment to a reset in relations with the EU, Downing Street says.
In its readout of the Scholz/Starmer conversation, No 10 said:
The chancellor welcomed the prime minister’s commitment to resetting the UK’s European partnerships, noting how important our friendships with like-minded countries will be in a challenging international environment. They discussed the importance of having the widest possible cooperation across all aspects of the relationship.
The two leaders moved on to discuss the need for enhanced defence cooperation in Europe to act as a deterrent for aggression by hostile actors. They agreed that the Nato summit was an opportunity to strengthen our support for Ukraine. The two leaders agreed a firm commitment to deepen in particular UK-Germany defence ties, working at pace to deliver those objectives.
Scholz and Starmer also agreed to continue their discussions at the European Political Community summit that Starmer is hosting at Blenheim Palace next week, No 10 said.
9.30am.) There are three points about what she is saying worth noting.
1) Badenoch does not deny anything said in the report, which amounts to an implicit confirmation that it is accurate. She claims to be disappointed that her remarks leaked. But this is unlikely to impress those in the party who will assume she, or her allies, had a role in the story ending up in the Times.
2) She says the party should pay more attention to the views of activists and members. This is an argument likely to impress the people who will have the final say in a leadership contest – activists and members.
3) She says that Tories should be less deferential to their leaders, and that they should argue more in private. The cliche about Badenoch is that she could start a fight in an empty room. Her pitch now seems to be that, if she is elected leader, she will have a lot more arguments in rooms that are full (the shadow cabinet) – but not in public.
It’s a shame our discussions in Shadow Cabinet were leaked yesterday. If there is no private space to discuss our Party’s challenges, we will never fully address what the electorate told us last week.
The views of those outside these meetings matter too. Not just backbench MPs, but our party activists, members and friends who lost seats after giving everything to the campaign.
In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it. That culture needs to change. We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards.
Labour deputy chief whip; Lady Corston, a former chair of the parliamentary Labour party; and Lord Willoughby de Broke, a hereditary peer and former Ukip member.
Henry Riley from LBC say age may have been a factor these six all stepping back.
a poll of members of the public who were asked, out of five candidates, who would be their preference for next Tory leader. By a mile, the winner was “don’t know”, who scored 61%. In second place was Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, on 10%, followed by Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, on 9%.
The second is a poll of 500 Tory members, who were asked who they would choose in a a series of binary choices. Under the Conservative leadership election rules, members only get to choose between two candidates chosen by MPs.
The poll suggests these results for these contests.
Braverman (35%) beats Badenoch (32%)
Braverman (37%) beats Tugendhat (31%)
Braverman (39%) beats Cleverly (34%)
Badenoch (34%) beats Jenrick (24%)
Patel (35%) beats Jenrick (29%)
Tugendhat (31%) beats Jenrick (25%)
Badenoch (30%) and Tugendhat (30%) is a tie
It is not clear why a Cleverly question was included in the run-off polling when his name was not on the list of people polled among the public as a whole. And some potential run-off combinations have not been tested.
And this is what James Johnson, a former pollster for Theresa May who co-founded JL Partners, is saying about the findings.
My view:
Plenty of time to run but as an early view this is a good poll for Suella Braverman and Tom Tugendhat, a bad poll for Rob Jenrick – and an underwhelming poll for Kemi Badenoch, given her reputation as a favourite amongst Tory members.
Especially interesting that Tugendhat draws with Kemi and is 6 points behind Suella — potentially suggests the membership is less trenchant in their views than in 2022
Johnson may be overstating Braverman’s chances. She is losing support amongst MPs, and the Sun is reporting that John Hayes, who for years was her biggest champion on the backbenches, has switched to backing Robert Jenrick instead. On current form, it looks very unlikely that she would make it onto the final ballot.
Keir Starmer, following an interview with the Record.
The Scottish Labour leader told the Record, which has been campaigning against the policy, the cap was “not right, wrong” and “needs to be reversed”. The Labour MSP Monica Lennon posted the front page on X.
Sarwar’s remarks appear to be curiously timed given that Labour has just won a landslide in Scotland, winning a larger share of vote in Scotland than at UK level, even though Starmer has refused to promise to scrap the cap. That implies this issue is not critical to Labour’s standing amongst voters.
Party sources said Sarwar’s comments simply reiterated his longstanding position on the policy, and said the new Labour government would scrap it when it was affordable. “There isn’t a Labour politician in the country who doesn’t want to get rid of it; it’s a question of when can we. There isn’t a substantive shift here.”
Nonetheless, Labour will face continued pressure from its opponents and from left wing Labour MPs and MSPs to act.
The Scottish National party, despite its heavy defeat last week, is likely to repeatedly hammer Starmer for refusing to act as it seeks to fight back after the election. That could well surface in next week’s debate and vote on the king’s speech – the first of the Starmer era.
9.30am) to reportedly attack Sunak’s leadership at a shadow cabinet meeting this week?
You would be wrong. Jenkyns has posted this on X about the Times story.
Weak, she should have stood up & said something months ago about his leadership. Rather than trying to appear strong because there is a leadership election! For those who want Kemi as leader, look how she voted for Mays Brexit Deal, more net zero, and failed to rip up EU law.
In his own post on X, Chris Smyth from the Times says this illustrates why it is wrong to assume that Badenoch has the rightwing vote sewn up.
A reminder that although Badenoch is favourite to be Tory leader, a lot of Eurosceptics actually can’t stand her and think she’s not really a right winger
Do keep up
Keir Starmer agreed to appoint Scottish MPs as business and energy ministers.
On Saturday Starmer made Douglas Alexander, the Blair-era international development secretary and former Paisley MP who won Lothian East last week, a junior trade minister.
Last night the UK government then appointed Michael Shanks, the former modern studies teacher who held his Rutherglen seat after winning a famous byelection victory over the Scottish National party there last year, as a junior energy minister in Ed Miliband’s department for energy security and net zero.
Labour officials say these posts are intended to bolster Scottish Labour’s influence in Whitehall over two reserved areas which were central to the party’s election messaging – that Labour will focus on revitalising the economy and will also protect Scotland’s energy interests.
Having “powerful Scottish voices close to these areas is very important to us”, one source said.
The energy brief has particular significance which will thrust Shanks quickly into the frontline, as Scottish Labour positions itself for the 2026 Scottish parliament elections. After humiliating the SNP last week, by winning 37 Scottish seats, Labour is now far more confident it can win a Holyrood election.
Labour will sell itself to Scottish voters by headquartering Starmer’s GB Energy in Scotland, but it also faces threats to its reputation from North Sea oil interests fighting Labour’s climate strategy and from the threatened closure of Grangemouth oil refinery, with the loss of 400 jobs.
Starmer revealed on his visit to Edinburgh on Sunday that his ministerial team were working on a Grangemouth rescue plan; Ian Murray, the new Scottish secretary, told the BBC yesterday he was briefed on Grangemouth by Scotland Office civil servants almost immediately after taking office on Saturday morning.
Labour also hope the appointment of Kirsty McNeill, a former policy director for Save the Children and a former adviser to Gordon Brown, as Murray’s deputy in the Scotland Office will build bridges with nationalist voters.
A first time MP who beat the SNP in Midlothian on Thursday, McNeill comes from a strongly nationalist family and was taken to SNP candidate adoption meetings as a child. She is someone “who understands the power of persuasion”, the source said. The party hopes she will be the antithesis to the “muscular brow-beating unionism” of the last Conservative government.
Libby Brooks wrote this about McNeill’s campaign last month.
Uma Kumaran, the newly-elected Labour MP for Stratford and Bow in east London, has revealed that on her first day in the Commons yesterday her husband was taken to hospital with a stroke. She says he is doing well but that it has been the worst 24 hours of their lives.
House of Lords means he believes Joe Biden should stand down as US president, Pippa Crerar reports.
Keir Starmer has asked officials to pass him notes with updates on England’s euros semi-final match against the Netherlands during talks with world leaders at the Nato summit.
The prime minister, a devoted football fan, will be at the North Atlantic Council meeting where the 32 leaders, including Dutch leader Dick Schoof, will be discussing defence strategy.
However, he admitted that as they would have their phones taken off them for security reasons, he would have to rely on his team to keep him updated.
He told the reporters on the flight to Washington:
I understand our phones are all taken off us, when we go into the council, so I’ve no doubt we’ll be passed lots of notes with really important information about the summit.
One or two of those notes hopefully will be an update on the score, because I’m not going to be able to get it otherwise.
The prime minister said that his advice to Gareth Southgate, the England manager, on leading the team was simple: “Win!”
He added: “I’ve sent a message to the team, obviously I wish them well, I want them to win, and let’s hope they can do it tomorrow.”
However, Starmer tempted fate when he joked about the team’s chances if the match went to penalties, as it did against Switzerland in the quarter finals.
“I’d remind you, England have not missed a penalty under a Labour government in 2024,” he said.
A huge Arsenal fan, Starmer praised winger Bukayo Saka’s goal in the last match of the tournament, which took the score level and took the game into extra time.
“That was classic Bukayo – cuts in from the right and that shot is absolutely classic – inside of the post – I’ve seen it so many times.”
Source: theguardian.com
