Donald Trump lavishes praise on 'great' Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage amid Tory leadership race
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The race to succeed Theresa May as prime minister has been described as a "shambles", and is in danger of becoming a "tragic farce", according to a senior Tory.
With at least 13 candidates now in the Conservative leadership race, the former minister Ken Clarke said the party has "never seen such a crisis", and said there are too many contenders in the contest.
Echoing views of some of his colleagues in the party, the Tory MP said: "It is all a shambles and is in danger of becoming a rather tragic farce unless some order is brought into it. There is nothing I can do about that; the 1922 Committee perhaps should have tightened up the rules before we started."
It came as Donald Trump, the US president, arrived in the UK for an official state visit, and before even landing at Stansted Airport referred to the London mayor Sadiq Khan as a "stone cold loser".
President Trump in Britain for state visit: In pictures
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But cabinet minister James Brokenshire said those politicians boycotting Mr Trump's visit were "fundamentally mistaken".
"It's important that we engage seriously and sensibly with one of our closest allies," he said.
"People will have different views, and indeed that relationship allows us to have conversations on a range of different issues - I think the responsible thing to do is to actually engage with that process, to actually have that conversation.
"Those that are saying they don't want to see the president, I think that is fundamentally mistaken and is not in the best interests of our country or indeed, here in London, the best interests of our capital city."
This live blog has now closed, but you can read Monday's events below
"If you have a morbid terror of the number 13, try to stay calm. The scorecard will tick beyond that on its madcap march soon enough", writes columnist Matthew Norman.
"If, on the other hand, you have a phobia about battalions of ego-frenzied Tories parading their god given gift for gibbering nonsense, be more afraid than ever.
"The only treatment for that, according to an article in The Lancet, is a controlled coma. The piece considers alternatives, but concludes that, in a milligram less than a lethal dose, diazepam will be no more effective than Rory Stewart’s opium pipe."
The editor of the Conservative Home website, Paul Goodman, has just posted a blog on the Tory leadership contest, claiming all the candidates are ignoring the sense that a general election is increasingly likely.
He says: "All signposts point towards a general election. But none of the candidates dare say so – because they are dependent, in the first stage of the contest, on the votes of Conservative MPs. Some of them know that a poll would end their service in Parliament.
"...There is a strange unreality to this leadership contest. The greater the electoral danger to the Tory Party, both from the Brexit Party and elsewhere, the more fringe candidates seem to emerge. None of them have risen to the scale of the challenge to date, and the reason isn’t hard to find – namely, that none are willing to admit that an election is likely, and set out how on earth they would win it with Brexit undelivered."
Politics Explained: President’s last appearance in the UK holds some clues as to his motivations, of which his ‘America First’ policy is at the forefront
From his booklet, ‘Beyond Brexit: Liberal Politics for the Age of Identity’, Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable explores how the UK can prosper socially and financially in the 2020s.
Theresa May has said she hopes to build on the “strong and enduring ties” between the UK and US ahead of Donald Trump‘s much-anticipated state visit.
The prime minister issued a warm welcome to Mr Trump ahead of his three-day visit, which she said would “further strengthen” the special relationship between the two countries.
But the pomp and pageantry of the visit will mask deep tensions, after the president defied diplomatic convention to make a series of extraordinary interventions into British politics.
The Conservative leadership race is now so contested that you could field an entire cricket team from the candidates.
Mark Harper’s entry into the contest on Thursday took the total number of candidates to 12 – significantly more than in previous contests.
The field could grow further still, with Penny Mordaunt, the defence secretary, and Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, still considering whether to join.
Yet few of those running genuinely believe they will win. Instead, some are standing in the hope of raising their profiles and boosting their chances of a cabinet job in the next government, while others want to to make their case on Brexit.
When MPs return to the House of Commons on Tuesday, it will be to resume what is now the longest session of Parliament in the history of the United Kingdom, according to the Press Association.
The current session formally began on June 21 2017 with the State Opening, including the Queen's Speech.
A total of 713 days have since passed, making this the longest continuous parliamentary session since the UK was established by the Acts of Union in 1800.
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