UK politics live: Rosie Duffield slates Labour ‘sleaze and nepotism’ as Badenoch warns of Tory ‘stitch-up’
MP quits party, attacking Sir Keir Starmer over two-child benefit cap, winter fuel payments and freebies
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MP Rosie Duffield has resigned the Labour whip, accusing the prime minister of “hypocrisy” and pursuing “cruel and unnecessary” policies.
In a resignation letter, Ms Duffield attacked Sir Keir Starmer’s decision to keep the two-child benefit cap and means-test winter fuel payments.
In her resignation letter, she wrote: “The sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice are off the scale.”
Ms Duffield, who will sit as an independent, also slated Sir Keir’s acceptance of more than £100,000 of freebies including clothes.
Earlier, Kemi Badenoch warned that Tory members will be “very angry” if MPs take part in a “stitch-up” to lend votes to other candidates to keep her out of the top two in the leadership contest.
Allies of Ms Badenoch claim she is the victim of a “dirty tricks” campaign, with Robert Jenrick in effect lending votes to James Cleverly, which the former has strongly denied.
Asked whether she believed Mr Jenrick was taking this approach, she told The Times: “I think that may be happening. But what else is happening is that there is tactical voting.”
Boris Johnson feared sleeping with Covid in case he ‘never woke up’, according to Unleashed
Starmer’s pragmatic approach to government is proving to be what’s best for the country
Boris Johnson Unleashed: No Narcissus ever stared more intently into the limpid waters of self-love
Is the Tory conference worth paying attention to this year?
Starmer responds after Musk tells people to avoid UK following summit snub
Sir Keir Starmer has responded to Elon Musk after the tech tycoon said people should not go to the UK.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss lashed out at the UK after it was reported he had not been invited to a major investment summit because of his social media posts during the summer riots.
Mr Musk said: “I don’t think anyone should go to the UK when they’re releasing convicted paedophiles in order to imprison people for social media posts.”
Sir Keir, who held a gathering for US business chiefs set to attend the summit while he was in New York, told reporters that Mr Musk’s views were in “stark contrast” to those of the executives he had met.
“There’s a really strong window of opportunity now with the UK, given the changes we’ve brought about, our number one mission on economic growth, and to talk them through the wealth fund, the industrial strategy, what we’re doing in terms of planning, grids, etc,” Sir Keir said.
“So I’m listening good and hard to what they have to say, because they will be attending the summit, and many of them are already investing in the UK.
“On Tesla. Obviously, I encourage investment from anywhere, and so I don’t want to be misunderstood on this. So good investment into the UK is what I’m very, very keen to promote.”
It is understood SpaceX has been invited to send a representative to the summit in October.
The Tories are adrift in the political wilderness – can they ever recover?
When the Conservatives begin their annual conference tomorrow (Sunday), it might be tempting for them to savour the woes engulfing Keir Starmer’s government so early in its life. Labour’s freebies will certainly provide plenty of ammunition – and jokes at Starmer’s expense.
True, it’s good news for the Tories if voters think the parties are “all the same” – one likely result of the recent controversy. It will be harder for Labour to play the sleaze card against the Tories at the next election.
All politicians struggle to resist schadenfreude. Yet the biggest mistake the Tories could make would be to assume Labour is doomed to be a one-term government. I recall such Tory complacency in 1997 after Labour’s previous landslide; the Tories lost the following two elections.
Read the full analysis here:
The Tories are adrift in the political wilderness – can they ever recover?
Ahead of this week’s party conference, the race to become the next leader of the Conservatives is heating up, writes Andrew Grice – but given the state of the party’s popularity, how much does it actually matter?
Boris Johnson considered ‘nuts’ plan to raid Dutch warehouse over vaccines row
Former prime minister Boris Johnson considered launching an “aquatic raid” on a warehouse in the Netherlands to retrieve Covid vaccine doses amid a row with Europe, according to an extract from his memoir.
Mr Johnson convened a meeting of senior military officials in March 2021 to discuss the plans, which he admitted were “nuts”, according to an extract from his Unleashed book published in the Daily Mail.
At the time, the AstraZeneca vaccine was at the heart of a cross-Channel row over exports, with the EU lagging behind the pace of the rollout in the UK.
The extract says the deputy chief of the defence staff (military strategy and operations), Lieutenant General Doug Chalmers, told the prime minister the plan was “certainly feasible”, using rigid inflatable boats to navigate Dutch canals.
But the senior officer said it would not be possible to do this undetected, with lockdowns meaning the authorities might observe the raid, meaning the UK would “have to explain why we are effectively invading a long-standing Nato ally”.
The former PM admitted: “Of course, I knew he was right, and I secretly agreed with what they all thought but did not want to say aloud: that the whole thing was nuts.”
SNP calls for investigation into donations from Labour peer
The SNP has asked for an investigation into donations to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Labour MPs by Lord Waheed Alli.
In a letter to the standards commissioners in the House of Commons and House of Lords, SNP MP Brendan O’Hara said the revelations have “become Sir Keir Starmer’s version of the expenses scandal”, and he also wants Lord Alli’s Downing Street pass – that he held for a time after the election – looked into.
Donations from Lord Alli, such as money that was spent on clothing, have been under scrutiny.
Mr O’Hara said that unless the matter is “comprehensively investigated” then it is “inevitable that the damaging drip, drip of revelations will continue to erode public trust”.
He later added: “I believe there now exists a clear and immediate public interest in launching a full and independent investigation into all of Lord Alli’s donations and gifts to the Prime Minister, Cabinet ministers and Labour Party MPs.
“There must also be an investigation into the decision to give Lord Alli a security pass to Downing Street, and into how – and why – it was used.”
On Friday evening The Guardian reported there were further clothing donations worth a total of £16,000 to Sir Keir by Lord Alli in October 2023 and February 2024. According to the paper, the donations were described as “for the private office of the leader of the opposition”.
What to expect from Tory conference
The 2024 Conservative Party Conference will be a drastically different affair from last year’s gathering in Manchester, when Rishi Sunak’s government was in its dying days.
Back then, ministers announced a slew of eye-catching policies that would reshape the future of the country in a desperate last few roles of the dice - Alex Chalk promising to offshore prisoners, Jeremy Hunt planning to slash the number of civil servants and Rishi Sunak scrapping HS2.
This year, Mr Sunak is a lame duck Tory leader and all eyes will be far from the diminished former prime minister. Instead it will be a four-day battle for the future leadership of the party, with the four remaining contenders thrashing it out to try to win over Tory members.
James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat will be put to the test in a series of hustings and speeches, as well as taking part in intense lobbying and networking behind the scenes in Birmingham with MPs and the party rank and file.
On offer elsewhere will be former Tory MPs, ousted by the public in July’s general election, setting out where they think the party went wrong and what it needs to do next.
High profile names expected to appear are ex-PM Liz Truss, former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg and incoming Spectator Editor Michael Gove.
The Independent will be bringing the latest updates and analysis from the conference.
Boris Johnson Unleashed: No Narcissus ever stared more intently into the limpid waters of self-love
Lenin once reputedly said that there are decades where nothing happens, and weeks where decades happen. Soon after the millennium, the British Isles experienced a rush of history: a financial emergency, six general elections, five new prime ministers, a constitutional crisis, a pandemic – and then the death of the Queen.
Some have said that these were the nation’s worst years since the Napoleonic wars, and there is one politician who has blazed a meteoric trail across almost every page of this teeming history: Boris Johnson. But only now is he telling his story, for no less than a reported half a million pounds and counting.
At that price, never mind setting the record straight, he’ll have to deliver. But what is in the offing from such a maverick pen? As he might put it, a macédoine of regret, maybe mortification, and dismay? As the first parts of Unleashed are serialised, we finally get a hint of what might be to come.
Read the full review here:
Boris Johnson: No Narcissus ever stared more intently into the waters of self-love
The former PM’s hero, Churchill, is said once to have joked: ‘History will be kind to me, because I intend to write it.’ It’s a saying that Johnson follows to the letter, says Robert McCrum, with a prose style that is both super-rich and awesomely cheap...
Boris Johnson recalls Partygate scandal: ‘I ate no blooming cake’
Boris Johnson has denied eating cake at the “feeblest event in the history of human festivity” held on his 56th birthday.
The former prime minister said he did not see or eat any cake at an event on 19 June 2020, according to an extract from his memoir published in the Daily Mail.
Of the occasion, he wrote: “Here is what actually happened that day. I stood briefly at my place in the Cabinet Room, where I have meetings throughout the day, while the Chancellor and assorted members of staff said happy birthday.
“I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake. If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity.
“I had only just got over Covid. I did not sing. I did not dance.”
Downing Street previously admitted staff “gathered briefly” in the Cabinet Room for what was reportedly a surprise get-together for Mr Johnson organised by his now-wife Carrie.
An ally of the former prime minister, Conor Burns, said Mr Johnson was “ambushed with a cake” at the event.
Boris Johnson was ‘surprised’ partygate would be a line of attack for Labour
Boris Johnson has written of the moment he was confronted with the partygate story dismissing it initially as “old cobblers”.
Writing in Unleashed which isbeing serialised in the Mail +
“[Former Downing Street Director of Communications] Jack explained that the Daily Mirror had a story about a breach of lockdown rules in No 10 during the pandemic. They were accusing the press department of having a party on December 18, 2020 – almost exactly a year previously.
“Jack said the story was nonsense, because it was traditional for the press department to have a glass of wine at their desks on a Friday evening. I looked at him blankly. ‘So no rules were broken?’
“‘No, PM,’ he said firmly, ‘no rules were broken.’
“‘Fine,’ I said, and carried on.
“It sounded like a load of old cobblers – probably some desperate nonsense being peddled by embittered former advisers – and I forgot about it. I was most surprised when it was raised at PMQs the next day – as Labour’s main line of attack.”
Labour called on both the PM and then chancellor Rishi Sunak to go, saying they were “unfit to govern”.
Boris Johnson claims ‘Brexit saved lives'
Boris Johnson has claimed his Brexit deal allowed a faster rollout of the Covid vaccine saving lives.
Writing in Unleashed, serialised in Mail +, he said: “Under my deal, we came out. We took back control. That meant that when it came to the approval of vaccines, we no longer had to go at the pace of the rest of the European Union.
“We had our own agency – the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – and we could do our own thing.
“It meant, bluntly, that we were able to immunise huge numbers of elderly and vulnerable people who – if they had been living in an EU country, or in pre-Brexit Britain – would unquestionably have been forced to wait for EMA approval for their drugs, and who might therefore have died of Covid.
“It wasn’t long before some graffiti appeared on the wall in Portobello Road, West London.
“‘Brexit saves lives,’ it said.
“It wasn’t the sort of writing you expect on the wall in the largely Remain-backing Kensington and Chelsea, and I know that some of you will still find it a pretty indigestible assertion. But painful as it may be for some people, it’s true.”
Badenoch doubles down on claim she became working class after working in McDonald's
Kemi Badenoch has doubled down on her claim that she “became working class” when she got a job at McDonald’s.
The Tory leadership hopeful said she came to the UK “with no money, no friends, no parents”.
She told LBC at that point in her life she was working class as she “had to work to eat”.
“I grew up in a middle class family but coming here I became working class - my dad gave me his last £100, he said ‘you know this is all we have’ because all our money was gone and this is one of the things that people don’t understand,” Ms Badenoch said.
Watch her original comments below:
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