Labour conference live: Rayner takes to stage after defending government in freebies row
Angela Rayner says she has broken no rules on accepting political donations
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Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner is due to speak at the Labour party conference after defending the government over freebies accepted by senior ministers.
Ms Rayner told the BBC on Sunday morning that gifts and donations were “a factor in our political life”, adding: “MPs have accepted gifts and donations for years. All MPs do it”.
She said she had accepted donations to help her stand as deputy leader and that she had not broken any rules by accepting a free New York holiday stay last year from donor Lord Alli.
Ms Rayner will be the first cabinet minister to deliver a speech at the Labour party conference in Liverpool. She will focus on her plans for housing, promising decent homes for all and a kick-started programme of building.
Sir Keir Starmer and his chief of staff Sue Gray are also facing a deepening row over football freebies after it was revealed yesterday that Sir Keir shared a corporate box at Tottenham Hotspur last Sunday with a powerful lobbyist who backed plans for a breakaway Super League.
The Independent’s political team will be reporting throughout the day from the Labour party conference in Liverpool.
‘Don’t compare Keir to Boris’ pleads minister as Abbott accuses PM of being ‘in pocket of millionaires’
Diane Abbott has accused Keir Starmer of being “in the pocket of millionaires” as senior party insiders fear that Labour is being put on trial over the freebies saga.
The claim by the veteran leftwing Labour MP, who Sir Keir’s allies attempted to block from standing in the recent election, has come amid growing unease over the influence of Lord Waheed Alli and the £107,000 of gifts received by the prime minister since 2019.
The row is threatening to derail what should be a triumphant Labour conference in Liverpool in the wake of the election victory in July.
Political editor David Maddox reports:
for social just Diane Abbott accuses Starmer of being ‘in pocket of millionaires’
Exclusive: Ministers are concerned that comparisons are now being drawn between Keir Starmer and Boris Johnson as the row over gifts erupts
Nigel Farage used his closing speech at Reform UK’s conference on Saturday to speek of the need to establish the party’s roots across the UK, announcing first a conference in Wales on November 8 at Newport’s Celtic Manor Hotel.
A November 9 conference in Exeter will follow, as will one on November 11 in the North East.
On November 30, Mr Farage said his deputy Richard Tice and others would host an event in Scotland.
Reform is eyeing up the Senedd, Wales’ Parliament, because the proportional voting system there makes it easier for the party to gain a greater number seats than at Westminster, where it won five constituencies in July’s general election.
The system has, in the past, benefitted Ukip, a party Mr Farage used to lead, and could stand to benefit his new party further as the voting system in Wales will be tilted towards a more proportional system at the next Senedd election.
Sir Keir arrives ahead of Labour’s conference that will show ‘how we’re rebuilding our country’
Sir Keir Starmer said Labour’s conference would show “how we’re fixing the foundations and rebuilding our country”.
Arriving at the conference centre in Liverpool alongside his deputy Angela Rayner, the Prime Minister said it was “our biggest conference ever and the first one in 15 years with Labour in government” adding “change has started”.
John Swinney ‘stunned’ at Prime Minister clothing donations row
Scotland’s First Minister has said he was “stunned” to hear that Sir Keir Starmer had accepted clothing donations.
John Swinney said that the prime minister has now done the right thing, after it emerged that he and his most senior ministers will no longer accept donations to pay for their clothes, but that it should never have happened in the first place.
He told the PA news agency: “I think, like most members of the public, my jaw dropped when I heard this story emerging. I just never, ever thought this happened. I just was stunned by it.
“So I’m not surprised they’re stopping doing it, because it’s completely ridiculous, and I certainly don’t think that this is the way that well-paid public servants should be operating.”
Asked whether the Prime Minister and senior ministers have done the right thing by saying they will no longer accept clothing he said: “Yes, but they shouldn’t have been doing it in the first place.”
Mr Swinney said he has never been offered donations of clothing.
Sir Keir says he has followed all the rules on accepting donations.
Reform to host Wales conference and regional events as it eyes up Senedd
Reform UK is to hold events in Wales, Scotland and across the English regions, as it eyes up representation in the Senedd and town halls, Nigel Farage has said.
The Reform leader announced a Welsh conference, a Scottish gathering, and regional events in the North East and South West, as the party rounded off its national conference.
Mr Farage on Friday laid out a plan to professionalise the party, giving its members a stake in its ownership.
He also pointed to the Liberal Democrats’ campaigning success as a model to follow and said he hoped Reform could set up a similar local branch structure in the future.
Insisting upon the need for the party to professionalise in his closing conference speech on Saturday, Mr Farage said: “There is a limit to what the leadership team and the professional management structure can bring you.
“Yes, of course, we can make the big arguments. Yes, of course, we can make the news.
“Yes, of course, we can dominate social media in a way the other parties couldn’t even consider, and yes of course, with a small professional team we can put together unbelievable stage sets and conferences like this.
“But that only takes us so far.”
Labour MP pushes for Channel 4 to lead way for ban on gambling adverts
Channel 4 is facing demands to stop running betting companies adverts ahead of attempts to bring in a full ban on the “harmful” commercials.
A letter from Leeds Central and Headingley MP Alex Sobel has been sent to chief executive Alex Mahon, pushing for an end to accepting paid adverts from betting companies.
Mr Sobel has targeted Channel 4 because it is still in public ownership despite an attempt by Boris Johnson to sell it off.
The letter has arrived amid growing momentum behind demands to end betting company advertising to help tackle gambling addiction.
Read the exclusive from political editor David Maddox here:
Labour MP pushes for Channel 4 to lead way for ban on gambling adverts
Exclusive: Publicly owned Channel 4 is under pressure from a Labour MP to become the first broadcaster to not carry adverts for betting companies
Labour conference to promise ‘chaos’ of Tory rule never to be repeated
Labour will tell members next week that change has “begun” and that the “chaos” of Tory rule must never be repeated.
Labour’s party conference begins in Liverpool on Sunday and, according to The Times, the conference slogan will be “change begins”.
Despite a positive offering at conference, there are signs things are not going well behind the scenes. One cabinet minister told the paper that the Downing Street operation was a “complete circus” and another said they were “extremely worried” about the impact of several weeks of negative press on the government’s approval ratings.
One senior Labour figure told The Times that the government needed to get a grip on bad headlines about donations for clothes and special advisor pay.
They said: “They just need to get a grip. We’re going into conference and all Keir is going to get asked about is taking freebies and infighting in Downing Street.”
Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir’s head of political strategy, has reportedly told the cabinet that conference week is “politically vital” for Labour. “The country has never needed renewal more,” he was reported as saying.
Diane Abbott suggests the Labour party is ‘in the pocket of millionaires’
Veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott has suggested on social media platform X that Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party has “changed into an organisation whose leaders are in the pocket of millionaires”.
Ms Abbott tweeted a picture of Sir Keir on Saturday with the caption: “Ellie Reeves MP says ‘Labour’s GE victory was only possible because under Keir’s leadership we changed the party’ Changed it into an organisation whose leaders are in the pocket of millionaires?”
Ms Abbott, who was suspended from the party last year, had the Labour whip restored before the general election.
Sir Keir and other senior leaders within the Labour party have been facing criticism over accepting thousands of pounds in donations for clothes. Sir Keir, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves have all pledged to no longer take donations for clothing.
Nigel Farage wraps up Reform conference saying: ‘There is nothing we cannot achieve'
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said that he has set out the “building blocks” that will help grow the party into a nation-wide election force.
He described Reform’s party conference as a “resounding success for this party”. In his closing address on Sunday, he added: “The first thing I think we’ve learnt, is we’ve learnt about organisation... there is a limit to what the leadership team and the management structure can give you. Yes of course we can bring the ideas, we can make the news, we can dominate social media... and we can bring together conferences like this. But that only takes us so far.”
Speaking about giving away his ownership of Reform, Mr Farage said he had given power to the members to grow the movement.
He reiterated the need for planning and professionalism to grow the party in different areas of the country, and establish campaigning groups and infrastructure in every area.
Mr Farage promised that the “sky is the limit for this party”, adding: “There is nothing we cannot achieve”.
He claimed the conference had been the “most joyous gathering of a political party, I reckon, that has ever happened in modern history”.
He said the key take away message from the conference was “optimism”.
Unite union will try to force vote on winter fuel allowance at Labour conference
The union Unite will try to force a vote on reversing the government’s cuts to winter fuel allowance at the party’s conference.
The conference, which is being held in Liverpool, will start tomorrow. Unite has submitted a motion calling for “a vision where pensioners are not the first to face a new wave of cuts”.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been under increasing pressure to scrap the plan to cut winter fuel payments for pensioners.
Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer has defended the move saying that “tough decisions” were necessary to stabilise the economy and boost growth. While the Unite vote will be politically inconvenient, it will not be binding.
Sir Keir is expected to meet with union general secretaries today in an effort to persuade them not to side against him on the fuel allowance vote.
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