Starmer to say Labour needs ‘a decade’ to rebuild Britain…
“Labour will need a decade to rebuild the country, Sir Keir Starmer will say this week, warning that “hard work” is required to bring about lasting change. The prime minister will use the recent riots as a metaphor for the scale of the challenge his government faces, paving the way for potentially unpopular decisions. “I feel real pride in the people who cleaned up the streets — rebuilt walls, repaired the damage,” Starmer is expected to say on Tuesday in his first major address since the unrest… Starmer will use the speech to lay the blame for potentially unpopular decisions — such as cuts to winter fuel allowance for pensioners — on the “rubble and ruin” left by the Conservatives. Tax rises are expected to be announced by Rachel Reeves…” – The Times
- He is ‘conning public over size of black hole Tories left in public finances’ – The Sun
- Starmer will come to regret Labour’s first strategic blunder – Kamal Ahmed, The Daily Telegraph
- He says every single mess is the Tories’ fault, but if he wants to fix things he needs to get his party in order – Isabel Hardman, The Sun
- Labour could go after everything. More taxes are coming – James Cleverly, Daily Express
>Today:
…as the Prime Minister is ‘under pressure’ to reveal who gave a Number 10 pass to a Labour donor
“Sir Keir Starmer was under pressure to reveal who authorised a Downing Street security pass for a millionaire donor on Sunday amid a growing cronyism row engulfing the Government. The Tories wrote to Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, demanding to know if the Prime Minister or Sue Gray, his Chief of Staff, had signed off the pass for Lord Alli who has donated £500,000 to Labour. The Telegraph can also disclose that Lord Alli gave £10,000 in January to the constituency Labour party of Liam Conlon, the son of Ms Gray and winning candidate for the Beckenham and Penge seat. A millionaire television mogul and former investment banker who chaired Labour’s election fundraising, Lord Alli is the single biggest personal donor to Sir Keir…” – The Daily Telegraph
- Labour donor Alli given Downing Street security pass – The Financial Times
- Ministers rush to defend ‘amazing’ Gray as Tories link her to cronyism row – The I
- Alli gave £10,000 to local party of Gray’s son – The Daily Telegraph
- Unite gives more than £500,000 to Labour MPs but shuns party HQ over Starmer – The Financial Times
- No wonder the unions have the upper hand so soon. They really do have the PM’s number! – Dominic Lawson, The Daily Mail
- The Tory chumocracy is dead. Now it’s Starmer’s ‘mates’ feeling the heat – Anne McElvoy, The I
- It’s breath-taking hypocrisy as Labour turns cronyism into an art form – Stephen Pollard, The Daily Mail
Labour ‘could strip members of vote’ in future leadership contests
“Labour members could be stripped of their power to elect the party’s next leader, under plans allies of Sir Keir Starmer are calling a “Liz Truss lock”. Senior figures in the party are pushing for a controversial rule change at next month’s party conference, which would change the way Labour elects its leader if the party is in power. The scheme is viewed as a way to avoid a repeat of the Tory leadership contest in 2022, when Tory members made Truss leader despite her not having the support of the majority of MPs. The contest also lasted nearly two months, with six weeks taken up by a run-off ballot for members between Truss and Rishi Sunak while the energy price crisis mounted. Allies of Starmer believe a similar scenario should be avoided at all costs…” – The Times
Britain falls behind Russia and China on tech as Reeves axes supercomputer
“In a vast warehouse on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Britain’s most powerful supercomputer, Archer2, hums and purrs. The sprawling machine is made up of thousands of computer processors stored in dozens of rows of cabinets, featuring its own dedicated power systems and water tanks. Completed in 2022, the supercomputer has enabled scientists to run enormous simulations, crunching huge amounts of data through its 750,000 processor cores. With power equivalent to a quarter of a million laptops, experts have used the machine to perform cutting-edge research on nuclear fusion, heart disease, the loss of the world’s ice sheets and Covid-19. Just weeks ago, staff at Edinburgh University’s Advanced Computing Facility were preparing to go even further.” – The Daily Telegraph
‘Cabinet split’ as Labour concerns grow over winter fuel allowance cut
“A voter backlash at the decision to scrap the universal winter fuel allowance for pensioners has sparked a Cabinet split with calls for Rachel Reeves to rethink the policy. The Chancellor is understood not to be considering a rethink despite growing Labour opposition to the plan to means-test the benefit in a bid to save £1.4bn this year. The tensions have reached the Cabinet, i understands, with at least one minister privately calling for a rethink after a 10 per cent rise in the energy price cap this winter was announced on Friday. But Reeves is not currently considering a full U-turn or tapering the cut-off point for the winter fuel allowance to offset the cliff-edge effect for those just above the qualifying threshold under the current plans.” – The I
- Labour ministers face a backbench rebellion over controversial plans to strip 10 million pensioners of their winter fuel payments – The Daily Mail
- Labour MPs with a conscience must stop Robber Reeves – James Whale, Daily Express
Labour MP tells Harris not to ignore voters’ worries about immigration
“A Labour MP has urged Kamala Harris not to ignore “valid” concerns about immigration. Mike Tapp, the MP for Dover and Deal, said he met with Ms Harris’s campaign team on a visit to the United States after the UK election. He said he urged them not to ignore “worries and concerns around immigration”. Ms Harris, the Democrat presidential candidate, has been attacked over her position on immigration by Donald Trump, who has called her a “failed border tsar”. Mr Tapp told GB News: “We went over in January, a group of candidates at the time, to learn from the Americans and the Democrats and look at their campaign methods”… Mr Tapp also said that people needed to have patience with the Government as it looks to tackle immigration…” – The Daily Telegraph
- Re-election of Trump will spell trouble for Labour, say Tories – The I
- The end of woke spells trouble for the right – Will Lloyd, The Times
>Yesterday:
Nick Timothy: I exposed Cooper’s shameful immigration lie. It’s becoming a trend.
“Just before the House of Commons rose for its summer recess, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary made an extraordinary claim. By cancelling a Conservative policy on asylum, she said, she was able to save the taxpayer £7 billion with a single stroke of her pen. In the Illegal Migration Act of 2023, the Tories introduced a ‘Duty to Remove’, preventing ministers from granting asylum to those who had come to Britain illegally, and requiring the Home Office to deport the migrants to their home country or Rwanda. The Duty was made retrospective, and applied to anybody who had arrived from March last year… Her central claim – that doing so would save £700 million per year for a decade – was clearly ridiculous…”- The Daily Telegraph
- Labour’s pledge to kick out foreign criminals by end of this year is threatened by a series of shocking failures to remove offenders by judges – The Daily Mail
Tory party bad blood was like Game of Thrones, recalls Zahawi
“A former chancellor has likened the bad blood in the party to the mafia or Game of Thrones. Nadhim Zahawi, who held the top job in the Treasury in the dying days of Boris Johnson’s premiership, said colleagues became so “vicious” in government that they formed a “circular hit squad” to take out their enemies. In an interview…the former Tory MP urged his party to unite if it wants to stand a chance of recovering after its historic defeat at the last election. He warned former colleagues that they are destined to become an “irrelevance” unless they stop tearing “chunks out of one another”, suggesting it had cost them dearly on July 4 and could now cause the party to collapse altogether. “The greatest threat to our party today is we still want to tear chunks out of one another,” he said.” – The Daily Telegraph
-
The next Tory leader should have one focus: the straitjacket on government – Kemi Badenoch, The Sunday Times
>Yesterday:
Andrew Mitchell: Ukraine will defeat Putin – as long as we support it
“We have been here before. At the Munich conference in 1938, the British and French leaders who agreed to hand Hitler part of Czechoslovakia believed they were securing peace. But the most catastrophic conflict of the twentieth century followed. The lesson that should have been learned is that bullies cannot be pacified. Give them an inch, and the tanks will roll in before long. No one here in Britain, or indeed in the wider world, should be in any doubt: this is vital not just for Ukraine, whose determination to fight for its freedom is undimmed, but for us in Britain and beyond.If Russia were to win in Ukraine, we would be back in a world where the most fundamental international rule –that countries must not seize land from others or resolve disputes by force –was in shreds.” – The Daily Telegraph
Rifkind ‘reveals choice’ for Scottish Tory leader as poll predicts major losses
“Sir Malcolm Rifkind has endorsed Murdo Fraser to be the next Scottish Tory leader as a poll showed the party is on course to lose more than 40 per cent of its Holyrood seats. The former foreign secretary said he had known Mr Fraser for “many years” and described him as having “strong leadership qualities”. Sir Malcolm, who also served as Scottish secretary, said Scotland needed a strong Tory party “more than ever” but warned the right leader was needed “to rebuild that strength”. An opinion poll for the May 2026 Holyrood election released on Sunday predicted the party’s number of seats will drop dramatically, from 31 to only 18. The Norstat survey for the Sunday Times said the Tories would be pushed back into a distant third place in the Scottish Parliament…” – The Daily Telegraph
>Today:
News in Brief:
- Are Labour about to u-turn on the winter fuel payment? – Isabel Hardman, The Spectator
- Labour Together is far more dangerous than Momentum – Aaron Bastani, UnHerd
- Shattered illusions – Alex Story, The Critic
- Racist buildings are the least of Wales’s problems – Joseph Dinnage, CapX
- Mind the gap – Sam Freedman, Comment is Freed
