News links for Monday, August 26, 2024

Starmer says Labour needs ‘decade’ to rebuild Britain…

“Labour needs a decade to rebuild the country,” Sir Keir Starmer will say this week, warning that “hard work” is needed to bring about lasting change. The prime minister is set to use the recent riots as a metaphor for the scale of the challenge facing his government, and pave the way for potentially unpopular decisions. “I feel really proud of the people who have cleaned up the streets — rebuilt the walls, repaired the damage,” Starmer is expected to say on Tuesday in his first major speech since the unrest… Starmer will use the speech to blame potentially unpopular decisions — such as cuts to the winter fuel allowance for pensioners — on the “rubble and ruin” left by the Conservatives. Rachel Reeves is expected to announce tax rises…” – The Times

He ‘misleads the public about the size of the black hole the Tories have left in the public finances’ – The Sun
Starmer will regret Labour’s first strategic blunder – Kamal Ahmed, The Daily Telegraph
He says every mess is the Tories’ fault, but if he wants to fix things he has to get his party in order – Isabel Hardman, The Sun
Labour could do anything. More taxes are coming – James Cleverly, Daily Express

>Today:

…as the PM is ‘under pressure’ to reveal who gave a No. 10 pass to a Labour donor

“Sir Keir Starmer came under pressure to reveal who approved a Downing Street security pass for a millionaire donor on Sunday, amid a growing cronyism row that has engulfed the government. The Tories wrote to Simon Case, the Cabinet Office minister, demanding to know whether the prime minister or Sue Gray, his chief of staff, had signed the pass for Lord Alli, who has donated £500,000 to Labour. The Telegraph can also reveal that Lord Alli donated £10,000 in January to the Labour constituency of Liam Conlon, Ms Gray’s son and winning candidate for the seat of Beckenham and Penge. Lord Alli, a millionaire TV magnate and former investment banker who chaired Labour’s election fundraising, is Sir Keir’s biggest personal donor…” – The Daily Telegraph

Labor law donor Alli gets Downing Street security pass – The Financial Times
Ministers rush to defend ‘great’ Gray as Tories link her to cronyism – The I
Alli donated £10,000 to Gray’s son’s local party – The Daily Telegraph
Unite gives over £500,000 to Labour MPs but avoids party headquarters over Starmer – The Financial Times
No wonder the unions are gaining the upper hand so quickly. They really do have the Prime Minister’s number! – Dominic Lawson, The Daily Mail
Tory chumocracy is dead. Now it’s Starmer’s ‘mates’ who are feeling the pinch – Anne McElvoy, The I
It is breathtaking hypocrisy when Labour turns cronyism into an art form – Stephen Pollard, The Daily Mail

Labour could ‘disenfranchise members’ in future leadership elections

“Labour members could be stripped of their power to choose 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 that would alter the way Labour chooses its leader once in power. The plan is seen as a way to avoid a repeat of the 2022 Tory leadership contest, when Tory members made Truss leader despite her not having the backing of a majority of MPs. The battle also lasted almost two months, with six weeks taken up by a second round of the members’ ballot between Truss and Rishi Sunak as the energy price crisis deepened. Starmer allies believe a similar scenario must be avoided at all costs…” – The Times

Britain lags behind Russia and China in technology as Reeves scraps 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, with its own dedicated power systems and water tanks. Completed in 2022, the supercomputer has allowed scientists to run vast simulations and crunch vast amounts of data via its 750,000 processor cores. With a power equivalent to a quarter of a million laptops, experts have used it to conduct groundbreaking research into nuclear fusion, heart disease, the loss of the world’s ice caps and Covid-19. Just weeks ago, staff at the University of Edinburgh’s Advanced Computing Facility were preparing to go even further.” – The Daily Telegraph

‘Cabinet split’ as Labour concerns mount over winter fuel surcharge cuts

“A voter backlash over the decision to scrap the universal winter fuel allowance for pensioners has led to a Cabinet split with calls for Rachel Reeves to reconsider the policy. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is reportedly not considering a reconsideration, despite growing Labour opposition to the plan to make the allowance means-tested in a bid to save £1.4bn this year. The tensions have reached the Cabinet, I understand, with at least one minister privately calling for a reconsideration after a 10% rise in the cap on energy prices this winter was announced on Friday. But Reeves is not currently considering a complete U-turn or lowering 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 backlash 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’ concerns over immigration

“A Labour MP has urged Kamala Harris not to ignore “legitimate” concerns about immigration. Mike Tapp, the MP for Dover and Deal, said he met Ms Harris’ campaign team during a visit to the US after the British election. He said he had urged them not to ignore “concerns and concerns about immigration”. Ms Harris, the Democratic presidential candidate, has been attacked for her stance on immigration by Donald Trump, who has branded her a “failed border czar”. Mr Tapp told GB News: “We went in January, a group of candidates at the time, to learn from the Americans and the Democrats and to see their campaigning methods”… Mr Tapp also said people needed to be patient with the government as it tries to tackle immigration…” – The Daily Telegraph

Trump’s re-election 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 outrageous immigration lie. It’s becoming a trend.

“Just before the House of Commons rose for the summer recess, Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, made an extraordinary claim. By scrapping a Conservative policy on asylum, she said, she could save the taxpayer £7 billion with a single stroke of her pen. In the Illegal Migration Act 2023, the Tories introduced a ‘Duty to Remove’, which stopped ministers from granting asylum to people who had come to Britain illegally, and required the Home Office to deport migrants to their home countries or Rwanda. The Duty was made retroactive and applied to everyone who had arrived from March last year onwards… Her central claim – that this would save £700 million a year for a decade – was patently ridiculous…” – The Daily Telegraph

Labour’s pledge to ban foreign criminals by the end of this year is under threat after a series of shocking failures by judges to remove offenders – The Daily Mail

The bad blooded Tory party was like Game of Thrones, Zahawi recalls

“A former Chancellor of the Exchequer has compared the bad blood in the party to the mafia on Game of Thrones. Nadhim Zahawi, who held the top job at the Treasury in the final days of Boris Johnson’s premiership, said colleagues had become so “nasty” 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 was to have any chance of recovering from its historic defeat at the last election. He warned former colleagues that they were doomed to become an “irrelevance” unless they stopped “tearing pieces apart”, suggesting that they had paid dearly for it on July 4 and that the party could now collapse altogether. “The biggest threat to our party today is that we still want to tear pieces apart,” he said.” – The Daily Telegraph

>Yesterday:

Rifkind ‘reveals choice’ for Scottish Tory leader as poll predicts big losses

“Sir Malcolm Rifkind has backed Murdo Fraser as the next leader of the Scottish Tories, as a poll showed the party 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 elections released on Sunday predicted the party’s seat count would fall dramatically, from 31 to just 18. The Norstat survey for the Sunday Times said the Tories would be pushed to a distant third in the Scottish Parliament…” – The Daily Telegraph

>Today: