Badenoch warns of leadership ‘stitch-up’ as Johnson reveals vaccine raid plan – live

This could be the moment that the Labour government started to find its feet. Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is “ready to water down” her tax raid on non-doms because the Treasury fears that it may “fail to raise any money”, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

The timing of this realisation is interesting, the day after the end of the Labour conference at which the news might have been greeted with howls of “betrayal” from the marginalised, but still vocal, usual suspects.

But what is important about this U-turn is that it means the cold light of realism has been allowed to penetrate the pie-in-the-sky slogans of Labour’s pre-election economics.

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Security measures have been ramped up around Birmingham city centre as the Conservative Party Conference gets under way.

The annual conference is an opportunity for the four candidates in the Tory leadership race to convince members to pledge their support. Robert Jenrick, Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly and Tom Tugendhat are all hoping to take over from Rishi Sunak, with MPs due to vote for the final two after they return to parliament.

Armed police and high-visibility patrols are visible around the International Convention Centre (ICC), with access to roads around the centre blocked until Friday, 4 October.

Access to Broad Street, Great Charles Street, Street, Sandpits, Parade, Clement Street, St Vincent Street, Sheepcote Street and Oozells Way will be restricted so those travelling in via bus or tram are being encouraged to allow more time for journeys.

Bus services affected include 9, 12, 12A, 13, 13A, 126, X8, X10, 23 and 24.

Securing a closer trading relationship with the European Union will not be easy but it is possible, Sir Keir Starmer has said.

The Prime Minister will head to Brussels next week for talks with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen as he pushes for a “reset” in the UK’s relationship with the EU.

Sir Keir also believes more can be done on defence and security and tackling the migrant crisis.

“I want to ensure that we’ve got a closer trading relationship if we can,” the Prime Minister said.

“I think it’s possible. I’m not going to pretend it’s easy, but I think it’s possible.”

Dazed, confused, but with more than a hint of defiance (foolish or otherwise), the Conservatives meet for their party conference in Birmingham with some important business to transact.

The official theme is “Review and Rebuild”, which sounds about right. Given their fratricidal tendencies, however, and the spectral presence of Boris Johnson through the medium of his memoir Unleashed, it could easily descend into acrimony. The Tories may not be too relevant right now, but it will be entertaining…

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Former prime minister Boris Johnson believed he “might have carked it” when he was in intensive care with Covid without the “skills and experience” of his nurses, according to an extract of his memoir.

Mr Johnson spent several days in intensive care with Covid in April 2020. In the extract of his Unleashed book published in the Daily Mail, he described not wanting to fall asleep on his first night in intensive care “partly in case I never woke up”.

He also recalled feeling “rotten” with “guilt” and “political embarrassment” in the days before he was admitted to hospital.

The nurses caring for Mr Johnson on his first night in intensive care were “Jenny from New Zealand and Luis from Portugal,” he recalled.

Following his release from hospital, the then prime minister spent some time at Chequers with his now-wife Carrie, and he recalled joining in with the clap for the NHS on a Thursday evening.

Immigration has so far featured heavily in the leadership campaign, with frontrunner Mr Jenrick making it a centrepiece of his campaign and arguing the party’s defeat was because it broke its promises on immigration.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph on Saturday, he said he wanted to “put Nigel Farage out of business” and described Reform as “a symptom not a cause”.

He said: “It exists in its current state because my party failed. We made promises on issues that millions of people…small ‘c’ conservatives like me, care passionately about, like controlled and reduced immigration, like securing our borders, and we didn’t deliver on those promises.”

Britons have been urged to leave Lebanon amid warnings the country faces a humanitarian “catastrophe” following the latest round of Israeli air strikes.

On Friday, the Foreign Office warned that British nationals should “leave now” as series of massive explosions levelled multiple apartment buildings in Beirut.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said it was “working to increase capacity” and secure seats for British nationals on flights out of the country.

In his own address to the UN on Thursday, the Prime Minister said: “I call on Israel and Hezbollah. Stop the violence. Step back from the brink.

“We need to see an immediate ceasefire to provide space for a diplomatic settlement and we are working with all partners to that end.”

Kemi Badenoch has hit back at criticism that she took a holiday with her family during the start of her campaign, saying that her husband and children are the “most important thing”.

She apologised to members for being unable to make the event in Yarm, north Yorkshire, as a result of long-standing family commitments in August.

“I heard from members who were there saying they didn’t like that,” Badenoch says. “So I don’t mind if other candidates have a pop at me because they’re showing more about themselves than they are about me. I’m a family person. My family is the most important thing.

“If my husband called me now and said, ‘I don’t want to do this any more, you need to pull out of this leadership contest’, I’d say OK. Because without him I can’t do this. Without my children and my husband my life doesn’t really have any meaning.”

In the weeks before the conference in Birmingham, set to get underway on Sunday, it was claimed that the party was still struggling to find a sponsor for its VIP blue room, previously sponsored by the retail company Regent Street Group.

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