“The national living wage is set to increase to at least £11 an hour from next April, the chancellor is to confirm. In a speech to the Conservative Party conference Jeremy Hunt is expected to say the move will benefit two million of the lowest-paid workers. He will also say he intends to toughen sanctions for people on benefits who do not take steps to find work.” – BBC
“Ben Wallace has revealed that he asked Rishi Sunak to spend £2.3 billion more on military support for Ukraine before departing as defence secretary. Writing for The Telegraph, Mr Wallace said the UK had been overtaken by Germany as the biggest European military donor to Ukraine. His intervention will increase pressure on the Prime Minister to spend more money supporting Kyiv against the Russian invasion.” – Daily Telegraph
“Mobiles are to be banned from classrooms, the Education Secretary will announce today. Gillian Keegan will order schools to outlaw smartphones during lessons, and also in breaks, in a bid to end disruption and make it easier for pupils to focus. A government source said new guidance would be issued to schools across England requiring them to take action.” – Daily Mail
“Liz Truss will call on Rishi Sunak to “revive Conservative values” as she renews demands for the government to announce tax cuts this autumn. In an event today that threatens to reignite tensions in the party, the former prime minister will join former cabinet allies in a rallying call to free the UK from 25 years of “economic stagnation”. She will call on Sunak to cut business taxes in the autumn statement next month and to “make the case for Conservatism again”. Elsewhere, Michael Gove, the levelling-up secretary, said he wanted to “see the tax burden reduced before the next election”, adding that he favoured tax cuts for working people to be prioritised over scaling back inheritance tax.” – The Times
>Yesterday:
“Kemi Badenoch will mount a fierce Brexit fightback today in an attempt to silence doomster Remainers. In a speech to rally the Tory faithful, the Business Secretary will say she is growing sick of economically illiterate critics blaming every problem on leaving the EU.” – The Sun
“Tory MPs should get over their “excess of doom and gloom” about their electoral prospects and “get behind” Rishi Sunak, a cabinet minister has said, with a veiled warning to colleagues jostling for position not to be “self-indulgent”. The international development minister, Andrew Mitchell, suggested on Sunday that rival groups of Conservative MPs, who have been proposing an array of policy ideas at the party conference in Manchester, should be more disciplined before the election.” – The Guardian
>Yesterday: Andrew Gimson’s Party Conference sketch: In the thinly attended main hall, no speaker knew how to raise morale
“Lord Houchen, metro mayor of Tees Valley and the poster boy for the Tories’ levelling-up agenda, warned that the prime minister would have to strive harder to retain voters who supported the Conservatives at the previous election. “We need to do more to give those people the excuse” to vote Tory again, Houchen told a fringe event, adding that the public was “not going to get behind a party” that has undergone as much turmoil as the Conservatives have in the past year or so. His intervention came as Greg Hands, the party chair, conceded that the Conservatives were likely to enter the next election as the “underdogs” and acknowledged that activists had been facing “difficult conversations” with voters. Seeking to bolster morale among delegates, Hands insisted that he had detected “no enthusiasm” for, and “even less trust in”, the Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer on the doorstep.” – Financial Times
>Yesterday: Video: Hands: “When Labour run things. They run things badly.”
“The Science Secretary will on Tuesday unveil a review into the “utter nonsense” of public bodies being urged to collect data on self-identified gender rather than biological sex. Speaking at the Conservative Party Conference, Michelle Donelan will sound the alarm at what she calls the “denial of biology and the steady creep of political correctness”. Ms Donelan has been moved to act by examples such as the NHS sometimes using a person’s stated gender rather than their biological sex in data records.” – Daily Telegraph
>Yesterday: Video: Digital Britain – How delivering better connectivity can drive growth and opportunities
“High-speed train disaster HS2 has 167 staff in its PR department costing £8million a year, The Sun can reveal. Three of them are working on woke training in their £200,000-a-year Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team, with a vacancy for a fourth. Last night, critics branded the project “over-bloated, over-budget and off the rails” as the PM again refused to rule out scaling it back. More than a dozen spin doctors are on the payroll and another five run the firm’s social media, according to a Freedom of Information request. The total budget last year for HS2 Ltd’s Communications and Stakeholder Engagement Directorate hit £8,086,998, dropping slightly this year to £7,889,489.” – The Sun
>Yesterday: Video: The Prime Minister is “not going to comment on further speculation” regarding HS2
“Rishi Sunak has mocked the SNP’s legal troubles as he claimed the UK Government had sent enough extra cash to Holyrood to pay for “28,000 motorhomes”. In a rallying cry to Scottish Conservative activists at the Tory conference on Sunday, the Prime Minister also vowed to defy the polls and “smash” the nationalists at the next election. He also hit out at Sir Keir Starmer, claiming the Labour leader “cares more about North London that he does about the North Sea”. The SNP is embroiled in an investigation into party finances, during which Nicola Sturgeon, her husband Peter Murrell, and former party treasurer Colin Beattie were arrested.” – Daily Telegraph
“James Cleverly has said he will visit the Falkland Islands to assert the UK’s control of them after a “run-in” with the Argentinian government. The Foreign Secretary told an audience at a Conservative Party Conference drinks reception in Manchester on Sunday night that he would “make absolutely clear” that the UK supported the islands’ right to self-determination. The UK government has been embroiled in a fresh dispute with Argentina since March, when Buenos Aires pulled out of a co-operation agreement with Britain and called for talks between the two countries over the Falklands.” – Daily Telegraph
>Yesterday: Video: “While we have a global outlook, Labour can hardly imagine a world beyond Brussels.” – Cleverly
“Comedy writer Graham Linehan has told a free speech event at the Conservative Party conference he was “the most cancelled person in this room”. Best known for The IT Crowd and Father Ted, his views on gender have led to him being accused of transphobia. Mr Linehan told a fringe debate on Sunday he found it “very hard to find places to speak these days”. A comedy show featuring Mr Linehan in Edinburgh was cancelled in August due to complaints.” – BBC
“A majority of voters back Britain pulling out of Europe’s human rights treaty in order to deport more illegal migrants, according to a poll. The survey showed 54 per cent support leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). By comparison, just 27 per cent of the 2,000 adults polled said they would oppose such a move, with the rest saying they ‘don’t know’. A clear majority of those polled agreed with ‘replacing the current European system of human rights laws’ with ‘new British laws that protect rights like free speech but enable the Government to promptly deport illegal migrants’. Among Tory voters, support was at 86 per cent, found the poll for The New Conservatives, a group of Tory MPs aiming to shape the party’s policies before the next general election.” – Daily Mail
“Whatever the challenges we face – and those challenges are as numerous as they are often complex – the right approach for Sunak is to be honest about what they are and why we face them, bold in the solutions he offers, and unapologetic about taking on the argument and winning it…The vested interests and ideologues – some inside the Tory Party as well as beyond – may stand in the way. Taking them on is not only a necessary part of politics, but an opportunity a leader must relish. It seems Sunak has started to do so. It may be bloody, but if he is to lead his party to recovery, he will need to take on his critics and beat them.” – Nick Timothy, Daily Telegraph