Starmer to chair cabinet as polling shows only 26% of Labour members approve of his leadership
Good morning. Keir Starmer chairs cabinet this morning having lost his deputy PM, his ambassador to Washington and his strategy chief all within less than a fortnight.
The Commons starts a four-week recess this evening, which will provide some respite. (If MPs are out of Westminster, they are less likely to engage in dissident plotting.) But before they head off, MPs will spend three hours in a debate on Peter Mandelson, which is likely to focus on whether Starmer was right to appoint him in the first place and whether he has been fully candid about what he knew about the Mandelson emails to Jeffrey Epstein when he defended the ambassador at PMQs last week.
And there is more bad news for Starmer this morning. Survation has published a poll of Labour party members, in partnership with LabourList, that suggests:
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Lucy Powell, who was sacked by Starmer as leader of the Commons, has a clear lead over Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, in the contest to be deputy leader. Phillipson is viewed as the loyalist, pro-Starmer candidate, while Powell is seen as the choice for members who want to express some dissent.
All polling is potentially fallible, party membership polling is particularly difficult (because the relatively small number of members makes getting a weighted sample much harder than it is with normal polling), and in some respects the views of party members are fairly irrelevant at the moment. The chances of a leadership challenge anytime soon still look very slight, and even if Powell (seen, rightly or wrongly, as an Andy Burnham proxy), were to win the deputy leadership, the post carries almost no formal power within Labour. Just ask Tom Watson.
Still, the polling doesn’t look good.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
Morning: Starmer meets relatives of people killed at Hillsborough to mark the publication today of the public office (accountablity) law, aka the Hillsborough law.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in London.
11.30am: David Lammy takes questions in the Commons for the first time in his new role as justice secretary.
11.55am: Sarah Jones, the policing minister, gives a speech to the Police Superintendents’ Association.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Lunchtime: Wes Streeting, the health secretary, visits the London Ambulance Service to publicise an NHS winter planning exercise.
After 12.30pm: MPs begin a three-hour emergency debate initiated by the Tory MP David Davis on the “appointment process and the circumstances leading to the dismissal of the former UK ambassador to the US, Lord Mandelson”.
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Key events
State pension set to rise by more than £500 a year from April, figures suggest
People on the new full state pension are set for a rise of over £500 a year from next April following the latest official earnings data, PA Media reports. PA says:
Under the triple lock guarantee, the state pension increases every April in line with whichever is the highest of total earnings growth in the year from May to July of the previous year, CPI (Consumer Prices Index) inflation in September of the previous year, or 2.5%.
The latest figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed a rise in total wage growth including bonuses to 4.7% in the quarter to July, up from 4.6% in the three months to June.
While the final piece of the puzzle will not come until inflation figures for September are published in October, it is thought unlikely that the rate of Consumer Prices Index will be higher than 4.7%.
Inflation currently stands at 3.8%, with the latest data for August due out on Wednesday.
UK labour market cools as pay growth slows and job losses rise
The UK’s jobs market has continued to cool, according to official figures, amid a slowdown in annual pay growth and rising redundancies, Richard Partington reports. Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show annual growth in regular earnings, excluding bonuses, slowed to 4.8% in the three months to July, down from 5% in the three months to June, matching the forecasts of City economists.
Here is the full story.
Starmer to chair cabinet as polling shows only 26% of Labour members approve of his leadership
Good morning. Keir Starmer chairs cabinet this morning having lost his deputy PM, his ambassador to Washington and his strategy chief all within less than a fortnight.
The Commons starts a four-week recess this evening, which will provide some respite. (If MPs are out of Westminster, they are less likely to engage in dissident plotting.) But before they head off, MPs will spend three hours in a debate on Peter Mandelson, which is likely to focus on whether Starmer was right to appoint him in the first place and whether he has been fully candid about what he knew about the Mandelson emails to Jeffrey Epstein when he defended the ambassador at PMQs last week.
And there is more bad news for Starmer this morning. Survation has published a poll of Labour party members, in partnership with LabourList, that suggests:
-
Lucy Powell, who was sacked by Starmer as leader of the Commons, has a clear lead over Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, in the contest to be deputy leader. Phillipson is viewed as the loyalist, pro-Starmer candidate, while Powell is seen as the choice for members who want to express some dissent.
All polling is potentially fallible, party membership polling is particularly difficult (because the relatively small number of members makes getting a weighted sample much harder than it is with normal polling), and in some respects the views of party members are fairly irrelevant at the moment. The chances of a leadership challenge anytime soon still look very slight, and even if Powell (seen, rightly or wrongly, as an Andy Burnham proxy), were to win the deputy leadership, the post carries almost no formal power within Labour. Just ask Tom Watson.
Still, the polling doesn’t look good.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Keir Starmer chairs cabinet.
Morning: Starmer meets relatives of people killed at Hillsborough to mark the publication today of the public office (accountablity) law, aka the Hillsborough law.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch is on a visit in London.
11.30am: David Lammy takes questions in the Commons for the first time in his new role as justice secretary.
11.55am: Sarah Jones, the policing minister, gives a speech to the Police Superintendents’ Association.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Lunchtime: Wes Streeting, the health secretary, visits the London Ambulance Service to publicise an NHS winter planning exercise.
After 12.30pm: MPs begin a three-hour emergency debate initiated by the Tory MP David Davis on the “appointment process and the circumstances leading to the dismissal of the former UK ambassador to the US, Lord Mandelson”.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm BST at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
