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Sir Keir Starmer’s top spin doctor has quit after Labour suffered another poor by-election result in which the party lost its deposit.

Ben Nunn announced he was stepping down as the opposition leader’s director of communications, after the party trailed in fourth behind the Green Party in the Chesham and Amersham poll.

The departure of the top aide represents another blow to Sir Keir after Labour picked up 622 votes in the by-election securing just 1.6% of the vote – down from 12.9% at the last general election.

It follows the party’s crushing defeat last month when Labour lost its heartland seat of Hartlepool to the Tories, triggering bitter recriminations against the leadership.

Mr Nunn was said to be quitting to pursue other projects rather than as a direct response to the poor electoral showing, and he continued to support Sir Keir.

In his departure email to staff, Mr Nunn wrote: “I remain as convinced today as I ever have been that he will be a great prime minister and make this a better, stronger, more prosperous country.

“The decision to step down has been one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to take.”

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Having worked together since 2017, Mr Nunn was with Sir Keir when he was shadow Brexit secretary and helped his successful campaign in the race to replace Jeremy Corbyn as leader.

Deputy communications director Paul Ovenden is also standing down, but his departure is understood to be because of family reasons and unconnected to political events.

The by-election on Thursday saw the Conservative stronghold in Buckinghamshire fall to the Liberal Democrats.

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Davey takes hammer to ‘Tory blue wall’

The party’s newest MP Sarah Green overturned a 16,000 majority to win Chesham and Amersham by 8,028 votes, which had been Tory-held since its creation in 1974.

The Greens came in third, with Labour lagging behind in fourth.

In Mr Nunn’s leaving message, he added: “I’ve worked in politics for about six years now and in that time I’ve worked through the junior doctors’ dispute, EU referendum campaign, a leadership contest, Brexit, a general election, another leadership contest and a global pandemic.

“I’ve had the opportunity to learn and experience so much. Now is the chance for me to go forward and do something different.”

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‘By-election was a disappointing result’

Meanwhile, Conservative Party co-chair Amanda Milling has acknowledged that the humiliating defeat in Chesham and Amersham was “a warning shot”.

The HS2 rail line being built through the constituency was a major issue in the campaign, as was the proposed planning reforms that have sparked fears about building in the countryside around the seat in the Chilterns.

In the wake of the loss, Boris Johnson has denied the Tories were neglecting southern parts of England in favour of its new northern seats .

The prime minister admitted his party had suffered what was “certainly a disappointing result”, but he pointed to “particular circumstances” in the constituency.

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Rishi Sunak to pitch himself as prime minister to ‘fundamentally change the country’

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Rishi Sunak to pitch himself as prime minister to 'fundamentally change the country'

Rishi Sunak will try to convince the public he is the person to “fundamentally change the country” and fix Westminster’s “broken system” – despite the fact his party has been in government for 13 years.

In his speech to the Tory Party conference, the prime minister will present himself as a reformer who is prepared to take difficult decisions, unlike opponents, who take “the easy decision, not the right one”.

Mr Sunak will tell the conference hall that politics “doesn’t work the way it should” and that his Labour opponent, Sir Keir Starmer, is “betting on voters’ apathy.”

The speech will round off what has been a chaotic four days at the party’s annual conference in Manchester – an event that has been overshadowed by the announcement that the northern leg of HS2 will not go ahead as originally envisioned.

Instead, services will run between Birmingham and Manchester but they will not be high speed and they will use the existing West Coast Mainline track.

The development prompted Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham to accuse the government of treating people in the north as “second-class citizens”.

Election would be ‘massive distraction’ – Tory conference latest

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He warned the government: “To pull that plug here in Manchester would show complete contempt to the city region and to the north of England as a whole.”

The Tory mayor for the West Midlands, Andy Street, also warned it would be “an incredible political gaffe” allowing opponents to accuse Mr Sunak of having decided to “shaft the north”.

In his speech, Mr Sunak will rail against “30 years of a political system which incentivises the easy decision, not the right one – 30 years of vested interests standing in the way of change”.

He will reflect on his first year in Number 10 and acknowledge a “feeling that Westminster is a broken system”.

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No high speed link north of Birmingham

“It isn’t anger, it is an exhaustion with politics,” he will say.

“In particular, politicians saying things, and then nothing ever changing.

“And you know what? People are right. Politics doesn’t work the way it should.”

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Sunak: ‘No one wants an election’

Poll shows most voters think Sunak is doing a bad job

A new poll of 1,000 people from Ipsos UK suggests most voters think Rishi Sunak is doing a bad job when it comes to hitting his goals.

On inflation, 57% said Mr Sunak was doing a bad job, up from 55% in May.

Some 54% said he was doing a bad job on growing the economy, up from 50% in May.

And 54% of people said he was doing a bad job on reducing national debt – up from 49%.

On cutting NHS waiting lists, dissatisfaction sits at 71%, compared to 62% in May.

On ‘stopping the boats’, two-thirds of people said he was doing a bad job.

The poll was carried out just before the Conservative party conference.

And he will say: “Politicians spent more time campaigning for change than actually delivering it.

“Our mission is to fundamentally change our country.”

Read more:
Sunak to announce £30bn of transport spending in conference speech
Braverman says Andrew Boff should be allowed back into conference

As well as the HS2 announcement, Mr Sunak has also been undermined by his predecessor Liz Truss, who drew big conference crowds as she demanded immediate tax cuts to “make Britain grow again”.

Mr Sunak has instead compared himself to the late Baroness Thatcher, who tackled inflation before cutting taxes during her premiership between 1979 and 1990.

While Mr Sunak has repeatedly sought to dodge questions over HS2, he did say on Tuesday that the costs of the project had gone “far beyond” what had been predicted, and the sums involved were “enormous”.

The HS2 scheme was given a budget of £55.7bn in 2015 but costs have ballooned, with an estimate of up to £98bn – in 2019 prices – in 2020.

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SEC asks judge to reject Coinbase’s motion to dismiss lawsuit

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SEC asks judge to reject Coinbase’s motion to dismiss lawsuit

The United States Securities and Exchange Commission has asked a federal judge to deny Coinbase’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit by the regulator.

In an Oct. 3 filing in a New York District Court, the SEC hit back at claims in Coinbase’s dismissal motion and reiterated its belief that some of the cryptocurrencies listed on its platform were investment contracts under the Howey Test subject to SEC registration.

“Each crypto asset issuer invited investors — including purchasers on Coinbase’s platform — reasonably to expect the value of their investment to increase based on the issuer’s broadly-disseminated plan to develop and maintain the asset’s value,” the SEC wrote.

The SEC asserted Coinbase has “known all along” that cryptocurrencies it sells are securities if they meet the Howey Test and alleged the exchange recognized this in its filings with the SEC.

The regulator also scrubbed Coinbase’s argument invoking the “major questions doctrine” which claimed the SEC has no authority over the crypto market until Congress says so.

“The SEC has not assumed for itself any new power to do what the federal securities laws do not already expressly authorize it to do,” the SEC said.

In an Oct. 3 X (Twitter) post, Coinbase legal chief Paul Grewal said the SEC’s arguments were “more of the same old same old” and asserted the assets it lists “are not securities and are not within the SEC’s jurisdiction.”

Grewal claimed the SEC’s arguments in its response would mean “everything from Pokemon cards to stamps to Swiftie bracelets are also securities.”

Related: SEC initiates legal action against FTX’s auditor

Miles Jennings, a16z crypto’ general counsel, claimed in an X post that the SEC’s motion “has a lot of holes.”

Jennings added even if the court were to agree with the regulators main argument around investment contracts then the case “should still fail” as he believes the SEC’s definition of an investment contract has “endless breadth.”

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