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The golden rule of Boris Johnson’s Conservatives is that an otherwise disparate party is at its most happy when it’s talking about Brexit and its consequences.

At times of stress, it’s the trump card the PM routinely reaches for. Given the stage of the country, expect it to feature heavily during the party conference.

As the prime minister heads to Manchester in what would conventionally be an extraordinarily troublesome backdrop – fuel shortages, supply line disruption, containers mounting up at ports, food shortages for months, lack of medicines in pharmacies culling pigs where they live rather than in slaughter houses due to a lack of labour meaning they become pet food not pork – he will seek to turn this to his advantage.

Mr Johnson wants to boil this down into an argument over migration he believes he can win – the Tories will continue to control numbers coming in from overseas in the hope competition drives up wages, Labour would let in more workers from abroad to fill the vacancies, undercutting domestic workers.

It is a bold gambit, not without its risks. No matter the argument doesn’t fix the problems at hand or fill empty shelves. No matter that his government has had to increase visa numbers and relax conditions to entice migrant labour twice in a fortnight. No matter that Labour is not actually proposing a return to free movement or unlimited migration, though he is helped by their line being inconsistent. No matter that some economists would argue constraining labour supply when inflation is rising could lead to a stagnant economy.

The argument over the involvement of Brexit will be nuanced, and he won’t say the shortages are a consequence of it. Instead he will make clear Brexit allowed the ending of free movement which stops overseas low-wage migration being part of the solution under his government.

Mr Johnson believes he has found a politically-winning dividing line up to a 2023 or 2024 election, so expect to hear variations of it from the conference podium and fringe events through the week. If he can show by the time of the next election wages have risen, he believes voters will thank him.

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The prime minister’s business secretary gave a foretaste of the argument in a pre-conference interview with Conservative Home.

Kwasi Kwarteng put the supply line crisis, flashing amber and red in different sectors in the briefings for minister, down to a “transition” as the UK “rejects a low-wage high immigration economic model”.

He goes on: “You’re quite right to say people are resisting that, particularly employers that were benefiting from an influx of labour that could keep wages low,” in remarks that will leave many industry associations reeling.

And what if the shortages cause disruption? “All you can do, other than take various emergency measures, is tough it out,” said Mr Kwarteng.

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Faced with a crisis, this prime minister loves nothing more than to try and “tough it out”, so expect little backing down at conference, but if Christmas retail is disrupted in the way some predict, it could still be a choppy autumn for the Conservatives. But first he wants to use the extraordinary platform which Manchester affords.

The prime minister is entering Tory conference in as strong a position as any Conservative leader since David Cameron in October 2015. The Conservatives are eight percentage points of Labour in YouGov’s latest poll. The party enjoys huge leads in everyone over 50, with three times as many over-65s voting Tory as Labour. Almost nobody who voted Tory in 2019 says they will vote Labour now (at 2% this figure is within the margin of error of zero) with four times as many voters deserting to Richard Tice’s right-wing Reform party.

That does not mean that Mr Johnson is in an unassailable position. Slowly Sir Keir’s ratings have been catching up with Mr Johnson’s in the YouGov tracker. Some 52% said they disapprove of the government compared to 26% approving. It would not take much volatility for ‘red wall’ MPs, elected because Labour got the worst defeat since 1935 in the 2019 general election, to start to wobble. Politics can spiral.

Sir Keir Starmer has concluded a party looking inward and fighting itself cannot win over voters in the numbers necessary to overturn Boris Johnson's majority
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Sir Keir Starmer is slowly gaining on the PM in polls

This is not happening yet, and almost certainly will not happen in the confines of the Manchester Conference Centre. Tory MPs I’ve spoken are asking little more than that the prime minister empathises with cost of living pressures in his speech. Mr Johnson’s reshuffle confirmed he rules his party now, beholden to no one, hearing little meaningful dissent and happy to promote potential future rivals who can all compete to succeed.

So expect Manchester to be an Instagram beauty pageant, of Rishi Sunak’s diffident one-liners pitted against Liz Truss intoning to the ideologically faithful, all beautifully presented in picture form. Try and spot the work being put into the brands of people who consider themselves contenders to the Johnson throne while also waiting for Michael Gove to hit the dancefloor again.

With the lobbyists cooing complements and the faithful cheering, the Tory party conference is a long way from the real world. Mr Johnson will want to enjoy it.

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No job for Tom Tugendhat in Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet as Chris Philp appointed shadow home secretary

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No job for Tom Tugendhat in Kemi Badenoch's shadow cabinet as Chris Philp appointed shadow home secretary

Tom Tugendhat is not serving in Kemi Badenoch’s shadow cabinet, it has been revealed – as the new Tory leader continued her appointments today.

Former Home Office minister Chris Philp has been awarded the job of shadow home secretary, the last of the key posts to be announced.

A Conservative source told Sky News Mr Tugendhat was offered a job and turned it down.

Unveiling a host of appointments today, Ms Badenoch, who was elected leader of the Conservative Party last weekend, confirmed that Ed Argar would be the shadow health secretary, while James Cartlidge will take on the role of shadow defence secretary.

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Former business minister Kevin Hollinrake will shadow Angela Rayner on the housing brief, while Victoria Atkins will take on the role of shadow environment secretary.

Claire Coutinho, who was the energy secretary under Rishi Sunak, will continue in the opposition version of the role.

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Helen Whately has been appointed shadow work and pensions secretary and Andrew Griffith, the former economic secretary to the Treasury, is the new shadow business and trade secretary.

Ms Badenoch, who became Conservative leader on Saturday, started officially appointing her shadow cabinet on Sunday evening.

Yesterday Dame Priti Patel made a comeback to frontline politics after the new Conservative leader appointed her as shadow foreign secretary.

Former shadow work and pensions secretary Mel Stride, who ran in the Tory leadership race and is considered more of a moderate than Ms Badenoch, was also made shadow chancellor.

The move has been interpreted as Ms Badenoch making an effort to unite the party following its bruising election defeat, which saw it reduced to just 121 seats.

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Badenoch: ‘It is time to renew’

Robert Jenrick, who lost out to Ms Badenoch in the Tory leadership race, is the new shadow justice secretary, while Laura Trott, who previously served as chief secretary to the Treasury, was appointed shadow education secretary.

Now the Conservatives are in opposition, the shadow cabinet’s role is to scrutinise the policies and actions of the government and offer alternative policies.

Other roles that have been confirmed today include Stuart Andrew as shadow culture secretary, Gareth Bacon as shadow transport secretary, Andrew Bowie as shadow Scotland secretary, Alex Burghart as shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and Mims Davies as shadow Wales secretary and shadow minister for women.

Former transport minister Jesse Norman has been appointed as shadow leader of the Commons while Richard Fuller is the new shadow chief secretary to the Treasury and Alan Mak is the new shadow science secretary.

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University tuition fee rise branded ‘morally wrong’

During the Conservative Party leadership race, Ms Badenoch suggested that all six MPs who ran against her for the top job – Mr Jenrick, Mr Tugendhat, Mr Stride, Ms Patel and James Cleverly – would be offered a job in her shadow cabinet.

Mr Cleverly, who came third in the leadership race, said on Friday he would not be joining Ms Badenoch’s top team.

It is understood Ms Badenoch will appoint the remainder of the team later in the week and on a rolling basis.

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Meet the pro-crypto contenders who could replace SEC chief Gary Gensler

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Meet the pro-crypto contenders who could replace SEC chief Gary Gensler

There are several new candidates who could potentially become the next chair of the SEC.

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University tuition fee rise branded ‘morally wrong’ – as Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson defends increase

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University tuition fee rise branded 'morally wrong' - as Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson defends increase

The education secretary has said no decision has been made on whether university tuition fees will increase with inflation each year.

Bridget Phillipson has announced the maximum cap on tuition fees in England will go up in line with inflation from April 2025.

The cost of tuition will increase by £285 to £9,535 next year – the first rise in eight years.

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There will also be a rise in maximum maintenance loans to increase in line with inflation, giving an increase of £414 a year to help students with living costs.

However, the education secretary did not say if the rise would continue after that.

Speaking to Sky News’ Politics Hub with Sophy Ridge, Ms Phillipson admitted she did not know what would happen with tuition fees after April 2026.

“We’re going to look at this and the maintenance support and the sector overall as part of the reform that we intend to set out in the months to come,” she said.

“So no decision, no decision has been taken on what happens beyond this.”

She said the government will be looking at “what is required… to get our universities on a more sustainable footing… but also to deliver a better deal for students as a part of that”.

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University tuition fees to increase

The minister said she also “intends to look at” uprating the threshold at which students need to start paying tuition fees back in line with inflation.

Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), said the tuition fee rise was “economically and morally wrong”.

She said: “Taking more money from debt-ridden students and handing it to overpaid underperforming vice-chancellors is ill conceived and won’t come close to addressing the sector’s core issues.”

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The National Union of Students (NUS) said students were being asked to “foot the bill” to keep the lights and heating on in their universities and to prevent their courses from closing down amid the “crisis”.

Alex Stanley, vice president for higher education of the NUS, said: “This is, and can only ever be, a sticking plaster.

“Universities cannot continue to be funded by an ever-increasing burden of debt on students.”

Universities have been making up for fees being frozen since 2017/18 by taking in international students who pay more.

However, student visa numbers have fallen after the previous government made it more difficult for them to come to the UK recently, so universities can no longer rely on the fees.

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