Arguably, there’s a much much bigger problem for Sir Keir Starmer at the Labour conference than the freebies, the briefings and the incessant chatter about an absent chief of staff.
As you go round the Liverpool conference centre, ask Labour MPs and members of the cabinet what they want to be talking about today.
What do they want the country to hear during the next four days – the most important moment they have to communicate with voters since the general election itself?
It is the responses to this – and the lack thereof – that is privately unnerving so many on the conference centre floor.
But first, you get the grumbling.
One source told me Sir Keir is irritated that his family has been dragged into the media as part of this ruckus – despite the prime minister’s wife’s conscious choice to attend London fashion week after the furore about donations for clothes emerged.
Some put the leader’s failure to appear at a Saturday evening National Executive Committee (NEC) down to this grumpiness, though party sources deny this.
But it is noticeable his unyielding stubbornness in interviews – saying stopping him going to the football would be a step “too far” would suggest he does not see a problem in his approach.
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It is increasingly easy to find Labour figures railing about “disproportionate” focus in the media on donors and gifts and freebies as new stories arrive hourly.
Yet, they have come unprepared to answer questions; cabinet teams still making up contradictory answers on the fly.
An hour later and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is saying that taking donations in kind – namely the New York apartment – is fine because the holiday was a private event.
How do we reconcile both? And everyone is grumpy.
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Education Sec on £14k donation
Party figures are also cross because they are being surprised by events.
Sky News understands the Labour Party’s donors department was unaware of some of the freebies being handed directly to Labour MPs – they knew about the ones handed to the central party, but have not been across the full scale and detail of donations handed to individuals.
This has meant a lack of central intelligence on the critical issue of conference and meant they have been surprised by stories those thrown up by the Westminster Accounts database and the weekend papers about freebies. Not the backdrop they wanted.
And all of this is making the relationship between the Labour family and the fourth estate more corrosive.
Image: Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner arrived at conference on Saturday as new stories were hitting the papers. Pic: PA
It has been interesting to watch in recent days parts the party turning against the media – a trend unlikely to help ease Labour’s communications challenges in the months ahead.
The growing hostility is visible on social media, but it exists in person in Liverpool too.
However, if you press members of this government on what they would prefer the conversation to be – beyond freebies and power tussles – the answer is much more fuzzy.
Ministers and advisors will all tell you this conference is about communicating hope, telling the country that things aren’t so gloomy.
They talk about a house on a hill – a metaphor likely to be expanded on later in the week.
And of course there’s a desire to blame the Tories.
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Deputy PM: ‘The Tories failed Britain’
There’s promise of detail too, more specifics to come, starting in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s speech on Monday, then Sir Keir’s on Tuesday, but we’re almost halfway through the conference and they haven’t come through yet.
Somehow they are struggling to communicate how they are changing the country – a problem that risks undermining so much of their agenda if they can’t get this fixed.
Take the announcements this weekend. Today’s policy was “planning passports” for brownfield sites, yet one cabinet minister admitted to me they couldn’t explain it.
The party literature says it changes the presumption so that proposals that meet certain design and quality standards will be automatically approved.
But if this can’t be communicated, and people can’t explain why this measure – amongst many – is critical to the planning reform project, will anyone notice?
Then there’s another big policy announcement from the deputy prime minister today – the investment zones for the West Midlands and West Yorkshire.
Ms Rayner said she would “move forward” with those zones in her speech, but study the words closely.
She omitted to say what a casual observer might have thought – that these zones aren’t new as they build on investment zones announced last year in the same areas by the then Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.
Asked what the difference is, I was told that the Labour ones “will go further”, building from existing investment zones “but tied in to Labour’s new Local Growth Plans”.
Can incremental reform really shake up and excite the conference and the country beyond?
Labour is promising massive change to the country, but if it is struggling to explain what it is doing and why, will it be able to bring the party and voters along with it?
And if they can’t explain why they are doing what they are doing, can we be really sure they know where they are going?
Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron have agreed the need for a “new deterrent” to deter small boats crossings in the Channel, Downing Street has said.
The prime minister met Mr Macron this afternoon as part of the French president’s state visit to the UK, which began on Tuesday.
High up the agenda for the two leaders is the need to tackle small boat crossings in the Channel, which Mr Macron said yesterday was a “burden” for both the UK and France.
The small boats crisis is a pressing issue for the prime minister, given that more than 20,000 migrants crossed the English Channel to the UK in the first six months of this year – a rise of almost 50% on the number crossing in 2024.
Sir Keir is hoping he can reach a deal for a one-in one-out return treaty with France, ahead of the UK-France summit on Thursday, which will involve ministerial teams from both nations.
The deal would see those crossing the Channel illegally sent back to France in exchange for Britain taking in any asylum seeker with a family connection in the UK.
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However, it is understood the deal is still in the balance, with some EU countries unhappy about France and the UK agreeing on a bilateral deal.
French newspaper Le Monde reports that up to 50 small boat migrants could be sent back to France each week, starting from August, as part of an agreement between Sir Keir and Mr Macron.
A statement from Downing Street said: “The prime minister met the French President Emmanuel Macron in Downing Street this afternoon.
“They reflected on the state visit of the president so far, agreeing that it had been an important representation of the deep ties between our two countries.
“Moving on to discuss joint working, they shared their desire to deepen our partnership further – from joint leadership in support of Ukraine to strengthening our defence collaboration and increasing bilateral trade and investment.”
It added: “The leaders agreed tackling the threat of irregular migration and small boat crossings is a shared priority that requires shared solutions.
“The prime minister spoke of his government’s toughening of the system in the past year to ensure rules are respected and enforced, including a massive surge in illegal working arrests to end the false promise of jobs that are used to sell spaces on boats.
“The two leaders agreed on the need to go further and make progress on new and innovative solutions, including a new deterrent to break the business model of these gangs.”
Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, seized on the statement to criticise Labour for scrapping the Conservatives’ Rwanda plan, which the Tories claim would have sent asylum seekers “entering the UK illegally” to Rwanda.
He said in an online post: “We had a deterrent ready to go, where every single illegal immigrant arriving over the Channel would be sent to Rwanda.
“But Starmer cancelled this before it had a chance to start.
“Now, a year later, he’s realised he made a massive mistake. That’s why numbers have surged and this year so far has been the worst in history for illegal channel crossings.
“Starmer is weak and incompetent and he’s lost control of our borders.”
Ex-Tory chairman Sir Jake Berry has defected to Reform, in the latest blow to the Conservatives.
The former MP for Rossendale and Darwen, who served as Northern Powerhouse minister under Boris Johnson and lost his seat last year, said he had defected to Nigel Farage’s party because the Tories had “lost their way”.
Reform UK confirmed the defection to Sky News, which was first broken by The Sun.
Speaking to the paper, Sir Jake said Mr Farage’s party was the “last chance to pull Britain back from terminal decline”.
“Our streets are completely lawless,” he said.
“Migration is out of control. Taxes are going through the roof.
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“And day after day, I hear from people in my community and beyond who say the same thing: ‘This isn’t the Britain I grew up in’.”
Sir Jake accused his former party of “abandoning the British people” but said he was not “giving up”.
“I’m staying. And I’m fighting.
“Fighting for the Britain I want my kids, and one day, my grandkids, to grow up in.”
Mr Farage welcomed what he said was “a very brave decision” by Sir Jake.
“His admission that the Conservative government he was part of broke the country is unprecedented and principled,” he added.
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “Reform support increasing the benefits bill by removing the two-child cap, and nationalising British industry. By contrast the Conservatives, under new leadership, will keep making the case for sound money, lower taxes and bringing the welfare bill under control.
“We wish Jake well in his new high spend, high tax party.”
Sir Jake’s defection to Reform comes just days after former Conservative cabinet minister David Jones joined Reform UK, which continues to lead in the polls.
Image: Former Welsh secretary David Jones (R) alongside Tory MP Mark Francois. Pic: PA
Mr Jones, who was MP for Clwyd West from 2005 until standing down in 2024, said he had quit the Tories after “more than 50 years of continuous membership”.
Sir Jake was the MP Rossendale and Darwen in Lancashire between 2010 and 2024, when he was defeated by Labour’s Andy MacNae.
He held several ministerial posts including in the Department for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Energy and Climate Change and the Cabinet Office.
Image: Nigel Farage after winning the Runcorn and Helsby by-election.
Pic: Reuters
He was also chairman of the Conservative Party from September to October 2022, under Liz Truss.
Announcing his defection – which comes a year after the Tories suffered their worst ever election defeat – Sir Jake said “Britain was broken” and “the Conservative governments I was part of share the blame”.
“We now have a tax system that punishes hard work and ambition,” he said.
“Just this week, we saw record numbers of our brightest and best people leaving Britain because they can’t see a future here. At the same time, our benefits system is pulling in the world’s poor with no plan for integration and no control over who comes in.
“If you were deliberately trying to wreck the country, you’d be hard-pressed to do a better job than the last two decades of Labour and Tory rule.
“Millions of people, just like me, want a country they can be proud of again. The only way we get that is with Reform in government. That’s why I’ve resigned from the Conservative Party. I’m now backing Reform UK and working to make them the next party of government.”
He added: “And with Nigel Farage leading Reform, we’ve got someone the country can actually trust. He doesn’t change his views to fit the mood of the day. And people respect that. So do I. That’s why I believe he should be our next prime minister.”
A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Not content with taking advice from Liz Truss, Nigel Farage has now tempted her Tory Party chairman into his ranks.
“It’s clear Farage wants Liz Truss’s reckless economics, which crashed our economy and sent mortgages spiralling, to be Reform’s blueprint for Britain. It’s a recipe for disaster and working people would be left paying the price.”
In a bid to thwart further opposition to the bill following last week’s climbdown, the government said it would not try to introduce any more reforms to personal independence payments (PIP) until a review by work and pensions minister Sir Stephen Timms on the assessment process has concluded.
Sir Stephen said he wanted to finish his review by next autumn, but that the government would not agree to complete the review in 12 months as some MPs wanted.
Marie Tidball, the Labour MP who had called for the 12-month limit, later signalled she was happy with the government’s compromise.
Ministers also agreed to her calls to have a majority of the taskforce looking at PIP to be disabled or from disability organisations, and for the outcome of the review to come before any PIP changes. It will also be voted on by MPs.
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A total of 47 Labour MPs have rebelled against the government to vote against its welfare reforms.
Mother of the House Diane Abbott, former minister Dawn Butler, Andy McDonald, Stella Creasy and Jonathan Brash were among those in the “no” lobby.
Meanwhile, MPs rejected a separate amendment by Green MP Sian Berry, which called for the basic rate of universal credit to increase by 4.8% above inflation each year until 2030.
A total of 39 Labour MPs voted for scrapping the clauses that halved Universal Credit for new claimants – the only major cut left in the bill after the government made its concessions.
The passing of the bill will come as a relief to Sir Keir Starmer, who last week was forced into a humiliating climbdown over his flagship welfare package in the face of significant opposition from his own MPs.
Prior to the vote last Tuesday, the government offered significant concessions including exempting existing personal independence payment claimants (PIP) from stricter new criteria and only freezing and cutting the universal credit health top-up for new applications.
As the vote last week unfolded, it offered further confessions amid concerns the bill could be voted down – notably, that changes in eligibility for PIP would not take place until a review he is carrying out into the benefit is published in autumn 2026.
They ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to Universal Credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.
A total of 49 Labour MPs voted against the bill – the largest rebellion in a prime minister’s first year in office since 47 MPs voted against Tony Blair’s Lone Parent benefit in 1997, according to Professor Phil Cowley from Queen Mary University.