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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Sunak scraps Manchester HS2 leg, plans to stop children today ever legally smoking and says A-levels to be replaced – as it happened

​​Rishi Sunak HS2 Manchester Birmingham

Here is John Crace’s sketch of the Rishi Sunak speech.

Sunak's speech - verdict from the commentariat

This is what some journalists and commentators are saying about the Rishi Sunak speech. I have not picked up any wild enthusiasm for it, and much of the reaction is hostile

From ITV’s Robert Peston

Sunak nutshell: ban smoking; abolish A levels and replace with broader qualification that gives parity of esteem between technical and academic study; cancel Birmingham-Manchester high speed rail and reallocate £36bn savings to other transport projects largely in north. These are not populist. They will upset many. Quite bold a year before election

From the Guardian’s Rafael Behr

Game unchanged.

Sunak attempting “time for a change” has whiff of Ted Heath asking “who governs Britain?”

Good point, say the voters, off you go then.

Fraser Nelson in the Spectator says it was a decent speech, but he did not like the proposals on smoking.

If it’s not necessary to ban then it’s necessary not to ban: that would be the Burkean, conservative way. So this sits ill with the rest of the Sunak agenda and ‘good conservative common sense’ he was defending earlier on in his speech. I suspect it was inspired more by Wes Streeting saying that a Labour government might do this. Is this shooting your opponent’s fox, or adopting their agenda? Before this speech, I’d have said that Sunak is a liberal. I’m not quite so sure that I’d say that now.

From Lewis Goodall from the News Agents’ podcast

I think about politics a lot. But I have to say I’m struggling to thread the eye of the needle in coming to Manchester, with a slogan of “long-term decisions”, allowing the conference to be dominated by it, and cancelling the biggest infrastructure project (to Manc) in a century.

Freddie Hayward at the New Statesman says the speech shows that Sunak cannot be a change candidate.

Sunak did not go far enough. He criticised policymaking over the past 30 years but did little to develop his argument. Wary of the disunity within the party and the influential factions surrounding Liz Truss and Suella Braverman – ever present over the past three days – Sunak avoided explicitly criticising the chaos of the Truss and Johnson years, the inertia of Theresa May and the poor policymaking of David Cameron. This was his opportunity to have done so. It was a sign of his weakness that he could not.

From the i’s Paul Waugh

Rishi Sunak pitched himself as the ‘change’ candidate.

But voters may think he encapsulates all his predecessors’ flaws: as tone deaf as Truss, as robotic as May, as penny-pinching as Cameron, as mañana in his promises of delivery

From Henry Hill from ConservativeHome

Maybe the worst bit is that the stuff about needing to do things differently is entirely true. Sunak knows what sort of man the moment demands, he just has no intention of being it.

From the writer and broadcaster Steve Richards

An effective speech needs a coherent argument running through it..R Sunak’s is all over the place..beginning vaguely with the need to break with the last 30 years …with no definition of what bound mistaken leaders spanning 3 decades..hailing tough long term decisions whike taking short term ones.. on to cigarettes ..now attacking access to universities.

From Ian Birrell, the correspondent and former Independent deputy editor

From the Mail on Sunday’s Dan Hodges

What I find staggering is that Britain is in the midst of a cost of living crisis. That’s the defining political issue. But Rishi Sunak didn’t even mention it. Or say anything significant at all about the economy or taxation or public spending.

From the FT’s Jim Pickard

an overlooked element of Sunak’s decision to kill off the northern leg of HS2 is that he promised - when running for the leadership in July 2022 - to support the scheme:

- in fact he also said he wanted to reinstate the Birmingham-Leeds leg which was axed by Boris Johnson

YouGov has published some snap polling suggesting that only 13% of people see Rishi Sunak as representing change, and 69% see him as representing more of the same.

Polling on Rishi Sunak
Polling on Rishi Sunak Photograph: YouGov

No 10 may hope that, once people have absorbed what was said in the speech, and what is being proposed, these numbers might change. But these figures do illustrate why trying to campaign successfully as the change candidate is colossal ask.

Osborne backs Cameron's claim HS2 U-turn means 'once-in-a-generation opportunity lost'

George Osborne, the former chancellor and a close friend and ally of David Cameron, has endorsed his old boss’s criticism of the decision to scrap phase two of HS2. (See 4.08am.) That is not surprising. Osborne (who was MP for a seat on Cheshire, in the north-westt) championed the Northern Powerhouse concept, to which phase two of HS2 was central.

Updated

As the i’s Paul Waugh points out, the new Network North announced by Rishi Sunak includes – constituencies in the south of England with Tory MPs.

Meanwhile, northerners may wonder why the new ‘Network North’ includes cash for ... Tory areas in the south like Kent, Devon, Cornwall, Suffolk ...

(Including constituencies of ministers like Therese Coffey, Helen Whateley and Johnny Mercer)

Updated

The passage in Rishi Sunak’s speech about being selected as a candidate, and elected as the MP, as a British Asian in a largely white Yorkshire constituency was intended as a rebuke to what Suella Braverman said about multiculturalism having failed, according to Sam Coates from Sky News.

This section of Rishi Sunak’s speech reads like an attack on Suella Braverman’s multiculturalism has failed remarks…

… very deliberately, says one person close to the leadership

Truss to vote against plan to ban next generation from being able to buy cigarettes

Liz Truss’s team are briefing that she will vote against Rishi Sunak’s plan to gradually increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes, so that for the next generation they will be banned. In her speech at a fringe meeting on Monday the former PM said her party should “stop taxing and banning things, and start producing and building things”.

Updated

David Cameron says HS2 U-turn implies UK 'heading in wrong direction' and incapable of long-term decisions

David Cameron, who was prime minister when the original Labour government plan for HS2 was confirmed and funded and when work started on the project, has issued a statement saying that cancelling phase two is a mistake and that a “once in a generation opportunity” has been lost.

He also says the decision implies Britain can “no longer think or act for the long term” – which is a particularly harsh criticism when the Conservative slogan this conference has been “long-term decisions for a brighter future”.

It also implied Britain is “heading in the wrong direction”, Cameron says – which sounds like a phrase that will turn up on a Labour party election leaflet soon.

He says:

Today’s decision on HS2 is the wrong one. It will help to fuel the views of those who argue that we can no longer think or act for the long term as a country; that we are heading in the wrong direction.

HS2 was about investing for the long-term, bringing the country together, ensuring a more balanced economy and delivering the Northern Powerhouse. We achieved historic, cross-party support, with extensive buy-in from city and local authority leaders across the Midlands and North of England. Today’s announcement throws away fifteen years of cross-party consensus, sustained over six administrations, and will make it much harder to build consensus for any future long-term projects.

All across the world, we see transformative, long-term infrastructure projects completed or underway. They show countries on the rise, building for future generations, thinking big and getting things done.

I regret this decision and in years to come I suspect many will look back at today’s announcement and wonder how this once-in-a-generation opportunity was lost.

Updated

Here are verdicts from a Guardian panel on Rishi Sunak’s speech, with contributions from Frances Ryan, Katy Balls, Simon Jenkins, Lester Holloway, Sam Hall and Larry Elliott.

Burnham says Sunak's alternative transport proposals to HS2 phase 2 not 'coherent plan'

Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor for Greater Manchester, told reporters this afternoon that the alternative transport plan announced by Rishi Sunak, as a replacement for HS2, was not coherent.

He said:

There’s a world of difference between a transport plan patched together in hotel rooms at a party conference with no input with northern leaders or mayors, and a transport plan that’s been worked on for years by northern leaders and mayors, with transport for the north, which is a coherent plan representing the voice of the north and what people here want.

What’s been announced at conference today is not that coherent plan.

Speaking in the Museum of Science and Industry, on the site of the terminus of the world’s first inter-city passenger railway, between Liverpool and Manchester, Burnham also said he suspected the Tories only promised HS2 to Manchester to win votes, and not because they intended to complete the project. He said:

You may remember, almost 10 years ago, George Osborne came to the building just beyond here to tap into that spirit that the north of England had in the 19th century of pioneering and bringing new developments to the world, to say that he would bring forward a Northern Powerhouse that would be all about that ambition again for Britain, bringing north-south lines with HS2, east-west with HS3 as he called it then, that obviously became Northern Powerhouse Rail.

You name it, we were getting it all.

It’s hard not to feel that 10 years on from that announcement the Conservative party have not shown the courage, the conviction or the capability to turn those statements into reality, to the great frustration of the people here.

I hope those statements weren’t made 10 years ago just with political intentions in mind, to try and win votes here, but it’s starting to look very much that was what it was all about.

Andy Burnham at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester today.
Andy Burnham at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester today. Photograph: James Veysey/Shutterstock

Updated

Street says Sunak happy for private sector consortium to explore if it can make HS2 link to Manchester viable

Andy Street, the Tory mayor for the West Midlands, has issued a lengthy statement on X (Twitter) about HS2. He says that he is “convinced” that building HS2 all the way to Manchester remains possible and that Rishi Sunak has allowed him to explore this option with a private sector consortium.

University leaders have taken issue with Rishi Sunak’s attack on increasing numbers going to university, with Sunak claiming that it has led to “thousands of young people being ripped off”, and dubbing it “one of the great mistakes of the last 30 years”.

Vivienne Stern, the chief executive of the Universities UK group, accused Sunak of denigrating British universities and putting off those who might benefit. She said:

This political rhetoric is not in the interests of students, or the economic prospects of the country as a whole. We should be expanding opportunities and not talking down what is a national success story. Those who attend university are over £100,000 better off across their lifetime – even after taxes and student loan repayments are taken into account.

Updated

Rishi Sunak being congratulated by a supporter after his speech today.
Rishi Sunak being congratulated by a supporter after his speech today. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian

The PM’s press secretary said cabinet ministers were “all very supportive” of Rishi Sunak’s plan to cancel phase 2 of HS2 when he put the plan to them during a 45-minute cabinet meeting this morning.

As PA Media reports, she said some of the moves on HS2 will require legislative changes, but that it would not “hold up significant elements of work”. She said:

Parliament has already approved the route between Euston and Birmingham, so work on that route can continue at pace. We do not need legislation to stop work on phases 2a and 2b.

Updated

Replacing A-levels with new qualification could take 10 years, No 10 says

No 10 has said that replacing Alevels with a baccalaureate-style education programme for England (the “advanced British standard”) could take a decade.

At a post-speech briefing, the PM’s press secretary said: “I believe it will take about 10 years for the advanced British standard to replace A-levels.”

Asked why it will take so long, she said:

This is a big change to the education system, we will have to work with education experts to work it through.

She confirmed the policy would be limited to England as education is a devolved matter, but added: “If the devolved administrations want to use the same standard then they can, and that would be a good thing.”

Updated

No 10 indicates free vote to stop future generations ever being able to buy cigarettes could be held soon

No 10 has indicated that the free vote on gradually increasing the age at which people are allowed to buy cigarettes so that children aged 14 and anyone younger will never be able to buy them could be held soon. At a post-speech briefing, the PM’s press secretary would not give a date. But she said: “Rishi Sunak is a man in a hurry.”

Gillian Keegan, the education secretary, seemed moved to tears at one point during Rishi Sunak’s speech when Sunak talked about the pride his immigrant grandfather expressed when Sunak became an MP.

Updated

CBI says cancellation of phase 2 of HS2 sends 'damaging signal' about UK to global investors

The CBI says the cancellation of phase two of HS2 sends a “damaging signal” about the UK to global investors. In a statement about the decision, Rain Newton-Smith, the CBI’s chief executive, said:

The UK has incredible strengths as a destination for investment. When global boardrooms weigh up investment opportunities, the UK was always seen as a safe harbour due to our reputation for reliability. But the decision to cancel the rest of the HS2 project sends a damaging signal about the UK’s status as global destination for investment.

Businesses and investors in the Midlands and the north have spent the last decade planning for the delivery of HS2. The commitment to invest in a new Network North programme of transport projects promises much needed investment to the region. But a “start from scratch” approach risks leaving those businesses in a holding pattern of poor connectivity and low productivity whilst those projects are scoped, prepped and finally delivered.

Updated

Daisy Cooper, the Lib Dem deputy leader, responded to Rishi Sunak’s speech with a statement saying he was “so out of touch he may as well be living on another planet”. To make the point, the Lib Dems issued a list of 10 things Sunak had ignored.

1) Mortgages: The average mortgage has gone up by £220 a month in the year since the catastrophic mini-budget, according to the Bank of England

2) Food prices: Food prices have risen by 10% in the past year as the cost of living goes through the roof.

3) Energy bills: One in three families across England will pay higher energy bills this winter than last, rising to one in two poorer households

4) Ambulances: Ambulance delays were their worst on record last winter and there has been no clear plan on how to prevent a similar crisis this time round.

5) Sewage: Raw sewage was dumped into rivers and coastlines 824 times a day last year after Conservative MPs have repeatedly voted to allow water companies to continue the filthy practice.

6) Dentists: 4.4 million children did not see an NHS dentist in the past 12 months despite NHS recommending that they go once a year

7) Pensions: 12 million pensioners could lose out after Rishi Sunak failed to commit to keeping the triple lock in future years.

8) Rents: Rents have risen by an average of £110 per month over the past year since the mini-budget sent interest rates soaring.

9) Concrete roofs (Raac): 41 hospitals and 174 schools are impacted by the Raac scandal, which Sunak failed to mention once despite his own role in slashing funding to fix crumbling buildings.

10) Sleaze: Rishi Sunak didn’t mention disgraced ministers like Liz Truss, Boris Johnson or Chris Pincher who have received over £500,000 in taxpayer payouts after quitting or being sacked.

Updated

The Labour party has issued a response to Rishi Sunak’s speech saying he can’t run the country because he cannot even run his own party. In a statement Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, said:

After 13 years and five Tory prime ministers, Rishi Sunak’s latest desperate attempt to reset his weak leadership and divided government won’t fool the British public who are looking at Tory failures all around them.

Sunak’s weakness is having a decaying effect on his party and the country. Members of his cabinet have spent this week jockeying for position to replace him, while Liz Truss, Nigel Farage and conspiracy theories lifted from the darkest corners of the internet have dominated his conference. How can a man who can’t even run his own party seriously claim he’s capable of running the country?

Tory West Midlands mayor Andy Street says he won't resign from party over HS2 U-turn

Andy Street, the Conservative mayor for the West Midlands, has told the BBC that he won’t resign from the party over HS2.

Before Rishi Sunak’s speech, he indicated that he was considering resigning. (See 9.35am.)

But, in an interview being broadcast now, he says he is staying in part because Sunak has respected his concerns. He says he thinks people in the West Midlands will be better served by his continuing to stay in the party and working with Sunak on transport improvements.

UPDATE: Street said:

Obviously I’m very disappointed that [Sunak] announced that today. As you know, I fought for it to be maintained.

But, remember the line is going to run from Euston to Handsacre, where it will join the West Coast mainline. So, compared to what could have happened, this is a good compromise position.

Street also rejected suggestions he had been ignored by Sunak. When this was put to him, he replied:

You can’t say ignore when we’ve had, as it’s been reported, a number of meetings. Actually, compared to where we were and where we now are, it is very, very different.

So, on that part of the Birmingham-Manchester bit, I’m not bluffing anybody, I lost that bit.

But the debate was much broader than that, wasn’t it? The debate actually was about Euston, it was about where it finished in the Midlands, how it connected north, and it was actually about how we’re going to execute this going forward.

And, of course, we’ve also heard today that other investment in the West Midlands, which we have separately been lobbying for, and we have achieved that.

So, it’s not one-nil, but I acknowledge the fundamental debate of this week, I lost.

Updated

Unions says teacher shortages make Sunak's proposed educational reforms unrealistic

The initial reaction from teaching unions to Rishi Sunak’s proposals for an advanced British standard qualification for England can be summarised as: where are the extra teachers coming from?

Daniel Kebede, the general secretary of the National Education Union, said:

The casual headline-seeking announcements of the prime minister are no substitute for serious planning to address the needs of all our 16-year-olds, whatever courses they take.

We already have a shortage of secondary teachers. One in six English teachers and one in five mathematics teachers do not have a post A-level qualification in the subject. We need an additional 4,300 mathematics teachers and 2,600 English teachers to cover current needs.

Post-16 curriculum reform is worthy of debate, but simply increasing the number of hours taught would require an additional 5,300 teachers. This year the government missed their recruitment target for secondary teachers by 48%.

Paul Whiteman, the general secretary of the NAHT, said:

Today’s announcement shows just how out of touch this government has become with the teaching profession. There are so many immediate crises that schools are currently dealing with, from recruitment and retention, to crumbling school buildings and the lack of support for pupils with special needs. The government should be focusing on fixing those, not announcing yet another round of seismic changes to exams and qualifications.

Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, was more enthusiastic about the expanded courses but remained sceptical. He said:

While the principles of these proposals are good, the practicalities are daunting because of the severity of the teacher recruitment and retention crisis. There aren’t enough teachers to teach existing subjects, never mind extend teaching on this scale.

Updated

Downing Street has now published details of the announcements in Rishi Sunak’s speech.

Here is the main news release about HS2 or HS2 funding being redirected to “revolutionise transport across the Midlands and the north”, as No 10 puts it.

And here is detail about the new transport schemes being funded.

Here is the news release about an “advanced British standard” qualification to replace A levels.

And here is the news release about the plan to stop children who turn 14 this year ever being able to buy cigarettes.

Sunak's conference speech - snap verdict

It has been several years now since we’ve had a prime minister deliver a long, serious party conference speech containing a lot of policy and argument, and on that basis at least this was an impressive effort. We already knew that the HS2 leg to Manchester was going, that Sunak wants to adopt the New Zealand policy that would stop young teenagers ever being allowed to buy cigarettes (first revealed by the Guardian) and that he wants to broaden the post-16 curriculum. But today we got a lot more detail on the education plan, and on all three topics he explained his case rationally, and in some detail. This was Sunak the earnest, studious policy geek and, compared with his recent predecessors, it made a welcome change.

But, of the three major announcements he made, it is hard to see any of them having the power to transform the fortunes of his party.

On HS2, Sunak made a plausible case that he could do more good in the north of England by scrapping HS2 phase 2 and spending the money on other things. But, for reasons Jennifer Williams set out so well earlier (see 11.09am), is anyone going to believe this? And, even if Sunak’s decision is the right one, to U-turn on a project this massive can only be seen as shambolic.

For the leader of a party that does not like banning things to propose outlawing cigarettes was brave. But he implied that the free vote on this will take place before the election, and so by the time people go to the polls, this will either have been defeated, or it will be done deal. It is hard to see it as an election decider.

The education reforms are much more complicated, and long-term, and they will still be on the table at polling day. In some respects they sound like a version of the Tomlinson review proposals published in 2004, but rejected by Tony Blair because he feared rightwing papers would react badly to the abolition of the “gold standard” A-level system. Some Labour figures from that time believe that was one of Blair’s worst mistakes. Sunak is probably right about the need for educational reform, but it is unlikely to win him an election.

Where the speech was weakest was in the passages where Sunak sought to argue that these problems were all symptomatic of a 30-year malfunction with British politics that he was uniquely qualified to fix.

There are plenty of structural problems with British politics, and it would be nice to have a PM willing to address them, but Sunak did not even begin to make an argument in this space, or say anything that suggested he might be different. For example, one problem is that prime ministers keep reshuffling their cabinets every five minutes, as he’s done. Another is that we have a governing party with rules that allow the PM to be chosen by 140,000 members, most of whom thought Liz Truss would be a good option. If Sunak were serious about improving the way politics is conducted, he could start by addressing that.

As a result, the “candidate for change” shtick just did not work. And as a result, Sunak was left with three policies, one of which sounded a bit New Labourish (in that it was reminiscent of the ban on smoking in pubs), another of which was sensible, but politically quite neutral (education), and the third of which (HS2) sounded like a valiant attempt to extract some political capital from a humiliating U-turn.

Overall verdict? Good try, but it’s not enough to reverse this.

Updated

Sunak ended his speech by saying he had set out “three huge decisions to change the direction of our country” – on transport, health (smoking), and education.

And he concluded:

We will be bold, we will be radical.

We will face resistance and we will meet it.

We will give the country what it so sorely needs and yet too often has been denied – a government prepared to make long-term decisions so that we can build a brighter future for everyone.

Be in no doubt. It is time for a change. And we are it.

Updated

Sunak says bonuses worth up to £30,000 to be introduced to help attract and retain more teachers

Sunak says his education plan will require more teachers.

To attract and retain more teachers, there will be bonuses worth up to £30,000, he says.

And he says, from now on, education will be the priority in every spending review.

Sunak announces plan to replace A levels with five-subject 'advanced British standard' qualification

Sunak is now outlining proposals for major changes to the school curriculum.

  • Sunak says he wants to introduce a new qualification in school, the advanced British standard, combining A levels and T levels.

Students will study English and maths to 18, he says.

He says after 16 pupils will spend more time in class.

And they will study more subjects. In England they typically study three subjects, not seven as they do in other countries. In future they will study five subjects. But this will not stop them studying subjects in depth, he says.

Updated

Sunak is now talking about education.

In 2010 schools were slipping down international league tables, he says.

That has been changed and schools in some of the most deprived parts of the country are producing some of the best results, he says.

He also says the government will stop universities offering low-value “rip-off degrees”.

Sunak is now talking about race.

The UK is the most successful multi-ethnic democracy on earth, he claims.

He says when he was selected for Richmond in Yorkshire, an American paper wrote an article about how having an Asian candidate might cost the Tories the seat. The paper was imposing its own prejudices on the UK, he says.

He goes on

People of North Yorkshire were not interested in my colour, but my character.

Never let anyone tell you that this is a racist country. It is not.

My story is a British story, a story about how a family can go from arriving here with little to Downing Street in three generations.

What does the Conservative party offer a family of immigrants? The chance to become energy secretary, business secretary, home secretary, foreign secretary – even the chance to become prime minister.

This did not happen under Labour, he says.

Updated

Sunak talks about the value of family. And he goes from there to the “family of nations”, turning to Scotland.

The forces of separatism are in retreat across our country. Nicola Sturgeon wanted to go down in the history books as the woman who broke up our country but it now looks like she may go down for very different reasons.

This joke about the police investigation into the SNP’s finances goes down very well.

Sunak says he does not accept people can be any sex they want, saying 'a man is a man, and a woman is a woman'

Sunak says parents should know what their children are learning about sex at school.

He goes on:

Patients should know when hospitals are talking about men or women.

And we shouldn’t get bullied into believing that people can be any sex they want. A man is a man and a woman is a woman – that’s just common sense.

Updated

Sunak says government will legislate so sexual and sadistic murders carry full-life term, with no chance of release

Sunak is now talking about crime. He says Suella Braverman, the home secretary, is right to say every crime should be investigated.

And he says London will be safer with Susan Hall as mayor.

And he says the government will legislate so that sexual and sadistic murder carry a full-life term, with no prospect of release.

Updated

Sunak confirms he wants to tighten welfare rules so that 'those who can work do work'

Sunak says during Covid he set up the furlough scheme, even though he was told it was not possible. He says that was “compassionate Conservatism in action”.

Universal credit, set up by Iain Duncan Smith, also helped. The old benefits system would not have been able to cope, he says.

But, Sunak says, there are 2 million people who are of working age who are deemed incapable of working.

He says he does not accept that people have become more ill. He says he wants to change the rules so that “those who can work do work”.

Updated

Sunak is now talking about small boats. They are making progress, because crossings are down by 20%, he says.

He says once flights start regularly to Rwanda, the boats will stop coming.

He is confident the UK’s approach complies with the country’s international obligations.

But he goes on:

I will do whatever is necessary to stop the boats.

(That is code for: if necessary, Sunak is prepared to withdraw from the European convention on human rights.)

Sunak says, by contrast, Labour’s policy is to cook up a deal with the EU.

Updated

Sunak says he also wants to restrict the availability of vapes to children. The government will look at flavoured vapes, disposable ones and packaging, he says.

Updated

Sunak says he wants to give MPs free vote on raising smoking age year by year to eventually ban habit

Sunak says he wants more preventative care.

And that means tackling smoking, which causes one in four cancer deaths.

It leads to almost one hospital admission every minute.

The number of people smoking is down by two thirds since the 1970s.

But they must stop children smoking in the first place.

Four in five smokers have started by the time they are 20, he says.

If they could break that cycle, that would end the biggest cause of preventable deaths in this country.

  • Sunak says he wants to increase smoking age by one year every year. That means someone 14 today would never be allowed to buy a cigarette, he says.

He says he knows that raising the smoking age works.

There will be a free vote on this, he says.

For a Conservative, restricting choice is not easy.

But he has spent a lot of time thinking about this. Unlike other products, there is no safe level of smoking, he says.

He says this will “save more lives than any other decision we take”.

This confirms a Guardian story broken by my colleagues Pippa Crerar and Rowena Mason

Updated

Sunak say he has announced the first-ever long-term plan for the NHS workforce.

He wants the NHS to work as productively as any health system in the world, he says.

Sunak is now talking about the NHS. He says the fact that hospital doctors timed a strike for this week shows their motivation was political.

Sunak challenges Labour to say if they will cancel his new transport plans to fund HS2 phase 2

Sunak challenges Labour to say if they will cancel the new projects he is funding so they can go ahead with the Manchester leg of HS2.

So those who wish to disagree with me, I respect that.

But they should have the honesty to admit that they would now be cancelling the hundreds of alternative projects right across the country that people will benefit from instead.

I think our plan is simply a better long term investment of £36bn pounds of taxpayers money.

HS2 management to lose control of Euston station project due to their 'mismanagement', Sunak says

Sunak says HS2 management will lose control of the Euston project.

There must be some accountability for the mistakes made and the mismanagement of this project.

He says thousands of homes will be built on the site.

And he says the £6.5bn savings from the Euston leg will be spent around the country.

Sunak says north of England will benefit more from new projects than from HS2

Sunak is rattling through a list of transport projects that will be funded with the £36bn savings.

He ends saying they will also be able to keep the £2 bus fare across the whole country.

Some activists are shouting “more”.

Sunak says:

I challenge anyone to tell me with a straight face that all of that isn’t what the north really needs.

Sunak says these projects will benefit the north more than HS2.

The line to Euston will go ahead, he says.

He says he has huge respect for Andy Street, the mayor of the West Midlands who has been threatening to resign over this. He says they can work together on better transport.

UPDATE: Sunak said:

Our plan will drive far more growth and opportunity here in the north than a faster train to London ever would.

And given how far along construction is, we will complete the line from Birmingham to Euston and yes, HS2 trains will still run here to Manchester and journey times will be cut between Manchester, Birmingham, London by 30 minutes. And I say this to Andy Street, a man I have huge admiration and respect for, I know we have different views on HS2.

But I also know we can work together to ensure a faster, stronger spine, quicker trains and more capacity between Birmingham and Manchester.

Updated

Sunak confirms Manchester leg of HS2 being scrapped, with 'every single penny' from £36bn going on other transport projects

Sunak confirms he is scrapping the Manchester leg of HS2.

When the facts change, it is important to change policy.

He says this will free up £36bn – and every single penny will be spent on “hundreds of new transport projects in the north and the Midlands and across the country”.

Updated

Sunak says Brexit was more than a vote to leave the EU. It was a vote for change.

We must keep making the case for taking back control because, if we don’t, our opponents will try … to align us with the European Union so that we never see the full opportunities of Brexit.

Sunak refers to recent comments by Starmer on Brexit, joking that he keeps banging on about the EU.

He claims Starmer will say whatever people want to hear.

He goes on:

He is the walking definition of the 30-year political status quo and … that is why we have to beat him.

Sunak claims UK has been growing faster than France and Germany 'not despite Brexit, but because of Brexit'

Sunak says the revised growth forecasts show that the UK had one of the fastest recoveries after Covid of any major European economy.

He goes on:

Since leaving the single market we’ve grown faster than France and Germany – not despite Brexit, but because of Brexit.

(That is not the conventional economic view. It will be interesting to see what evidence No 10 can offer to back this one up.)

Updated

Sunak says he came into office in difficult circumstances. But he does not want to dwell on the past, he says.

He does not refer to Boris Johnson at all, but there is a veiled reference to Liz Truss when he says “you can’t borrow your way out of inflation”.

Sunak goes on:

Everything we want to achieve requires getting inflation under control. Inflation is the biggest destroyer of all – of industry, of jobs, of savings in a society. No policy which puts at risk the defeat of inflation, no matter its short-term attraction, can be right.

It was Margaret Thatcher who said that, he says.

Updated

Sunak cites net zero as an example of how he has been willing to make necessary changes.

He looked at the costs, and concluded the current approach was not right.

He took a pragmatic approach, he says.

And he says he won’t take lectures from countries doing less than the UK, or people who can easily afford to spend thousands.

He describes this as “good, conservative common sense”.

He will “tell it as it is, and lead in a different way”, he says.

Sunak says the Tories can change things.

Where a consensus is false, we will challenge it.

Where a vested interest is placing itself above the needs of the people, we will stop it.

And where common sense is under attack from an organised assault, we will defend it.

Updated

Sunak says Labour represents all that is wrong with politics.

The Labour party have set out their stall: to do and say as little as possible and hope no one notices.

They want to take people’s votes for granted and keep doing politics the same old way.

It is a bet on people’s apathy.

It does not speak to any higher purpose, or brighter future.

It is about power for the sake of power.

It is in short, everything that is wrong with our politics.

Sunak is now talking about the need for change, saying we have had 30 years of underperformance. (See 11.35am.)

The mission is to fundamentally change the country, he says.

Updated

Sunak turns to Ukraine, and says he has a message for allies: if they give the Ukrainians the tools, they will finish the job.

Updated

Sunak is now talking about the armed forces, saying the government is making the UK the best place to be a veteran.

He says defence is an area where the Tories take long-term decisions in the national interest.

But twice Labour tried to make someone PM “who didn’t believe in Nato, who would have surrendered our nuclear deterrent and who blames Britain for every problem”.

He says Keir Starmer wants to let people forget this, but the Tories won’t.

Sunak is at the podium, and he starts by thanking his wife, saying that was truly “the best long-term decision for a long-term future” he ever made.

He grew up in a loving home, he says. “My dad was a GP and my mum a pharmacist,” he says. This gets a laugh, because it’s a line he uses in practically every speech.

They understood the importance of community, he says.

They did not see it as an extension of government. It was about individuals, he says.

He says this inspired him to go into politics.

His mum set up a pharmacy. They all chipped in. The Sunak pharmacy left him with a lasting respect for family businesses. He says the Tories are “the party of the grocer’s daughter and the pharmacist’s son”.

(That’s quite bold, putting himself in the same category as Margaret Thatcher.)

Updated

Murty says Sunak is working hard to do the right thing for the country, with honesty and integrity.

That is why he has shared some hard truths.

He knows about the challenges facing the country, and the struggles people have.

Just as with their daughters, he wants people to grow up in a country offering hope, she says.

She says he has “a love for community in all its forms”.

When the going gets tough, she reminds him he is fighting for his values.

She addresses him, saying Rishi, you know you are doing the right thing. And she tells him how proud he makes her and their girls every single day.

She thanks conference, and introduces “a wonderful, wonderful father, my best friend, and your prime minister, Rishi Sunak”.

Updated

Sunak's wife Akshata Murty introduces him, saying 'aspiration' is what sums him up

Rishi Sunak’s wife, Akshata Murty, is on the stage.

She says she is a surprise addition to the programme. And she claims her husband has no idea what she is going to say.

(Sarah Brown did a very similar pitch when she introduced Gordon Brown at party conference in the year before the 2010 election that Brown lost.)

Murty says she and Sunak are best friends.

One word sums him up: aspiration, she says.

That is what drove his family to move to the UK, and what drives him.

They met when they were 24, both studying abroad in the US.

She was struck by two things about him, she says: his deep love for his home, the UK; and his deep desire to ensure that other people have the same opportunities he had.

She says she was struck by his “youthful optimism”. But she is not sure youthful applies today. He is now in his 40s, she says.

(Cynics will suspect that this is in fact a reference to the other bloke, who is 61.)

Updated

A video is now being shown. The word “change” is coming up a lot.

The Windsor framework and the net zero policy are cited as examples of change.

Mercer says Labour does not have a veterans’ minister in the shadow cabinet. And it will repeal the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act, he says.

Keir Starmer believes in nothing, he says.

He says the Tories must hang together. If they can, they can win, he claims.

Mercer is citing Rishi Sunak’s willingness to improve provision for veterans as an example of how he is willing to change things. He says rough sleeping by veterans should change by Christmas this year as a result of one initiative.

And he says Sunak has lifted the threat facing veterans who were worried about being prosecuted in relation to things that happened during the Troubles in Northern Ireland many decades ago.

Mercer says change is afoot. He says he would not be here – ie he would not still be supporting the government – if it wasn’t.

At the conference Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, has just finished her warm-up speech for Rishi Sunak. Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, is speaking now.

“Everyone wants change after 13 years,” he says. “Just ask my wife.”

Yesterday the polling company Savanta released a word cloud summing up the words people use to describe the Conservative party. It was grim.

And today they have released the results of the same exercise for Rishi Sunak.

This is from Chris Hopkins, director of political research at Savanta.

The mood at Conservative conference felt positive to begin with, and Rishi Sunak’s policy pitch to voters was seemingly going down OK. However, this polling indicates what an uphill battle he faces among the general public, who generally view his time as prime minister as having an adverse impact on issues to that are important to voters, such as immigration, healthcare and the economy.

Sunak’s personal ratings are also poor, and they will need to turn around significantly in the coming months if he’s to stand any chance of remaining in No 10 after the next election.

And here is the equivalent Savanta word cloud for Sunak from a year ago, when he became PM.

Updated

Sunak set to deliver first speech to Tory conference as leader

Rishi Sunak will be addressing the Tory conference shortly. CCHQ released some extracts from his speech overnight, explaining why he thinks the way politics is conducted is flawed, and what is striking is that this passage could have been lifted from a Keir Starmer speech. Starmer also thinks there is a systemic problem with Westminster politics – and he has been saying so for longer.

Sunak will say:

There is the undeniable sense that politics just doesn’t work the way it should. [There is a] feeling that Westminster is a broken system—and the same goes for Holyrood, Cardiff Bay and Stormont.

It isn’t anger, it is an exhaustion with politics.

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.

We’ve had thirty years of a political system which incentivises the easy decision, not the right one.

Thirty years of vested interests standing in the way of change …

Our political system is too focused on short term advantage, not long-term success.

Politicians spent more time campaigning for change than actually delivering it.

Our mission is to fundamentally change our country.

Starmer would agree with almost every word of this (except probably the criticism of Cardiff Bay, where Labour has been in power since devolution). He describes the short-termism that Sunak refers to as “sticking plaster politics”.

A reader asks:

Have heard on LBC that John Crace has been banned from Sunak’s speech. Is this true?

It was, but he’s now been allowed in, I’m told.

Grant Shapps argued this morning that scrapping the Manchester leg of HS2 would release billions of pounds for spending on transport projects in the north of England that might be more use to voters. (See 8.39am.)

Jennifer Williams, the Financial Times’ northern correspondent, explains why people in her region are unlikely to be impressed. There is a long history of the north being promised transport upgrades that never materialise, she says.

On great rail cancellations, a reminder that the expansion of Piccadilly, intended to alleviate the chronic northern rail bottleneck in the centre of Manc, was promised a decade ago, then put on ice, messed about with and actually only officially cancelled a few months ago.

The Transpennine upgrade? Well

The version of Northern Powerhouse Rail eventually signed off by govt two years ago, meanwhile, was a wildly scaled back version of what northern leaders had spent years drawing up (with the backing of George Osborne), because govt didn’t want to spend the £

It took almost two years for Leeds to even get the *terms of reference* for the mass transit study intended as a sweetener after govt axed the eastern leg of HS2 - and a ton of developable land in Leeds is still frozen, pending some kind of decision, as a result

Etc etc. And while all that’s not been going on, the Elizabeth Line has opened. So today’s HS2 decision has to be seen in that context - this isn’t the north’s first rodeo on this stuff.

We’ve even had the “we might not do the thing we said we would actually because the answer might be digital signalling instead” thing before (spoiler: the answer was not digital signalling)

Tory activists waiting for Rishi Sunak’s speech.
Tory activists waiting for Rishi Sunak’s speech. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images

There are two terrific Guardian columns on the Conservative conference today.

  • Rafael Behr describes the conference as “a festival of complaint about the condition of Britain undisturbed by contrition for having presided over its decline”.

  • And Marina Hyde says Rishi Sunak’s handling of the HS2 story has been “a disasterclass even by his own standards”.

And here are three other conference articles around this morning that are well worth reading.

  • Sam Coates from Sky News argues that the real story from conference is about how rightwing entryism is making the Conservative party increasingly more extreme. He says:

On Tuesday [Nigel Farage] pitted himself on the side of the Tory members and against Tory MPs, denouncing a “parliamentary party that is itself so one nation social democrat” before adding “what’s really happening this week, is the debate is, who and what takes over the party after we lose the next election”.

This is terrifying some Tory MPs. One, who believes the party could be about to shift decisively to the right and risks making itself unelectable, said: “We need to act now. We need to drain the swamp.”

  • Lucy Fisher, Anna Gross and George Parker in the Financial Times say that six cabinet ministers have used their speeches to talk about trans or gender issues, suggesting this will be a prominent election campaign theme for the party. They say:

Lee Anderson, the Tory MP who is also deputy chair of the party, said in February that with Brexit off the agenda the party needed to find new topics to galvanise the electorate, namely the “trans debate” and “culture wars”.

The Conservatives are framing their position as the “common sense” stance on women and children’s rights, contrasting it with Labour, which they accuse of cleaving to an extremist gender ideology.

  • And Daniel Finkelstein in his Times column says that he thinks Sunak’s attempt to run as a change candidate at the election won’t be successful. He explains:

I see why they are doing it, trying to tap into a change mood they think is too strong to overturn. But still I can’t see how it can work. I think even a very clear pitch to be the change option would be exceptionally hard for the Tories after 13 years in office. But at the very least it would require Rishi Sunak to be explicit that he is breaking with his immediate predecessors, something he is reluctant to do. And, in any case, is the change that people want really an end to short-term decision-making?

According to Sky’s Sophy Ridge, Rishi Sunak will say that cancelling the HS2 leg to Manchester will free up £30bn for spending on other road, rail and bus projects.

In his Today interview Grant Shapps argued that Covid, and the permanent shift in work/travel habits it triggered, is the main reason for HS2 phase two being scrapped. (See 9.16am.) Politically, that is obviously preferrable to saying it was a bad idea in the first place, or that it has been woefully mismanaged.

But some of the data suggests Shapps is overstating his case. This is from the Sunday Times’ data editor Tom Calver.

Grant Shapps’ point about Covid transforming train travel is a little overstated

In January-March - despite strikes - passenger journeys were 83% of pre-pandemic levels and rising.

Journey numbers are also 18% higher than when HS2 was first announced in 2009

And this is from Adam Bienkov from Byline Times.

Grant Shapps’ suggestion that the pandemic somehow fundamentally shifted people away from using the railways, and so it’s fine to cancel HS2, is deeply disingenuous.

Here’s what the latest rail usage statistics show.

Penny Mordaunt, leader of the Commons, arriving at the conference. She is speaking later.
Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, arriving at the conference. She is speaking later. Photograph: Jon Super/AP

Updated

Rishi Sunak is currently chairing a cabinet meeting to sign off his HS2 U-turn, Sky’s Tamara Cohen reports.

Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, has been giving interviews about HS2 this morning. He told BBC Breakfast that cancelling the link to Manchester would show that the north of England did not get the same priority as the south. He said:

It just proves there’s still so many people in politics, many of them in the Tory party, that think they can treat the north of England differently to the way they treat other parts of the country. It’s just so wrong.

I’ve been in politics 30 years, I’ve never seen a party come to a conference and leave an axe hanging over the place they’re in for the whole week. And then actually drop it on that place.

I just don’t think it’s fair to people in Greater Manchester to do this and the plan that they’re putting forward, that we’ve only seen briefed overnight because we haven’t even been told what it is, takes trains off HS2 at Birmingham and puts them on the existing tracks of the west coast mainline. That just simply isn’t going to work. It’s not a workable plan and, you know, you can understand why there is just huge frustration and indeed growing anger in Greater Manchester about this.

Updated

An official handing out placards to Tory activists who will be in the hall for Rishi Sunak’s speech.
An official handing out placards to Tory activists who will be in the hall for Rishi Sunak’s speech. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Braverman will never be Tory leader because 'common sense' of party will prevail, says Andrew Boff

Andrew Boff, the Conservative member of the London assembly who was removed from the conference hall yesterday after interrupting Suella Braverman’s speech, has said he is sure she will not be the next leader of the party.

Boff, who has been a Tory for about 50 years, told LBC this morning:

I’ve had so many contacts over the past few hours from people who are concerned as I am that we are using this culture war battleground to no good effect at all and we’re actually hurting people.

And we shouldn’t be doing that as Conservatives. That’s not the Conservative party I joined and I think we’re better than that.

Boff said he believed the Tories were still on track for a “victory next year” but urged the party to focus on “the important things” rather than “divisive” topics.

Asked whether he would remain a Conservative member if Braverman became the next leader, he replied:

Luckily that’s not going to happen … because I believe in the ultimate common sense of the party. Also, I very much hope that Suella Braverman learns about the power of her words and moderates her tone.

Even though Braverman said yesterday that Boff should be readmitted, he had his conference pass removed, meaning that he won’t be able to attend today. He posted this picture on X (formerly Twitter) to make the point last night.

Boff was described yesterday as a heckler. But video of the incident showed that he barely raised his voice. Proper heckling is quite different.

Updated

At least one-tenth of Tory donations since 2010 are from property industry

At least one-tenth of the money donated to the Conservative party and its MPs since 2010 has come from property developers, real estate tycoons and others connected to the construction industry, an exclusive Guardian analysis reveals.

At the Conservative conference activists are already queueing to get a seat in the hall for Rishi Sunak’s speech.

Tories queueing for the speech.
Tories queueing for the speech.
Tories queueing for the speech.
Tories queueing for the speech.

Updated

Shapps rejects suggestions Braverman's 'hurricane' warning about migration had echoes of Enoch Powell's 'rivers of blood'

Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, has defended Suella Braverman’s claim that a “hurricane” of mass migration is coming, insisting her rhetoric on the subject is “certainly no Enoch Powell situation”.

The home secretary, who has been called the “darling of Conservative conference” by the Blue Collar Conservatism group, has been privately accused by many within her party of using culture wars to boost her own profile for a potential post-election leadership contest.

Asked about her speech about immigration, Shapps told Times Radio:

She makes the absolutely correct point we’ve already seen a lot of movement … we could see a lot more, a hurricane, as she describes it, of people moving.

Asked about comparisons which have been made to Enoch Powell’s infamous “rivers of blood” speech, he said:

So many people are from immigrant backgrounds in this country – I think I’m third generation myself … Suella’s first generation, her parents came over in the 60s – so this is certainly no Enoch Powell situation, is it, to make the very obvious point.

Updated

Protester outside the venue for the Conservative party conference in Manchester today.
Protester outside the venue for the Conservative party conference in Manchester today. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Tory West Midlands mayor Andy Street considering quitting party over HS2 U-turn

Andy Street, the Conservative mayor for the West Midlands, is considering quitting over Rishi Sunak’s decision to scrap the HS2 line between Birmingham and Manchester, Kiran Stacey reports. Kiran says:

A resignation by a Conservative figure with as high a profile as Street would be likely to overshadow the prime minister’s keynote speech on Wednesday and would undermine his argument that he is taking decisions for the long-term good of the country.

A source close to Street said: “He is very disappointed. He wants to see what today brings but it is certainly possible that he will resign immediately after the prime minister’s speech.”

Updated

Shapps says Covid, and rise in working from home, to blame for cancellation of HS2 phase 2

Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, spent his morning interview round defending the decision to axe phase two of HS2 without actually confirming that this is what is happening. At no point did he suggest that the reports (eg, here and here) were wrong.

Here are the main points he was making.

  • Shapps claimed the Covid pandemic was to blame for the cancellation of phase two of HS2, because it led to more working from home. In an interview on the Today programme, when Shapps was reminded that the government had repeatedly promised HS2 to Manchester, and when he was asked what had changed, he gave a one-word answer: “Coronavirus.” When asked to elaborate, he replied:

People no longer travel in the way that they did. We had, I think, hoped that people would go back to the railways, go back to travelling as before. My 19-year-old son, who has gone and got his sort of first full-time job [was] immediately told, by the way, it’s three days a week in the office and you’re expected to work elsewhere at home the rest of the time. That is the norm and was something we could not possibly have known before the once in a 100 year pandemic.

But when Nick Robinson, the presenter, put it to Shapps that on many rail networks more people were travelling by rail then before the pandemic, Shapps said the numbers did not tell the full story. He went on:

What’s changed is the pattern of travel. For example, we saw a big uptick in people travelling for leisure and at weekends, fewer people travelling in the rush hour and during the week, particularly on Mondays and Fridays.

  • He said the HS2 trains would still be running to Manchester and Leeds and that (even though these routes would not be proper HS2 services, he implied) the journeys would still be “significantly faster” than now, because some of the line would be HS2, and because of “digital signalling and other upgrades”.

  • He signalled that Rishi Sunak would announce investment worth tens of billions in other transport projects which might benefit the north of England more. Pointing out that we have not heard Sunak’s speech yet, he told the Today programme:

If, let’s say notionally, [Sunak] were to announce the second part [of HS2] wasn’t going to go ahead because of the changes in travel patterns after coronavirus but that we were going to take the tens of billions of pounds and pour those into, for example, other very fast or high-speed train links in the north, other smaller, local transport projects which might connect better, for example, Bolton with Manchester, and hundreds perhaps of those around the country – then actually might that not be a better spend of the money given the passenger numbers you just mentioned? The answer is, of course, there is a perfectly legitimate argument to be made that would do.

In response, Robinson said voters might not believe these promises.

  • Shapps said the HS2 U-turn showed that Sunak was prepared to take difficult decisions for the long term. He said:

A decision like this actually points to something else about Rishi Sunak and the sort of things he’s saying today, which is rather than thinking about things in the very short-term he’s prepared to take a look at difficult decisions, things like should we carry on because that’s what we were doing even though the world’s changed and do the hard things.

It’s much harder to change tracks on something like this when you see the world’s changed than it is just to plough on. It will attract criticism when you do these things. He’s prepared to take those long-term difficult decisions because he thinks we can get to a bright future by doing them.

Grant Shapps having an earpiece fitted before an interview this morning.
Grant Shapps having an earpiece fitted before an interview this morning. Photograph: Ian Forsyth/Getty Images

Updated

Shapps says cancelling HS2 link to Manchester will free up 'tens of billions' for other transport projects

Good morning. Rishi Sunak will deliver his speech to the Conservative conference just before noon and it is now all but certain that he will use it to announce he is scrapping the HS2 line from Birmingham to Manchester. There was imaginative spin last night to the effect that the line would still be going ahead, but just on the existing tracks. But that is not high-speed rail, and so there is no avoiding the fact that phase two of the project is dead.

Sunak is expected to announce a raft of other transport projects in north which he hopes will persuade voters the Tory commitment to levelling up has not died too. And we are expecting plenty of other policy in the speech, in which he will try to make the case he is the leader best placed to fix the “broken system” at Westminster which has held back Britain in recent decades (during which his party has largely been in power).

Here is our preview story by Pippa Crerar and Rajeev Syal.

The government has still not publicly confirmed the abandonment of HS2, but this morning Grant Shapps, the defence secretary, and a former transport secretary, has been doing an interview round defending the decision – while still insisting it has not yet been officially announced. On BBC Breakfast, echoing the line floating around last night, he claimed HS2 trains would “still run to Manchester” (even though they won’t be running on new, HS2 track). He said:

HS2 trains will run to Manchester, so they’ll still come into Manchester Piccadilly, they’ll still run to Leeds, there will still be a much faster journey time than there has been in the past.

And not just because some of the section will be actually conventional high speed, or new high-speed rail, but also because even the older section can have further upgrades to, for example, its digital infrastructure which is the way the signalling works.

The third thing is until people hear what the money can be used for and therefore the benefits across large parts of the north, for example, it is very hard to judge the full package.

And in an interview on the Today programme he claimed that tens of billions of pounds would be saved that could be spent on other transport projects.

What else will now be built because we will save these tens of billions of pounds? Those are tough choices, I know the opposition won’t do that, we will.

I will post more from his interviews shortly.

Sunak is due to speak at 11.45am. Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, and Johnny Mercer, the veterans minister, are speaking ahead of him.

If you want to contact me, do try the “send us a message” feature. You’ll see it just below the byline – on the left of the screen, if you are reading on a laptop or a desktop. This is for people who want to message me directly. I find it very useful when people message to point out errors (even typos – no mistake is too small to correct). Often 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 in the comments below the line; privately (if you leave an email address and that seems more appropriate); or in the main blog, if I think it is a topic of wide interest.

Updated

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