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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Cameron to stand down as MP, triggering byelection - Politics live

Cameron: ‘I’ve decided the right thing to do is to stand down as MP’

Afternoon summary

  • David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has told a Lords committee that leaving the EU may be the most complicated negotiation of all time.

And some of the details would be kept detail from MPs while negotiations were ongoing, he said.

  • MPs have been looking at proposals from the boundary commission for new parliamentary boundaries. The changes will reduce the number of MPs in the Commons from 650 to 600. Plans for England have been released to MPs today, but they will not be publicly released until tomorrow.
  • Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, has described the plans to open new grammar schools as a “silly class war”. Tory MPs jeered at her when she used the phrase, but she then revealed she was quoting David Cameron, who opposed opening new grammar schools when he was Tory leader. She was speaking as Justine Greening, the education secretary, published details of the government’s plans (pdf). Greening said that expanding selection in education could improve attainment but did not use the phrase “grammar schools”.
  • Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, has urged all political parties to consider the potential opportunities of leaving the EU as she announced a new expert group to advise her on Brexit. As the Press Association reports, she said the Scottish government had “got it wrong” in its response to the Leave vote as she announced a rival panel to that set up by first minister Nicola Sturgeon. It includes Gavin Hewitt, the former chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association and ex-UK ambassador to Belgium, Finland and Croatia, as well as Sir Iain McMillan, the former director of CBI Scotland.
  • Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has said Russia must rein in Bashar al-Assad to give Syria’s new ceasefire plan a chance of succeeding. Speaking in the Commons, Fallon said:

Russian military activity in Syria has supported the Assad regime, a regime which bombs, tortures and starves its own people. While we welcome the latest ceasefire from tonight, it is Russia that must make it work by stopping Assad from attacking Syrian civilians, moderate opposition groups and by helping to get humanitarian aid into Aleppo and other cities that are being starved of food.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

This is from the Guardian’s Patrick Wintour on David Cameron’s resignation.

And this is from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.

Here is George Osborne, the former chancellor and David Cameron’s close friend, on Cameron’s decision to leave the Commons.

And this is from William Hague, the former foreign secretary and former Tory leader.

This is from my colleague Anushka Asthana.

Here is Sir Craig Oliver, David Cameron’s former communications director, on Cameron’s decision to leave the Commons.

[Cameron] doesn’t want to be the person that people go to cause disagreement or have disagreements with the government. For him duty and loyalty and wanting the Conservative Party to succeed, wanting the Conservative prime minister to succeed, wanting Britain to succeed is very important to him and he doesn’t want any sense in which he is standing in the way of that or appears to have a gripe or a problem about that.

Here is the full statement from Theresa May on David Cameron’s decision to stand down as an MP.

I was proud to serve in David Cameron’s government – and under his leadership we achieved great things. Not just stabilising the economy, but also making great strides in delivering serious social reform.

His commitment to lead a one nation government is one that I will continue. I thank him for everything he has done for the Conservative party and the country and I wish him and his family well for the future.

David Cameron's resignation - Analysis

David Cameron always used to say that politics is a team sport. Loyalty, to the party and its leader, counts a great deal for him, more perhaps than it does for some of his predecessors. (Sir John Major has been broadly loyal to his successors, but Major’s two Tory PM predecessors, Margaret Thatcher and Edward Heath, were notorious for their unwelcome backseat driving.) And today Cameron has been quite explicit about why he is leaving the Commons; while stressing that he generally supported Theresa May, he also said that he had his “own views about different issues” and that he did not want to be a “distraction”.

By distraction he meant “rebel”. He is not going to be able to honestly support May on everything, and so he would rather leave the Commons than stay on and turn into Ted Heath. (As a former prime minister it will still be interesting to know what he thinks about government policy, but his views will be less relevant if he is no longer an MP and, crucially, he will not be expected to vote for measures he does not back.)

Cameron insisted that this was not just about grammar schools and that his decision had nothing to do with “any one individual issue”. (See 4.25pm.) This is almost certainly true. Here are five issues that probably helped Cameron come to the view that he was best off no longer serving as an MP with May as prime minister.

1 - Grammar schools. Cameron says there are “very many good things” in May’s grammar school policy, but his comments (see 4.25pm) also make it clear that he has strong reservations too. That’s not surprising. “In 18 years of Conservative government, we didn’t create a whole big number of grammar schools because parents fundamentally don’t want their children divided into sheep and goats at the age of 11,” he said in 2007. There is nothing to suggest he has changed his mind.

2 - Faith school expansion. The grammar school aspect of May’s policy is the one that has received the most attention, but the faith school proposals are very contentious too. Today’s Times carries an article by Clare Foges, a former Cameron speechwriter, saying that allowing faith schools to expand without having to mix their intake would produce “more mono-cultural, mono-faith, mono-racial schools. More bubbles. More parallel lives”. (See 10.39am.) Foges was publishing her own views, not Cameron’s, but he resisted the proposal that May is adopting when he was prime minister and so he may well agree with his former aide.

3 - Europe. After Britain voted for Brexit Cameron told MPs that it would be up to his successor to decide what relationship the UK formed with the EU but that he thought “it is in all our interests, whatever the eventual decision, to make sure we are as close as possible economically to our friends and partners in the European Union”. Put more bluntly, “the closer, the better”, he said. With David Davis, the Brexit minister, virtually saying the UK will have to leave the single market, and Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, backing what is seen as a “hard” Brexit campaign, Cameron may have already concluded his advice will be ignored.

4 - China. Cameron’s government made forging a strong partnership with China a key priority. May’s decision to postpone the decision to give the new Hinkley Point power station project the go-ahead shows she takes a very different view.

5 - Reshuffle. May was always going to appoint her own cabinet and ministerial team, but the extent to which she was willing to purge the Notting Hill Cameroons took many MPs by surprise. It would be surprising if Cameron was not at least a little disappointed about the way figures like George Osborne and Oliver Letwin were treated.

One other point: not for the first time, Cameron is living up to his “heir to Blair” reputation. Former prime ministers always used to stay on in the Commons at least until the subsequent election because triggering a byelection just to avoid the fate of having to be a backbencher seemed indulgent. But Tony Blair set a new trend when he decided to resign from the Commons on the day he left Downing Street.

Updated

Cameron hints he does not fully support May's plans for new grammar schools

Here is a lightly edited account of the rest of Chris Ship’s interview with David Cameron. I posted a transcript of the first half of it at 3.50pm.

(I have paraphrased some of the questions, but not the answers, obviously.)

Q: You were opposed to a return to grammar schools. Resigning so soon after Theresa May’s speech suggests you could not support that policy.

DC: This decision has got nothing to do with any one individual issue and the timing in that way is, I promise, is coincidental. But it goes to a bigger picture, really, which is whatever the issue, as a former prime minister being a backbench MP, I think, it is difficult just not to be a distraction, a diversion and therefore build a sort of reputation for yourself in politics that I don’t really want to have. I wish her well, I wish the government well.

In a way there’s a link to the decision to resign as prime minister. The country made a decision, a decision I advised against but nonetheless the decision has been made. I want the government to successfully pursue that decision and to get it right. And as a result I think not being a backbencher but leaving parliament is the right thing to do.

Q: Do you or do you not support the expansion of grammar schools?

DC: There’s very many good things in the policy. We actually when I was prime minister agreed to the expansion of grammar schools in areas where they already where. We set up sixth forms that were selective in our big cities as free schools, so lots of merit in the policy. But frankly I don’t want to get into the whys and wherefores of this individual policy ...

Q: This suggests you simply do not support the expansion of grammar schools.

DC: I think there’s some merit in the policy that is being put forward. My announcement today is not about grammar schools. There’s no connection with grammar schools, it’s purely one of timing. My view is, as I’ve said, I don’t want to be the distraction and diversion that the former prime minister inevitably is on the backbenches.

So it’s with a heavy heart because I love this part of the world, I’ve loved being an MP, I’m going to go on living here. Being a constituency MP is a great and fulfilling job but I’ve come to the conclusion that the best thing is to stand down.

  • Cameron hints he does not fully support Theresa May’s plans to open new grammar schools.

Q: You will be remembered mostly for taking this country out of the EU, won’t you?

DC: I’m sure I will be remembered for keeping that pledge to hold areferendum when many people thought that promise would never be kept but I hope that people will look back at the 11 years I was leader of the Conservative party and six years as prime minister of our country as a time when we did create a stronger economy – 1,000 people found work for every day I was prime minister – and we did make some important social reforms ... and the Conservative party went from being in the doldrums and getting beaten to being a modernising winning force in British politics. But the historians will have to work all that out. I obviously now am going to be looking at a new life, but I’m only 49 – I hope I can still contribute in terms of public service and contribute to our country.

Q: What will your new life outside the Commons involve?

DC: I haven’t made firm decisions, I need to look at all of that. The only firm decision I’ve made is to leave the House of Commons and stop being an MP – as I say, with a heavy heart because I’ve loved the jobs but I don’t think it works for a former prime minister who resigned in my circumstances and with all the new government needs to do.

Issues for the future. I’ll decide them in the future and, hopefully, as I say, continue to make some service and some public service contribution to this country. I want to continue campaigning on the local, national and indeed international issues that were part of my prime ministership where I think we made some good progress. There’s still a lot more to be done.

Updated

The BBC is now broadcasting further extracts from the David Cameron interview with ITV’s Chris Ship.

Cameron claims that his resignation announcement has not been prompted by opposition to the government’s grammar school plans, but he falls short of endorsing them in full.

I will post the quotes shortly.

My colleague Rowena Mason has posted this from Twitter following the Number 10 lobby briefing.

And here is Anushka Ashana’s story about David Cameron’s resignation.

This is from my colleague Anushka Asthana.

David Cameron's statement in full

Here is the statement that David Cameron gave to ITV’s Chris Ship announcing his resignation as an MP.

I have thought about this long and hard over the summer and I have decided the right thing to do is to stand down as the member of parliament for Witney. There will be a byelection. I will give the Conservative candidate my full support.

But in my view, with modern politics, with the circumstances of my resignation, it isn’t really possible to be a proper backbench MP as a former prime minister. I think everything you do will become a big distraction and a big diversion from what the government needs to do for our country. And I support Theresa May. I think she’s got off to a great start. I think she can be a strong prime minister for our country. And I don’t want to be that distraction. I want Witney to have a new MP who can play a full part in parliamentary and political life without being a distraction.

I want to thank everybody here in west Oxfordshire who has been so supportive. It has been a great honour and privilege to serve this area and to serve these brilliant people. I’m going to go on living locally. I will go on supporting the local causes and charities that make this such a great place in our country. But obviously I’m going to have to start to build a life outside Westminster. I hope I’ll continue to contribute in terms of public service and of course contribute to this country that I love so much.

And this is what Cameron said when it was put to him that he could be accused of snubbing Theresa May.

I spoke to Theresa May and she was very understanding about this decision. I support her. I support what she’s doing. She’s got off to a cracking start. Obviously, I’m going to have my own views about different issues; people would know that. And that’s really the point. As a former prime minister it is very difficult, I think, to sit as a backbencher and not be an enormous diversion and distraction from what the government is doing. I don’t want to be that distraction. I want Witney to have an MP that can play a full role in parliamentary and political life in a way that I think I would find very difficult, if not impossible.

Updated

In his final PMQs as prime minister, David Cameron said he would continue to “watch these exchanges from the backbenches”.

Obviously, not for long ...

Updated

Here is more from the David Cameron statement.

I have thought about this long and hard over the summer and I have decided the right thing to do is to stand down as the member of parliament for Witney. There will be a byelection. I will give the Conservative candidate my full support.

Updated

Cameron explains why he is resigning as an MP

ITV has released a clip of its interview with David Cameron on its website.

Cameron says:

In my view, with modern politics, with the circumstances of my resignation, it isn’t really possible to be a proper backbench MP as a former prime minister.

I think everything you do will become a big distraction and a big diversion from what the government needs to do for our country.

Updated

Here is our story from the 2015 general election campaign about David Cameron saying he intended to remain as an MP for the next five years.

Speaking on BBC Radio Oxford on Thursday, Cameron replied when pressed on whether he would fight another election to be the MP for Witney in 2020 that he was “very keen to continue”.

When asked if that meant he would seek re-election in 2020, he replied: “That is very much my intention.”

Updated

David Cameron said during the 2015 general election that he would remain as an MP for the duration of this parliament.

So why is he going? These are from ITV’s Chris Ship.

David Cameron is resigning as an MP with immediate effect, ITV is reporting.

The Telegraph has more on the proposed boundary changes. George Osborne’s Tatton constituency is going to disappear, it reports.

Updated

On the subject of Jeremy Corbyn’s first anniversary as Labour leader, Theo Bertram, a former aide to Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, has had the following to say.

And Bertram explains the Sibthorpe doctrine with another tweet.

Updated

The Labour MP Mary Creagh says a brick has been thrown through her constituency office window.

Guardian/ICM poll gives Tories 13-point lead over Labour

It’s a year to the day since Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader but the party’s polling ratings haven’t been great since he’s been in charge and since Brexit, which triggered a bitter Labour leadership contest and the emergence of new Tory leader/prime minister, they’ve been particularly poor.

The latest Guardian/ICM polling is out today. The good news for Labour is that the Tory lead is down one compared to when ICM last polled for the Guardian two weeks ago. The bad news; the Tories are still 13 points ahead.

Here are the figures.

Conservatives: 41% (no change)

Labour: 28% (up 1)

Ukip: 13% (no change)

Lib Dems: 9% (no change)

Greens: 4% (no change)

ICM interviewed 2,013 people online between 9 and 11 September.

Lunchtime summary

  • Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, has said the union movement will strongly fight any attempt to give the UK a trade deal with the EU like Canada’s after Brexit. The government has said that it will negotiate a bespoke trade agreement with the EU once the UK leaves, instead of copying some of the other models available (eg, Norway, Switzerland, Canada). But there have been reports that it is most interested in a Canada-plus option - a trade deal loosely based on the Canada/EU free trade deal which is also known as CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement). In her speech O’Grady said this would be unacceptable.

Now, in some corners of Whitehall there is talk about Canada and the CETA model.

Well, let me give the government fair warning.

Britain didn’t vote for new trade agreements that: destroy jobs, set up secret courts and open the way to privatisation.

If they go for the son of CETA, we will make opposition to TTIP look like a tea party.

O’Grady said the union movement had to accept the results of the Brexit vote. But she also said there should be a cross-party Brexit negotiating team, featuring the unions, and that the government had to say what it wanted. And she said the government had to get a mandate for its negotiating position.

How can her government know what to negotiate for if it doesn’t know what the country thinks?

In her speech O’Grady also criticised the decision not to give EU nationals living in the UK a firm promise that they can stay as “immoral and inhuman” and she took a swipe at Liam Fox, saying “you won’t catch me talking down industry”. And, describing the unions as “the UK’s only democratic mass movement for change”, she said they would campaign to stop workers being treated intolerably in the modern working environment.

Run a big brand with a dirty little secret?

A warehouse of people paid less than the minimum wage?

A fleet of couriers who are slaves to an app?

Let me put you on notice.

A hundred years ago, this movement campaigned to abolish piece work and day labour.

We innovated, we organised, and we won.

And we will do it again.

It might look different.

We might organise on WhatsApp or Facebook.

We might use the courts.

Persuade customers.

Win over shareholders.

As well as recruiting workers.

But there will be no hiding place.

TUC chief: Theresa May must not make workers pay price of Brexit
  • Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, has said the government has been “very slow” in its response to the refugee crisis and has “little to show” after pledging to reunite families separated by conflict.
  • The Centre for Social Justice has announced that Iain Duncan Smith, the former work and pensions secretary, will return to the thinktank to run it as chair. Duncan Smith launched it when the Tories were in opposition and its work on the causes of poverty influenced his approach to policy when he was in government. According to the CSJ, Duncan Smith is planning to work on “Breakthrough Brexit,” described as “a bold new programme of research and policy-making designed to boost living standards and employment opportunities for the kind of blue collar workers whose dissatisfaction with today’s Britain proved pivotal in the vote to leave the European Union.” Duncan Smith said:

I want the CSJ to focus on improving the lives of blue collar workers. Many of them were among the 52 per cent of people who voted to quit the EU partly, at least, because they did not believe they were gaining any benefit from our current political and economic system. I want the CSJ to come up with proposals for raising skill levels and productivity among this group of workers and so improve their wages and living standards.

Number 10 lobby briefing - Summary

The Number 10 lobby briefing was relatively low-key. Here are the main points.

  • The spokeswoman suggested that the creation of a new cross-party, pro-Brexit pressure group, Change Britain, was unnecessary. Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, is backing the group, which is seen as campaigning for a “hard” Brexit and against any backsliding by the government. Asked if May welcomed this, the spokeswoman said:

The government is absolutely committed to delivering on the decision of the British people to leave the EU ... The government and the cabinet are already getting on with it.

  • Number 10 brushed aside the TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady’s claim that not guaranteeing EU citizens resident in the UK the right to stay after Brexit was “immoral”. Asked about this, the spokeswoman said that May hoped to be in a position to let them stay and that the only circumstances in which they would not be allowed to stay would be “if European countries were not able to make commitments with regard to the position of British nationals”.
  • The spokeswoman claimed the government was “making progress” in terms of its commitment to take in Syrian refugees, including vulnerable children. More than 120 unaccompanied child refugees have come to the UK since the start of the year, she said, and more than 30 children have been admitted since the Immigration Act became law in May under the provisions of that legislation. The UK had already committed to resettle 20,000 vulnerable refugees from camps near to Syria over a five-year period and to take 3,000 children and their families from the region under the Children at Risk scheme. The Immigration Act set out measures to take in unaccompanied refugee children who were already in Europe before March 20 this year, “where it is in their best interests”, but set no figure on the numbers who might be allowed into the UK.
  • Aung San Suu Kyi, the Myanmar leader, is in London for talks and is meeting Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, this afternoon.
  • Philip Hammond, the chancellor, is meeting British exporters this afternoon as part of a series of meetings he is holding ahead of the autumn statement.
Number 10.
Number 10. Photograph: Steve Back / Barcroft Images

Updated

Here is the full text of Frances O’Grady’s speech to the TUC conference. I will post a summary in due course, but first I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing. I will post again after 11.30am.

You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.

As for the other papers, here is the Politics Home list of top 10 must reads, and here is the ConservativeHome round-up of today’s politics stories.

And here are three articles I found interesting.

Mr Gove is expected to give a cautious welcome to the proposals when they are announced by Justine Greening, the education secretary, in the House of Commons today.

When he was education secretary, Mr Gove allowed sixth form colleges to admit pupils selectively but ruled out any attempt to create new grammar schools. Mr Gove’s decision not to join other Tory rebels, including the previous education secretary, Nicky Morgan, in opposing Mrs May will be met with relief in Downing Street.

Wales will introduce the first Welsh tax in 800 years on Monday, using powers handed down from Westminster to introduce its own version of stamp duty.

The Land Transaction Tax will be the first locally administered tax since Wales was conquered by the English King Edward I in the late 13th century.

Mark Drakeford, Wales’ finance secretary, described it as “a historic milestone” in the devolution of tax powers to Wales creating “taxes which are more suited to the needs of Wales and Welsh public services”.

The Wales Bill, which gives tax powers to the Welsh Assembly, passed its last legislative hurdle in the Commons on Wednesday.

Ministers are to push ahead with legislation that would make boards criminally liable for a range of offences perpetrated by employees.

The move is among measures to tackle “boardroom excess” that will be announced by Theresa May. These include placing workers’ representatives on boards and imposing checks on corporate pay. The prime minister has said that addressing corporate behaviour will be a key part of her domestic legislative agenda.

(This is a roll-out of a proposal set out by David Cameron in a Guardian article in May.)

Ahead of the grammar schools announcement later today, here are two articles on the subject worth reading.

It was dismaying to hear the prime minister’s announcement last week on faith schools. Previously, over-subscribed new schools could only select 50 per cent of pupils on the basis of religion. Now it is to be 100 per cent. More mono-cultural, mono-faith, mono-racial schools. More bubbles. More parallel lives.

It would seem the government has been backed into a corner on this. The Conservative manifesto promise is to create 500 new free schools. The hope was that a significant chunk would come from Catholic schools, but the church resisted. It takes issue with the 50 per cent cap on religious selection. Apparently, it is against canon law “for a Catholic bishop not to prioritise the admission of Catholic pupils”. The chief rabbi also resisted the 50 per cent cap.

I find secularist harrumphing about the pernicious influence of religion pretty ridiculous on the whole, but isn’t there something rather ugly about this demand that “we take care of our own” to the exclusion of others? Doesn’t it stick in the craw that the state will pay for this discrimination? Government guidance says it is unacceptable for schools to “promote discrimination against people or groups on the basis of their belief”. So, not OK to promote it, OK to practise it.

Here is the killer stat: the Sutton Trust found that less than three per cent of grammar kids were on free lunches, compared with 20 per cent across the country.

Theresa May addresses this by talking of “inclusive grammar schools”. But this is a contradiction: grammars exclude. Some complicated two-tier entry taking into account socio-economic background will have MPs post-bags brimming with constituents complaining that their child was denied a place despite gaining a higher mark than another child.

And however “fairly” you try to select, you won’t escape the fundamental unfairness of deciding ability at the age of 11. Streaming within schools works because it allows flexibility as children flourish at different stages and in different subjects. Grammars stream people for entire school careers, and beyond.

Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, is addressing the TUC conference now.

You can watch a live feed here.

I will post a summary of the speech when I’ve seen the text.

It is one year to the day since Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader.

Obviously the fact that 75% of Labour MPs backed a motion expressing no confidence in him suggests that Corbyn’s first year as leader has not been an unalloyed triumph. But the Times’s Matt Chorley, who writes its Red Box briefing, asked Corbyn’s office to supply a list of his achievements over the last 12 months and he has published it on the Times’s Red Box website.

A U-turn on cuts to Personal Independence Payment.

A majority female shadow cabinet, and now the most diverse shadow cabinet ever

Tax credits U-turn

Iain Duncan Smith was made unable to remove income from the definition of child poverty.

Growing Labour membership to 540,000 – the largest political party in Europe.

Winning back London for the first time since 2008

Winning Bristol for the first time ever

Holding Salford and Liverpool

Increasing or retaining majorities in every parliamentary by-election

A 7% increase in majority in Oldham West & Royton

U-turn on Saudi prisons contracts

A U-turn on police cuts

Introducing public questions at PMQs, and facilitating a more mature approach to PMQs

Forcing a partial U-turn on support for the steel industry

Attracting tens of thousands to rallies and public events, including during Conservative Party conference

Helping change the consensus on austerity

Holding the Tories to account over Panama papers revelations

Deploying digital campaigning effectively, such as the 100,000 signatures gathered in support of the steel industry within hours

A defeat on Sunday trading hours

The conference season is now well underway. The Greens have already had their autumn conference and this week the TUC is meeting in Brighton. Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, will speak later this morning and my colleague Rajeev Syal has filed a preview. Here is his story.

And here is how it starts.

Senior figures in the trade union movement are urging the government to ensure that ordinary working people are not made to pay the price of Brexit.

On the first full day of 2016’s TUC conference, the general secretary, Frances O’Grady, will tell delegates she is concerned workers’ rights and jobs could be sacrificed by ministers in negotiations with the European Union.

Her words will be delivered as Theresa May’s government struggles to deal with criticisms from business leaders after Liam Fox was secretly recorded calling UK business “fat and lazy”.

Union leaders are concerned that in the government’s rush to appease the City and large corporations, the interests of manufacturing and industry will be put at risk.

O’Grady will tell delegates in Brighton on Monday: “We’ve had the votes, the vote was close but clear and now our job is to get on with representing working people, whichever way they cast their vote, and make sure that they don’t pay the price of a Brexit.”

I will post more from the speech later.

O’Grady was on the Today programme earlier. Asked about the Labour leadership contest, she said that after the leadership contest was over the party needed to unite and “start focusing on what voters want”.

As soon as the contest is over, we are saying get behind whoever the leader is, get united. But start focusing on people out in the country. Voters want to get a bit more attention, it can’t just be about the rights of MPs, or the rights of members, I think Labour needs to start focusing on what voters want.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Around 9.45am: Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, gives a keynote speech at the TUC conference in Brighton.

10am: Rowan Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury, speaks at an event to mark the joint call by 200 faith leaders urging the government to be more generous to refugees.

11am: Number 10 lobby briefing.

12.25pm: Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, gives a speech to the European Council on Foreign Relations thinktank in London.

3.30pm: Justine Greening, the education secretary, is due to make a statement to MPs following the publication of the government’s plans to expand grammar schools.

4.30pm: Owen Smith, the Labour leadership challenger, holds a Q&A on Twitter.

As usual, I will be covering the breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.

Updated

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