Bridget Phillipson receives boost as poll suggests she has clear lead over rival deputy leadership candidates with members
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is the most popular of the main candidates for Labour deputy leader, a poll of members suggests.
LabourList has just published the result of a poll of party members by Survation suggesting she has a clear lead over Emily Thornberry, the next most popular of the candidates who have so far declared.
In her write-up, Emma Burnell reports:
Of those candidates who have currently declared, Phillipson tops the poll with an overall favourability rating – the percentage of members who say they are a good candidate, minus those who say they are a bad candidate – of +39 per cent. Emily Thornberry is the next most popular candidate with +20 per cent.
Other candidates so far declared are further behind, with Lucy Powell having an overall favourability of 1 per cent, and Bell Ribeiro-Addy of -3 per cent.
For those candidates whose names are being mooted who have yet to declare one way or another, Alison McGovern has a 19 percent favourability rating; Meg Hillier is on 14 per cent; Sarah Owen on 13 per cent; Stella Creasy is on 10 per cent; And Nadia Whittome is on -5 per cent.
Here are the full figures.
Survation did not ask members about Paula Barker, the fifth MP to have confirmed they are standing.
It is hard to poll party members (because it is hard to find a representative sample), but the ConservativeHome website has been running surveys of party members about internal Tory elections for many years and their results have always provided a broadly accurate guide to the final outcome. LabourList has only recently started doing its own Labour membership polling, but it uses a respected pollster and its results are taken fairly seriously.
To get on the ballot paper, a candidate needs to be nominated by 80 Labour MPs. But once an MP nominates one candidate, they cannot withdraw their name and nominate someone else (which in effect is what happens in Tory leadership election contests, which use sequential voting) and it is possible that most candidates could fail to meet the 80-MP threshold.
Patrick Maguire from the Times thinks it is possible that Bridget Phillipson could be the only person to reach 80 – which would lead to her being elected unopposed this week.
Increasingly difficult to imagine a world in which Bridget Phillipson isn’t the only candidate validly nominated by Labour MPs tomorrow night
From Keir Starmer’s point of view, this would be an ideal outcome. He would have a loyalist deputy party leader, and avoid a contest which would end up dominated by a debate about whether the government should denounce Israel for genocide and bring in a wealth tax.
But party members might complain they were denied a choice.
Key events
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Sarah Owen says she won’t stand for deputy leader, and wants to focus on her role as chair of women and equalities committee
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Alison McGovern becomes 6th MP, and 2nd minister, to enter Labour’s deputy leadership contest
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Bridget Phillipson receives boost as poll suggests she has clear lead over rival deputy leadership candidates with members
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Paula Barker confirms she is standing to be Labour’s deputy leader
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Starmer tells cabinet ministers they must ‘go up a gear’ and take decisions ‘even more quickly’
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No 10 says payments to Boris Johnson from allowance for ex-PMs will be subject to checks ‘in usual way’
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Thames Water has ‘not met threshold’ for special administration, minster tells MPs
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Starmer tells cabinet they must see off ‘those that feed off politics of grievance’, in swipe at Reform UK
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Former PMs say they use subsidy only for public duties after Boris Johnson revelations
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Lucy Powell says she is standing to be deputy Labour leader, pledging to bring ‘all parts of party’ together
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Green party says its membership has hit a record high at 70,000
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Badenoch rules out getting rid of pension triple lock
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Badenoch says Tories willing to support Labour on legislation to cut welfare spending
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Water companies could move to not-for-profit model, but not with government funding, minister tells MPs
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Andy Burnham says he’s worried north-west lost influence in reshuffle, as he talks up Lucy Powell for deputy Labour leader
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Starmer chairs first cabinet meeting since reshuffle
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Emily Thornberry says she is standing for deputy Labour leader, with Gaza and support for wealth tax key part of her campaign
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Bell Ribeiro-Addy says she is standing for deputy Labour leader because party needs debate on ‘what’s gone wrong’
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Streeting suggests Labour needs deputy leader from outside London to ‘broaden perspectives’
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Wes Streeting welcomes ‘brilliant’ Bridget Phillipson standing for deputy leader – but without confirming he will vote for her
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Bridget Phillipson becomes first minister to enter race to become deputy Labour leader
Sarah Owen says she won’t stand for deputy leader, and wants to focus on her role as chair of women and equalities committee
The Labour MP Sarah Owen says she won’t be standing for deputy leader. In a post on Bluesky, she says:
I’m truly humbled by everyone who’s encouraged me to stand.
Right now, our country needs strong voices fighting for equality and human rights – I can make the most difference by doing that as Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee and as MP for Luton North
She has also written an article for Luton Today setting out her thinking in more detail. In it she says:
In the short time since I took over as chair of the women and equalities committee, our work has led to significant changes on everything from sharing intimate images without consent, to the parental leave review, to highlighting medical misogyny that leaves women undiagnosed and in pain …
In this volatile climate, I want to continue leading this important work that brings people together through greater understanding, not othering. I’m not in parliament to chase the next big job, but to make real change to people’s lives; to serve our party, our country, and the people of Luton North – the place I love and am proud to call home.
Alison McGovern becomes 6th MP, and 2nd minister, to enter Labour’s deputy leadership contest
Alison McGovern, who was employment minister until the weekend, when she was moved to housing, communities and local government ministry at the weekend, has confirmed she is standing to be deputy Labour leader.
In a statement she said:
After speaking to party members, trade unions, and MPs, I have decided to put my name forward for the deputy leadership of the Labour party.
Our country faces a huge threat from the dark forces of rightwing populism. We will only defeat that threat by giving people real hope and pride in our diverse country. And by fighting for those things that unite, not divide, us all: the right to a home, a job and to feel part of this country.
I believe I can shape our story, communicating our values in a way that resonates across the Labour family and with the public. Over the past 15 years, I have worked hand in hand with Labour and trade union members, campaigning for good jobs and against child poverty and the need for food banks.
Four generations of my family from Merseyside have worked on the railway and never thought that one of us could be a member of parliament – it was the Labour movement that did that.
Which is why I am proud to live in the community that raised me, also knowing that too many people are still left out of chances and choices in life. That has to change. I have fought tough battles before – and I’ll do so again – because these opportunities are a prize worth winning.
As we enter the next phase of this government we need to quickly show that we have learned the lessons of our first year in office and waste no time in delivering on the promise of change that got us elected last year.
That means there are now six candidates in the contest. This is roughly how they line up politically.
Broadly loyalist: Bridget Phillipson, Alison McGovern and Lucy Powell
Soft left: Emily Thornberry
Left: Bell Ribeiro-Addy, Paula Barker
Bridget Phillipson receives boost as poll suggests she has clear lead over rival deputy leadership candidates with members
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is the most popular of the main candidates for Labour deputy leader, a poll of members suggests.
LabourList has just published the result of a poll of party members by Survation suggesting she has a clear lead over Emily Thornberry, the next most popular of the candidates who have so far declared.
In her write-up, Emma Burnell reports:
Of those candidates who have currently declared, Phillipson tops the poll with an overall favourability rating – the percentage of members who say they are a good candidate, minus those who say they are a bad candidate – of +39 per cent. Emily Thornberry is the next most popular candidate with +20 per cent.
Other candidates so far declared are further behind, with Lucy Powell having an overall favourability of 1 per cent, and Bell Ribeiro-Addy of -3 per cent.
For those candidates whose names are being mooted who have yet to declare one way or another, Alison McGovern has a 19 percent favourability rating; Meg Hillier is on 14 per cent; Sarah Owen on 13 per cent; Stella Creasy is on 10 per cent; And Nadia Whittome is on -5 per cent.
Here are the full figures.
Survation did not ask members about Paula Barker, the fifth MP to have confirmed they are standing.
It is hard to poll party members (because it is hard to find a representative sample), but the ConservativeHome website has been running surveys of party members about internal Tory elections for many years and their results have always provided a broadly accurate guide to the final outcome. LabourList has only recently started doing its own Labour membership polling, but it uses a respected pollster and its results are taken fairly seriously.
To get on the ballot paper, a candidate needs to be nominated by 80 Labour MPs. But once an MP nominates one candidate, they cannot withdraw their name and nominate someone else (which in effect is what happens in Tory leadership election contests, which use sequential voting) and it is possible that most candidates could fail to meet the 80-MP threshold.
Patrick Maguire from the Times thinks it is possible that Bridget Phillipson could be the only person to reach 80 – which would lead to her being elected unopposed this week.
Increasingly difficult to imagine a world in which Bridget Phillipson isn’t the only candidate validly nominated by Labour MPs tomorrow night
From Keir Starmer’s point of view, this would be an ideal outcome. He would have a loyalist deputy party leader, and avoid a contest which would end up dominated by a debate about whether the government should denounce Israel for genocide and bring in a wealth tax.
But party members might complain they were denied a choice.
Paula Barker confirms she is standing to be Labour’s deputy leader
The Labour MP Paula Barker has confirmed that she is standing to be Labour’s deputy leader. (See 11.04am.)
Asked on the World at One if she had enough support to get the 80 MP nominations she will need to be on the ballot paper, she replied:
Our numbers are looking healthy. I have been really humbled by the amount of colleagues who are contacting me and showing me their support and I will be working with them going forward.
Starmer tells cabinet ministers they must ‘go up a gear’ and take decisions ‘even more quickly’
At cabinet Keir Starmer also told his ministers that they needed to “go up a gear” and take decisions “even more quickly”, the PM’s spokesperson told journalists at the lobby briefing.
In a readout from cabinet, the spokesperson said:
The prime minister opened by welcoming the cabinet and looking ahead to the next phase of government, as we move from fixing the foundations to driving forward the growth and national renewal that delivers for working people …
He went on to say that growth underpinned all of the government’s agenda but we needed to go up a gear, including taking decisions even more quickly. He said he understood the frustrations of the public who for more than a decade haven’t seen their living standards improve enough while seeing their public services get worse, and that they were rightly impatient for change. He said this government will deliver change further and faster, and that people would rightly judge the government on whether they feel better off, whether their public services, including the NHS, have improved, and whether they feel safer in their communities and feel their borders are more secure …
The prime minister emphasised the importance of demonstrating to working people that the government was driving down costs and spending their taxes well. He said it was incumbent on the government to go further and faster in reducing the size of the civil service, adopting technology and AI across public services, and reducing the number of regulators.
No 10 says payments to Boris Johnson from allowance for ex-PMs will be subject to checks ‘in usual way’
At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson was asked if the government would be looking at suggestions that Boris Johnson may have used a £115,000 taxpayer-funded annual allowance available to former prime ministers to help support his commercial work. The spokesperson insisted that the spending would be checked in the usual way. He said:
All payments made to former prime ministers are only to cover official administrative costs related to their position as a former prime minister. They do not cover personal business activities.
Those payments are made retrospectively based on documentation received, and all former prime ministers must abide by those rules, and they’re subject to audit and by the Cabinet Office and the National Audit Office in the usual way.
Al Carns, the former solidier who was made a defence minister straight after being elected to parliament for the first time last summer, has pulled out of the Labour deputy leadership contest, Aubrey Allegretti from the Times reports.
Al Carns’s allies have told MPs he’s “pulled out” of the deputy leadership race.
A short lived bid – but he’s certainly attracted interest for being a 2024 intake MP who seriously considered going for it.
(Many people may not have been aware that Carns was ever considering a run in the first place.)
Carole Walker from Times Radio says she’s been told that tomorrow’s Labour deputy leadership hustings may end up as little more than a Zoom call.
Breaking .. I am hearing MPs have been told the plan is that tomorrow’s hustings for Labour Deputy Leader will be online, rather than in front of the PLP. Lots of anger brewing ….
Thames Water has ‘not met threshold’ for special administration, minster tells MPs
Helena Horton
Helena Horton is a Guardian environment reporter.
Water minister Emma Hardy said that beleaguered water company Thames Water has “not met the threshold” for special administration and suggested it would not do so until taps run dry.
Thames is racing to secure funding to avoid temporary nationalisation and recently secured a controversial, high-interest, £3bn loan to stave off collapse. The company recently secured a payment plan with the industry regulator for fines it owes worth £123m.
The company has been trying to raise money for a turnaround plan for the past year, after building up a net debt pile worth £17.7bn under successive private owners.
Giviving evidence to the Commons environment committee, Hardy claimed it is not the government’s decision whether a company goes into SAR (special administration regime). Hardy said:
There is a mistaken belief that it’s the government or secretary of state’s decision to take a company into special administration. The government doesn’t put companies into SAR, the court does.
A water company goes into special administration when either the secretary of state applies to the court and makes the case for the water company to enter SAR, or if the water company says it can no longer operate and needs to go into SAR.
Hardy added:
[Thames] hasn’t met the threshold for going into special administration. It has to be a serious breach of its principle statutory duties. This would mean fundamentally water doesn’t come out of the taps, toilets don’t flush.
Prof Dieter Helm, economist and utilities expert at the University of Oxford, seemed sceptical at the minister’s claims. He told the Guardian:
In practice an application in itself [to the court] would trigger practically the outcome. As to what constitutes a serious breach etc, imagine trying to argue that Thames had not in fact done so … pretty difficult in practice I guess, given all the evidence of its failings.
Finally – and this is the really important bit – if the criteria are as demanding as the minister suggests, a SAR would only be used in extremis and by then it might be very hard to guarantee the continuity of services which is the reason a SAR is deliberately ‘special’. It would be a disaster. SARs were designed to deal with failures long before the company and its performance goes over a cliff … If they can’t, then there needs to be a new Utilities Failures Act to put a proper regime in place as a matter of urgency.
Ministers appear to be getting ready to place the company into SAR, and have appointed FTI Consulting as potential administrators.
Hardy confirmed the appointment, adding: “It is absolutely right that we should be prepared for everything. I don’t want to be one of those ministers that is caught on the hop so we have made sure we have got everything ready.”
Starmer tells cabinet they must see off ‘those that feed off politics of grievance’, in swipe at Reform UK
In opening remarks at cabinet this morning, Keir Starmer criticised Reform UK, telling his ministers they were “up against those that feed off the politics of grievance”, and that they had a “patriotic duty” to offer an alternative programme of “national renewal”.
He told his team:
You are the right people to heed the patriotic call to lift up our country and take it forward to national renewal for millions of working people.
And in a reference to Reform, he said:
It is important that we are very clear about what we’re up against. We’re up against those that feed off the politics of grievance, those that do not want problems to be fixed, because if the problems are fixed, their reason to exist, their politics, ceases to have any role in our society.
Starmer said he was working for “a Britain of decent, reasonable, compassionate, tolerant people” as “the vast majority of people in this country are”. He went on:
It’s them that we have in our mind’s eye as we go forward and our mission is the triumph of national renewal over divide and division and decline. That is our patriotic responsibility and our patriotic duty. And I look forward to working with all of you as we go on to this next phase of government.
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