Kemi Badenoch is speaking in central London at the moment and is expected to say that Andy Burnham is “still thinking like the mayor of Manchester”.
“Going by what he’s announced so far, Andy Burnham’s ambitions for Britain are too small,” she was expected to say.
We’ll have any interesting news lines from the speech here but in the meantime you can follow along via the video below:
The British army has been forced to cancel training for its troops in Kenya after the Kenyan government refused to ratify a bilateral defence agreement.
While the UK government wanted to renew the existing agreement, Kenyan lawmakers had sought changes to give local authorities greater powers to hold British soldiers accountable for any offences committed in the country.
According to the Kenyan news outlet the Daily Nation, the dispute centres on which cases Kenya will retain primary jurisdiction over, while the amount of money Britain pays Kenya to host the training camp has also been a sticking point.
The chair of the Kenyan national assembly’s defence, intelligence and foreign relations committee, Nelson Koech, said the two governments are “actively engaging to address these outstanding issues”.
As a result of the Kenyan government’s decision, a planned exercise involving the 1st Battalion the Duke of Lancaster’s Regiment, which was due to begin in September, has been cancelled.
A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “The UK highly values its relationship with Kenya, which is underpinned by mutual benefit, respect and cooperation. The UK-Kenya Defence Partnership is one of the great strengths of our relationship. Our joint training and operations with the Kenyan Defence Forces are keeping both Kenyan and British people safe.
“It is with regret that the necessary licences required to allow training to take place in Laikipia later this year have not been forthcoming. As a result, the planned training will now be conducted at an alternative location outside Kenya.”
Andy Burnham’s pledge to review early release plans has created “a sense of chaos” across the Prison Service, probation officers have said.
As Whitehall insiders confirmed the prime minister was examining possible exemptions to the law under which offenders will be freed, the Napo probation union said prison officials “do not know” how to respond.
Burnham said on Wednesday that he would examine the “the whole of the policy” with the new justice secretary, Alex Norris, amid preparations for the release of up to 6,000 prisoners across England and Wales from 2 September.
Under the proposals, killers, rapists and sex offenders will be released early into the community and monitored by tags.
The mother of police officer Andrew Harper said on Thursday it was “another letdown” for her son that two of his killers were being considered for early release.
Tania Bassett, Napo’s national officer, told the Guardian the union had asked prison managers whether all preparations for early release across England and Wales should continue but received no response.
Andy Burnham will hold his first meeting at No 10 North in Manchester on Friday, PA reports.
Burnham told the Hare pub in Harlow, Essex on Thursday that “the whole purpose of No 10 North is to put more power into every postcode in the land, including the postcodes of Harlow.”
“How do we get power out of Whitehall and Westminster, into the hands of people at a local level, so that they can make a difference and turn things around?”
In her first 48 hours as energy secretary, Miatta Fahnbulleh was left in no doubt about the thorny policy decision at the top of her in-tray. Protesters from Fossil Free London met her outside her new offices dressed as firefighters holding placards reading: “We’re already putting out fires, don’t start new ones.”
The MP for Peckham – a radical economist who is outspoken about the climate crisis – is a surprising choice as secretary of state for energy and net zero for those who believe the speculation in Westminster that Andy Burnham wants to approve new oil and gas drilling in the North Sea.
Protesters outside the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) on Wednesday were taking no chances on whether the rumours were correct, demanding in full voice that the new energy secretary scrap all new drilling.
More here:
Gambling arcades may be among the businesses whose business rate relief will be cut in order to fund the 20% reduction for pubs, clubs and live music venues, Andy Burnham said Thursday.
The prime minister told reporters that the reduction for pubs, clubs and live music venues will be funded “from within a change to business rates, because you know you can’t see all businesses the same”, PA reports.
While some businesses “do real good”, other businesses “can cause social harm”, Burnham said. “So adult gaming centres on high streets can often bring real harm to communities. Then people will see the vape shops that often don’t add much to community life and cause other issues too.
“So it’s about developing a business rates regime where we really give incentives to support the businesses that bring benefits, and look differently at those that cause social harm, and that’s the change that we will bring through.”
After the news that Anas Sarwar is heading to Westminster to join Andy Burnham’s government as a trade minister, the search is beginning for Scottish Labour to find a new leader.
By leaving his seat in the Scottish parliament to take up a place in the House of Lords, Sarwar has cleared the way for his former leadership rival, Monica Lennon, to fill the vacancy at Holyrood.
Lennon, who first became an MSP in 2016, stood against Sarwar on a leftwing platform in 2021 but lost her re-election bid in May this year to an SNP candidate. She is set to take up Sarwar’s place on the Glasgow regional list and confirmed that she would not “rule myself out of anything right now”.
PA are also reporting that other candidates may include Scottish Labour’s finance spokesperson, Michael Marra MSP, and the Glasgow MSP, Paul Sweeney.
Scottish Labour’s deputy leader and current acting leader in the wake of Sarwar’s resignation, Jackie Baillie MSP, has already ruled herself out of running for the role.
Children living in the poorest areas across England are 40% more likely to be admitted to hospital for respiratory infections, an analysis of NHS England data shows, with experts raising the alarm on the impact of air pollution on young people’s health.
The analysis, based on data obtained via freedom of information requests by the charity Impact on Urban Health, revealed 1,941 out of every 100,000 children living in the most deprived fifth of England were admitted to hospital for respiratory illnesses in 2024/25.
The high admission rate contrasted starkly with figures on England’s least deprived area, where 1,380 out of every 100,000 children were admitted to hospital for respiratory illnesses, including acute upper and lower respiratory infections, influenza and pneumonia, that same year.
The groupings were based on national deprivation quintiles, comparing the 20% most deprived areas in England with the 20% least deprived. In absolute terms, the poorest areas registered a total of 82% more hospital admissions for respiratory infections, equivalent to a 41% higher rate when adjusted for population size.
Although the data did not provide an exact cause for these hospital admissions, air pollution was identified as a significant risk factor, with children living in deprived areas exposed to the most extreme levels of toxins and pollutants.
A minister has said Andy Burnham’s review of the early release scheme for prisoners is looking at the “implementation” of it and would not rule out that it means it will not go ahead.
Chief secretary to the Treasury Emma Reynolds told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
The prime minister said yesterday that he wants to look at the implementation of this policy.
Asked if that means it might not happen, she said: “That is something that he and the justice secretary will set out in the coming weeks.”
The review comes as the mother of police officer Andrew Harper said the fact that two of his killers are being considered for early release “just feels like another letdown for Andrew”.
PC Harper was 28 when he sustained fatal injuries while responding to a quad bike theft in Sulhamstead, Berkshire, in August 2019.
Asked about how the family feel about the potential release, PC Harper’s mother Debbie Adlam told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:
It just feels like another letdown for Andrew, really. You know, when you look at the horrific way he was killed, we have to live with that, we have to know, you know, that we’ve still got to live a life.
We’ve got to do our best to do a life as best we can for him and in his name, really.
But alongside that, we live with this horrendous… it’s like a double life almost, the way we actually have to go on, because there’s obviously the loss, and then there’s trying to keep a normality about life.
Andy Burnham must detail how he will pay for his policies including the business rates cut, the Conservatives have said.
Tory shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith said:
Whilst any support for Britain’s hard-pressed businesses is welcome, once again this government has been found wanting on both the detail and funding for this policy.
We are days into the Burnham premiership and as yet the government has not been able to credibly explain how it will fund any one of its ‘new’ policies.
That undoubtedly means more Labour tax rises that families and businesses across the country cannot afford.
Only the Conservatives have a fully funded plan, backed by a £47bn savings plan, to abolish business rates entirely for the vast majority of high street businesses.
Kemi Badenoch has accused Andy Burnham of being too unambitious, using her first major intervention since he became prime minister to say he is stuck with “mayor of Manchester ideas”.
At a speech in central London, the Conservative leader said Burnham policies such as cheaper bus fares and removing VAT from electricity bills showed a lack of vision: “Andy Burnham may be a nice guy, may dance well enough, but Britain does not need a prime minister with small answers to big problems – it needs a government that looks forwards, not backwards.”
She added: “He is not the mayor of Manchester. These are mayor of Manchester ideas. Where is our prime minister?”
The speech and Q&A, held on a rooftop overlooking the Thames, is the latest in a series of recent events where Badenoch has taken questions from every journalist present, in the manner of Nigel Farage when he hogged the headlines last summer.
Badenoch has not yet managed to generate as much attention, but the party’s aim is to get her as visible as possible and talking about the economy, which they see as potentially good ground for the party.
In terms of specific policies – aside from what Badenoch called “the shocking revelation” that the new PM put milk first in his tea – she ruled out the idea of the Tories supporting a plan to finance social care which involved using even a fraction of people’s estates.
She said: “My principle is that people who’ve worked hard and saved their money shouldn’t have to pay for social care, while those people who chose not to save then get it paid for by the state. That is unfair.”
Asked about a report that Grant Shapps, the former fixture in a series of Tory governments, had been blocked from seeking a new Tory seat, Badenoch refused to get into specific cases, but did not exactly dismiss the idea it had happened.
She said: “What I will say is that we’re going to be announcing candidates shortly, and you will see that this is a very different party from the one that was removed from government in 2024.. This is a new and different Conservative party.”
Asked if this apparent purge of more moderate voices – Badenoch has said Tories who support net zero targets and oppose the UK leaving the European convention on human rights are not welcome – might limit the party’s appeal, she argued not:
“I have been very clear that I am firmly on the right, but I’m not trying to appeal to people who are just on the right. But I want people to know what I am, and what I stand for. You may not agree with everything I say, but you know where I stand.”
Badenoch has said she is worried about a lack of co-operation with Israel amid a shift in stance on Gaza under Andy Burnham.
The Conservative party leader told a press conference: “I think that yet again this is a government and a prime minister and a defence secretary and even a foreign secretary that have the wrong priorities.”
Badenoch added: “This excessive focus on what’s going on in Israel and Palestine is because that’s what their backbenchers are concerned about.”
Andy Burnham’s new cabinet is “terrifying” for its lack of private sector experience, Kemi Badenoch has said.
The Tory leader told reporters: “They are all equally terrifying, and they are terrifying because I think apart from one or two people, everyone in Andy Burnham’s cabinet has come from a charity, third sector, trade union, or worked for a Labour MP background.
“These are not the people that are going to turn the country around. You need a much broader spectrum of people.”
Badenoch also said new energy secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh was “possibly worse” than her predecessor Ed Miliband, because “she wants net zero by 2030”.
She added: “These plans are not possible; they are just slogans.”
Badenoch called on prime minister Andy Burnham to get “serious” about cross-party work as she criticised his lack of response to her letter on the issue.
The Tory leader told reporters after a speech in central London:
We’re very willing to work cross-party to tackle the big issues, but they need to be serious about that.
What I’m not going to do is just write him a blank cheque to do whatever he wants. We need to agree on the things that need dealing with. We need to fund defence. We need to cut welfare. If Andy Burnham doesn’t want to do those things, then I don’t think he’s serious about working cross-party.
I’ve written him a letter offering to work cross-party. As I said in my speech, he hasn’t replied to the letter, although he has replied to the tweets and he’s done lots of memes and jokes. But I think it’s time for him to start getting serious.
Badenoch also said “I’m always ready for an election” and “we have a plan for both” a vote and for government.
Conservative deputy chairman and shadow crime and policing minister Matt Vickers has raised doubts on the financing of the 20% cut to business rates, deeming it “the third unfunded spending commitment in three days”.
Asked about the new policy, Vickers told GB News on Thursday morning:
This is the third unfunded spending commitment in three days.
He added:
When this government came to office, this Labour government, those businesses, all leisure, hospitality, and retail businesses, on the high streets, those small businesses, were getting a 75% reduction in their business rates.
They took away the 75% and now he’s telling them he’s giving them 20% back, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to pay for it.
It’s pitiful. We need to be realistic in how we support these businesses.
Temporary business rate discounts were in place for a few years from 2020/21, to help retail properties recover from the Covid pandemic.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
