Labour’s new deputy leader says party must pay more heed to its members

Labour’s new deputy leader, Lucy Powell, has said the government must listen to its members instead of being guided by a “narrow group of voices” as it battles to stave off electoral disaster in next May’s local elections.Powell defeated the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, in the deputy leadership contest, which concluded on Saturday. She said she had been given “a clear mandate that members want their voice to be heard at the top of the party”.The Manchester Central MP won 54% of the vote, polling 87,407 votes, while Phillipson received 73,536. Turnout was just 16

Labour’s new deputy leader Lucy Powell says she wants Starmer to succeed but party must change – as it happened

Lucy Powell was sacked from Keir Starmer’s cabinet in September and has indicated she will refuse a return to a government role so she can speak more openly about the direction of the party in office.She has insisted she wants to “help Keir and our government to succeed” but the party “must change how we are doing things to turn things around”.In a final message to supporters earlier this week she said Labour had to be “more in touch with our movement, and the communities and workplaces we represent, more principled and strategic, less tactical, and strongly guided by our values”.This live blog will be closing shortly. Thank you for reading the updates

‘History is repeating itself’: fight against far-right in London’s East End goes on

“The East End of London is the far right’s prime target – the essence of everything they don’t like. They feel if they can march through our borough with impunity, they can go anywhere. For them, it’s like Wembley (stadium), it’s the ultimate goal,” said Glyn Robbins, co-founder of United East End, an anti-far right coalition of community organisations.In the East End, the historically working-class neighbourhoods in the shadow of the City of London, there’s a feeling that history is repeating itself. It was 89 years ago this month that local people, many of them British Jews, drove out Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirt militia from Whitechapel in the East End, in what has become known as the Battle of Cable Street

Factionalism, farce and chaos dog Reform UK in the garden of England

When Reform UK swept to power in Kent at the local elections this year, Nigel Farage arrived in the county by helicopter for a victory party marked by champagne and fireworks.Just over 25 weeks on from what the Reform leader described as one of the most significant days of his career, the sparks flying are of a very different kind.Farage has returned to national campaigning and left the running of Kent county council and its £2.5bn annual budget to its newly installed leader, the combative former journalist and ex-Tory Linden Kemkaran.Last week the Guardian published a recording of an incendiary meeting in which she told dissenting colleagues they had to “fucking suck it up” if they didn’t like her decisions

Lucy Powell wins Labour deputy leadership election

Lucy Powell has won Labour’s deputy leadership election, beating her rival Bridget Phillipson, as she said the party would not win by trying to “out-Reform Reform”.Powell, who was the Commons leader until she was sacked in Keir Starmer’s reshuffle at the start of September, was seen as the favourite throughout the contest. She won 87,407 votes, 54% of those cast, while Phillipson received 73,536. Turnout of eligible voters was 16.6%

Rishi Sunak only politician sent witness statement in China spy case

Rishi Sunak was the only politician to be sent a witness statement by the deputy national security adviser at the centre of a controversy about the collapse of a case against two British men accused of spying for China.According to letters sent to the joint committee on the national security strategy, the statement from Matthew Collins in December 2023, which was sent to the then prime minister and his advisers, did not describe China as an enemy, another key element of the case.The letters also set out that by this point, the start of the prosecution process, police and prosecutors were told that Collins would not call China an enemy as this was not the policy of the then Conservative government.The case against the men, Christopher Cash and Christopher Berry, was dropped in September after prosecutors concluded that a conviction under the Official Secrets Act was not realistic without government evidence China posed a threat to the UK’s national security. Both Cash and Berry have consistently denied any wrongdoing