Starmer says he wants to ensure disruption during transition to Burnham government ‘absolutely minimised’ – UK politics live

Keir Starmer has recorded a pooled TV interview at an event in Milton Keynes this morning. where he was promoting the government’s Great British Summer Savings Scheme.

Asked if he would serve in an Andy Burnham government, he replied:

double quotation mark Let me make my position absolutely clear.

I am stepping down after two years, leaving the country in a better position than when I found it.

I will do that with good grace, and I will do that making sure that there is an orderly transition.

I’m going to be professional. I’m going to have foremost in my mind the sense of service. duty that has driven me as prime minister.

I will continue to faithfully serve my country to make sure that any disruption is absolutely minimised. And that’s why I’m taking steps now to ensure that that can be done in a sensible way.

Starmer also said he wanted to make sure “that whatever comes next is a success”. He went on:

double quotation mark I love this country, I want this country to thrive,. I shall do everything I can to make sure it’s a success and thrives. The first bit of that is making sure that there’s an orderly transition. we go on and build on the good stuff we’ve done in the first two years of this government.

Here are some more pictures from the event in Milton Keynes this morning where Keir Starmer was meeting pupils as he promoted the government’s Great British Summer Savings Scheme.

Speaking at the BCC conference today. Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, was asked if he would consider a coalition with a Labour party led by Andy Burnham. He declined to engage with the question, replying:

double quotation mark I’m very confident about when my party is going to be. It will be, I think, [Kemi] Badenoch who will be worried about questions about coalition.

Tim Shipman features what might be one of the most provocative –. original - claims about an Andy Burnham premiership in his cover story for this week’s Spectator. He says:

double quotation mark If there is pressure to have a woman at the Treasury. that opens the door for [Shabana] Mahmood, who though content to stay at the Home Office would surely not resist the promotion, or Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, who is a trained economist.

Either way, there is a strong sense that a Burnham-led government will be female-dominated. One senior figure in the party even describes Burnham as ‘Labour’s first woman prime minister’. This is not a revelation about his policy on self-ID for trans people, but reflects his interests. ‘The reason Labour have always craved, but also been cautious about, a female leader is because, in a Labour government, she could have an unashamedly female agenda, focused on health, education, family finances. issues like safer streets, social care, online safety for kids, that are disproportionately important to women. [This would be] unlike the Tories’ female leaders, who are under internal pressure –. the weight of history – to show how tough they are on traditionally male issues. Along comes Andy, surrounded by female advisers. backers, but more importantly, genuinely passionate about all those traditionally female-oriented issues, and much less so with the bombs and budgets. So could we finally see what Labour has failed to deliver all these years – a female PM in all. sex?’

According to Kevin Schofield from HuffPost UK, the Burnham team consider this theory “daft”.

In his article. Shipman also says Olly Robbins, who was sacked as permanent secretary at the Foreign Office by Keir Starmer because he had not told Starmer about concerns raised during Peter Mandelson’s vetting process, may be offered a job by the Burnham team. Shipman says:

double quotation mark Allies of Burnham, who regard him as ‘an outstanding operator’, have reached out. he is likely to take a senior job. ‘Olly is incredibly well thought of by both Andy and the people around and influencing Andy’s thinking,’ a source says.

While Robbins probably won’t return to his old post, his background is security. he would be a natural successor to Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s National Security Adviser, who is expected to move on. ‘That looks tailor-made for Olly,’ a senior Whitehall source familiar with the conversations reveals.

Keir Starmer has issued a statement today claiming. he has left the UK in “a better state” in relation to immigration.

double quotation mark In the first two years of this government, we have made really important progress on immigration.

One of the tests of an outgoing prime minister is whether you leave the country in a better state than what you found it,. I am leaving it in a better state.

Migration has long been a cause for concern.

On lawful migration. which when we came in two years ago, net migration was nearly a million, we got that down to about a fifth of that number, so a huge reduction, over 80% reduction.

On the crossings across the channel. which so many people are understandably concerned about, we brought those numbers down as well. The steps we are taking are beginning to pay off, and at the same time, asylum hotels are closing.

Now those are linked. Fewer crossings mean there are less people that need to be housed. Now there is more to do, but in a much better place than we were two years ago.

The ambition is to close those asylum hotels, reduce those channel crossings. Nobody should be making that crossing. And having got it more under control it’s about keeping it under control. not letting it spiral like the last government.

The Tories have argued. the huge fall in the rate of legal migration seen in the recent figures is primarily a result of much tighter visa rules introduced when James Cleverly was home secretary.

As Richard Adams reports. a quarter of UK graduates can expect to be financially worse off after going to university, especially those who take creative or performing arts degrees, according to research carried out by the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The research was funded by the Department for Education,. Jacqui Smith, the skills minister, is urging pupils to consider it before they choose a degree course. In a news release, she says:

double quotation mark Going to university. getting a degree is one of the most transformational things a young person can do. But it is not a universal guarantee of success and not all degrees are equal.

As well as the variation by subject, too many franchised. poor-quality courses do not offer a good deal to young people – selling the dream then leaving students in the lurch.

We’re making the system work better but my message to those thinking about university: choose carefully. Don’t walk into a degree by default.

The IFS report is here. And here is chart showing what earnings have been. by subject, for people who were at university around 20 years ago.

The UK government will halve the amount of tariff-free steel imports allowed in an attempt to counter a global oversupply of cheap Chinese metal. bolster its beleaguered local industry, Lisa O’Carroll and Jasper Jolly report.

Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.

A senior official in the Trump administration has likened the UK to a totalitarian dystopia. telling a rightwing conference in London that British police were “in league with rape gangs”. Sarah B Rogers, who has become the public face of the Trump administration’s growing hostility to European liberal democracies, went on to draw on a far-right memes. conspiracy theories while singling out cases such as the death of Henry Nowak and an incident in which a child was recently badly injured after being thrown into a zoo’s crocodile pit. Rogers, who has publicly attacking policies on hate speech. immigration by ostensible US allies and promoted far-right parties abroad, centred her speech around the notion of “Da Yookay” - originally a viral meme heavily associated with the online far fight. “In ‘Da Yookay’ you can be remanded without bail for an inflammatory tweet, while a psychopath who seizes a three-year-old. feeds him to crocodiles walks free,” Rogers told the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship (ARC) which was addressed this week by Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch.

double quotation mark In ‘Da Yookay’ the moral sense of jurors won’t save you. because jury trials for speech crimes are abolished. In ‘Da Yookay’ a girl can escape from a rape gang, flag down a police constable,. discover the cop is in league with the rapists. In ‘Da Yookay’ you get a free car for pretending to be disabled. In ‘Da Yookay’ cops defer to a murderer who calls his victim racist. Then they handcuff you as you bleed to death if you’re white.

Rogers repeatedly quoted George Orwell, claiming that the censorship envisaged by him is “easily imaginable” in the Britain of today.

In his pooled TV clip Keir Starmer also said that officials have been meeting in the government’s Cobra emergency committee to discuss how schools. other public services deal with the heat wave.

Asked specifically about schools, he said:

double quotation mark It is very hot. obviously schools will have to take the appropriate measures and each school will gauge for itself what the measures are.

But it is important that we as a government coordinate this across the country. with all of the countries within the United Kingdom, which is what we’re doing.

We’re having Cobra meetings at the official level to monitor what’s going on, give the appropriate advice.

But obviously it falls to me and others to say take care, be sensible with precautions.

And schools are going to have to decide, and they are deciding. most of them finishing a little bit early, or many of them. But they will gauge that according to their local conditions.

Cobra is the government’s emergency committee. Cobra meetings led by officials are not as serious as those led by ministers.