James Cleverly does not rule out taking donations from Frank Hester

The Conservative party leadership candidate James Cleverly has declined to rule out accepting future donations from Frank Hester, the businessman who said Diane Abbott made him “want to hate all black women”.A Guardian investigation revealed in March that Hester had told a meeting he did not hate all black women but seeing Abbott on TV meant “you just want to hate all black women because she’s there”. He also said the Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington “should be shot”.Cleverly was repeatedly asked on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg if his pledge to “run a different Tory party” and be a “different kind of leader” meant he would turn down further donations from the healthcare technology entrepreneur.He responded: “He’s apologised, he admitted that what he said was completely wrong

Local insight needed to tackle tax evasion | Brief letters

The billions lost to tax evasion by small retail businesses (Report, 9 September) could be addressed by reinstating the 100 or so local tax offices that were closed by the Conservatives. I remember, when I worked for HM Customs and Excise, visiting a retailer after a local paper had reported on an investigation into VAT evasion involving another retailer. He had on his desk a copy of the paper, and said to me on arrival: “I need to tell you something.”Ian ArnottPeterborough Aditya Chakrabortty refers to that rightwing set of Tories who “speak golf-club identity politics” (Opinion, 12 September). It’s a phrase I have often used too, adding “Surrey” as an adjective

Fewer than one in five UK voters are ‘hard nimbys’, finds survey

Fewer than one in five voters are “hard nimbys” who are opposed to local housebuilding under almost any circumstances, according to polling by YouGov that will give a boost to the government in its aim of building 1.5m homes this parliament.An MRP model based on a 12,000-person survey shows between 15% and 20% of British voters would almost never support housing developments near them, with the rest willing to do so if certain conditions are met.The findings bolster the government’s case for major planning reform, which the ministers argue is needed to override the objections of a vocal minority who have obstructed new housebuilding projects for years.Jack Shaw, a senior adviser at Labour Together, said: “Although the voices against housebuilding are vocal, our analysis is clear – only a small proportion of voters are wholly hostile to housebuilding

‘The moment has come’: pro-building Labour yimbys are set to raise the roof

On the Sunday night of Labour conference, one rally is expected to attract the biggest crowd of the season. Its theme is a subject that was once deemed one of the most difficult in politics – yimbyism.Yimby stands for “yes in my back yard” – a play on the traditional nimbys, who have been a dominant force in British politics where planning has been one of the thorniest battlefields. It is a campaign for more housebuilding, more turbines, more infrastructure, even on once-sacred spaces such as the green belt.For many of the most ambitious of the new cohort of Labour MPs, this is the fashionable campaign of the moment, not for economic growth but as a social justice movement – and one that many of the new millennials entering parliament hope to stake their careers on

David Lammy: PMs and partners rely on donors to help them ‘look their best’

The foreign secretary, David Lammy, has suggested it is routine for political donors to pay for outfits for prime ministers and their spouses, in a row over the late declaration of funds for a personal shopper and clothes for Keir Starmer’s wife, Victoria.The donations by the Labour donor Waheed Alli, which paid for clothing for Victoria Starmer, were not initially declared in the register of MPs’ interests, the Sunday Times reported. The gift was registered late, after Starmer approached the parliamentary authorities on Tuesday following advice.In an interview for the BBC, Lammy said donations were accepted so the Labour leader and his wife could “look their best”.Speaking on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Lammy noted the generous expense allowance available to US presidents

Financial leaders and party insiders warn Starmer: we need less gloom, more optimism

The government’s gloomy diagnosis of the state of Britain is imperilling the private investment needed to secure economic growth, City figures are warning, amid widespread calls for Keir Starmer to inject more optimism in his Labour conference speech later this month.The prime minister has spent his first months in power setting out the dire inheritance his party has been left by the outgoing Conservative government, most notably a £22bn black hole left in the public finances this year. The forthcoming spending review is set to uncover an even bigger shortfall over the next two years.The Observer understands that while Starmer will make no apologies for underlining the serious challenges the country faces, he will also use his first Labour conference address as prime minister to explain that painful decisions this autumn will be “for a purpose” – a decade-long drive to rebuild public services and public trust in politics.“The fiscal situation is tough, but the possibilities for the country are enormous,” said a senior Labour source