Defence secretary announces scrapping of £500m of vessels and drones to cut costs

The defence secretary, John Healey, has announced he will scrap British navy vessels and army drones as part of £500m in cost-saving measures in what was described as a “black day” for the new government.Two former Royal Navy flagships, a frigate and two support tankers will be decommissioned, with the savings reinvested into the defence budget. Healey blamed the move on a “dire inheritance” left by the previous Tory administration.The announcement was described by the shadow defence secretary, James Cartlidge, as “cuts instead of a pathway to 2.5%” and “a black day for the Royal Marines”

Kemi’s Tories Haven’t Got Talent show fields A N Other at PMQs

Alas, poor Olive! I knew him, Horatio. This should have been Oliver Dowden’s day, his chance to shine. The half-hour when he stepped out of the shadows into glorious sunlight. When the Tory party put aside its differences with one another and cheered him unconditionally. Laughed at his jokes

Nigel Farage excluded from farmer rally speakers amid fears over Brexit role

Nigel Farage was left out of the line-up of political leaders who spoke at the farmers’ protest outside Downing Street, amid concerns over his divisive role in Brexit and fears he would overshadow the event.Representatives of all parties were originally invited to speak, according to organisers of a protest at which tens of thousands of farmers listened to Kemi Badenoch, Ed Davey and other speakers, including the journalist Jeremy Clarkson.However, the Guardian understands that while the Reform UK leader was initially considered, organisers omitted him from the line-up because they did not want the protest to become the “Nigel Farage show”.Farmers wanted the event to be as unpolitical as possible because they wanted to give the Labour government a chance to change its mind on the highly unpopular changes to inheritance tax that mean farmers with assets over £1m will be subject to a 20% levy.They were also concerned Farage’s presence would be divisive, after Brexit resulted in trade deals with Australia and New Zealand that undercut farmers, and cuts to subsidies

Tories say Labour is weakening national security with plan to decommission drones, warships and helicopters – as it happened

James Cartlidge, the shadow defence secretary, accused the government of undermining national security with the defence cuts announced today. (See 3.10pm.)Responding to John Healey in the Commons, Cartlidge said:Whatever the chancellor’s true grasp of economics, she’s certainly been able to force her priorities onto the country, getting the MoD to scrap major capabilities before they’ve undertaken the department’s much vaunted strategic defence review.They’ve killed off North Sea oil, undermining our energy security; this week they are killing off the family farm and threatening our food security

Rural MPs urge government to reassure farmers over inheritance tax

Rural Labour MPs have called on the government to reassure worried farmers, in an attempt to quell the escalating row over inheritance tax on agricultural property.Thousands of farmers and landowners travelled to Whitehall on Tuesday to protest against the plans, which they say will force family farms to sell up in order to pay the new 20% rate on assets above a £1m threshold.At the rally, they booed the Labour party and said they had been betrayed and lied to. The environment secretary, Steve Reed, had promised farmers that he would not be implementing changes to agricultural property relief, and during the general election said reports that he was going to were “desperate nonsense”.Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, announced the changes to inheritance tax at the budget, saying they were a way to target rich people who put their wealth in land as a way of avoiding inheritance tax

Why disunity on the left spells trouble for Labour | Letters

Andy Beckett correctly concludes that there is political space to the left of the Labour party (Meet the groups trying to create a new leftwing party – and channel the energy missing from Starmer’s Labour, 15 November). The question is whether there is electoral space. He notes the succession of new leftwing parties over the past 30 years, a few of which had some short-lived success, though the history of splits on the left goes back more than a century.Nor is disillusion with Labour in power a recent phenomenon. The Guardian’s own Richard Gott stood for the Radical Alliance in the 1966 North Hull byelection