Is Reform UK a radical party or a home for ‘disgruntled former Conservatives’, asks James Cleverly

Reform UK might have to choose between presenting itself as a new and radical political party or as a home for “disgruntled former Conservatives” who lost their seats at the election, James Cleverly has said.Cleverly, the former home and foreign secretary, who stood to replace Rishi Sunak as Tory leader, also argued that Nigel Farage’s party could suffer if the councils it now runs struggle to properly manage key everyday services such as bin collections and social care.Speaking at an event in Westminster organised by the Institute for Public Policy Research thinktank, Cleverly discounted the idea that he hoped to replace Kemi Badenoch, saying his party had to “get out of this habit of cycling through leaders in the hope that ditching this one and picking a new one will make life easy for us”.Answering questions following a speech about how mainstream rightwing parties can take on the threat from populism, Cleverly noted the way that Reform had absorbed a series of former Tory MPs, most recently Jake Berry, the former party chair, who whose defection was announced last week.“If their sales pitch is, ‘We’re not like the old political parties,’ but they are mainly populated with people from my political party, it’s going to be really hard for them to reconcile that sales pitch,” he said

Tory benches almost deserted as Philp cops a lesson on small boats | John Crace

It was all a bit of a mystery. Just where were the Tories? Had they just got their dates confused? Thought that recess started this week rather than next? Or had they all bunked off to Lord’s to see England beat India in a tight finish? Or maybe some – caught up in the entente amicale aftermath of Emmanuel Macron’s state visit – had taken the Eurostar to Paris to enjoy steak frites on Bastille Day?You’d have thought the Conservative backbenchers would have wanted to be out in force to hear Yvette Cooper’s statement on the new arrangements for dealing with small boats. After all, this is the stuff that Kemi Badenoch and Chris Philp live and breathe. The reason they get up in the morning. To wage a two-person war on those making the Channel crossing

Resident doctors’ strikes would be gift to Nigel Farage, warns Wes Streeting

Wes Streeting has said resident doctors’ strikes would be “a gift to Nigel Farage” before a meeting with the British Medical Association this week where he will seek to avert industrial action.The health secretary told a meeting of Labour MPs on Monday that ministers were “in the fight for the survival of the NHS” and if Labour failed, Farage would argue for it to be replaced by an insurance-style system.Streeting will meet BMA officials later this week in an attempt to prevent five days of strikes by resident doctors in England, which are due to begin on 25 July.Speaking at a meeting of the parliamentary Labour party, he said: “The BMA’s threats are unnecessary, unreasonable, and unfair. More than that, these strikes would be a gift to Nigel Farage, just as we are beginning to cut waiting lists and get the NHS moving in the right direction

UK politics: Tories’ energy policy shows they are ‘anti-science, anti-jobs, anti-future’ Miliband tells MPs – as it happened

Andrew Bowie, a shadow energy minster, responded for the Conseratives – not Claire Coutinho, the shadow energy secretary.He said it was “ridiculous” for Miliband to suggest in his Guardian interview that opponents of net zero were unpatriotic. He went onWe need to bring back a sense of rationality, of proportion to this debate, because … language like this is alienating more and more people from the important cause of ensuring that the planet we pass on to our children.Bowie suggested Miliband was not telling the truth about the impact of net zero policies.Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker, intervened, to object, saying MPs should not accuse each other of being dishonest

Reform council leader urges Labour to reconsider curbs on care worker visas

The leader of a Reform-run county council has written to the government to express “grave concern” about a planned tightening of visas for health and care workers, despite the party’s wider commitment to significantly reducing net migration.Linden Kemkaran – the leader of Kent council, which is one of 10 authorities in England run by Nigel Farage’s party since May – said the changes, including an imminent end to the specific visa route for care workers, could have a significant impact on local care homes.Kemkaran and Diane Morton, the council’s cabinet member for social care, said the changes risked seeing an exodus of overseas care staff, as they highlighted the impact on the sector of a rise in employer national insurance contributions (NICs) in the budget.In a letter to Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, and Stephen Kinnock, the care minister, they said that about 20% to 25% of the county’s social care workforce was from overseas and able to work via licensed sponsorships from employers.This route expires on 22 July, part of a wider tightening of migration rules, including on health and care visas, announced by the government in May

Genocide prevention could become legal priority for UK government

Clearer legal obligations on the British government to prevent genocides, and to determine if one is occurring rather than leaving such judgments to international courts, are to be considered by a cross-party group of lawyers, politicians and academics under the chairmanship of Helena Kennedy.The new group, known as the standing group on atrocity crimes, says its genesis does not derive from a specific conflict such as Gaza or Xinjiang, but a wider concern that such crime is spreading as international law loses its purchase.The move will also be seen as part of a wider drive to push back against those trying to downgrade the status of international law in the UK, often using criticism of the attorney general, Richard Hermer, as a lever.The aim is also to encourage the government to make atrocity prevention a clearer priority for the Foreign Office. The Foreign Office has established an atrocity prevention unit but its profile and funding are small