Writing the summary…
‘Palestinians will bear the cost’: UK consulate in East Jerusalem prepares to shut its doors
Source: The Guardian
Original reporting
The Guardian: read the full reportRelated stories
BBC Politics
Greens investigate party member behind Zionism motion
It has emerged Lubna Speitan was listed in court documents as a "close friend" of a man later jailed for supporting al-Qaeda.
The Guardian
All hail the Kult of Kemi – captain, coach and owner of the Conservatives | John Crace
The Tory leader is now too big for the party to allow her to fail, so everything she does is acclaimed a work of genius Where’s AI slop when you need it? It could all have been so much simpler. Just ask ChatGPT to write me a leader’s speech in the style of Kemi Badenoch. Make it an hour and 10 minutes long, so plenty of room for padding. Go heavy on the slogans, cliches and the obligatory crap politician jokes. Ones we’ve all heard many times before. Not least at this conference. Make the usual digs at Labour and put the boot in to Reform. The main aim of the speech is to try to reposition a party that is tanking in third place on 20% in the polls as the main opposition to the government. And just to give everyone a reason to go home with a feeling of mild optimism, chuck in a retail offer at the end. An uncosted tax cut for people who are rich but don’t feel quite rich enough. The new m
The Guardian
Badenoch made the best of it – but the Tories still have a mountain to climb before any hope of No 10 | Henry Hill
Conference announcements on inheritance tax and childcare boosted the party’s mood, but the task is still holding off Reform, rather than any realistic bid for power On paper, the traditional role of the journalist at a British party conference boils down to some simple questions: what was the mood of the assembled activists? Did the leader give a good speech? In practice, the changing nature of conferences and the media makes this superficially simple task more complicated than it may initially appear. Any journalist covering the leader’s speech, for instance, will have watched it in full. But it will reach the vast majority of its intended audience in fragmentary form, through clips – and speeches are increasingly written with that reality in mind. The conference hall is not really the audience, or the full speech really the product. This adds a layer of complexity to the reviewer’s ta
The Guardian
‘All me’: Tory party riding high on Kemi Badenoch’s wave of popularity
At Conservative conference, some worry about becoming a one-woman party, while others say party should thank their lucky stars they have her UK politics live – latest updates Kemi Badenoch has long said that the Conservatives were “under new management”, but in a TV interview to mark the end of a party conference at which she has been front and centre of more or less everything, she took the analogy further. “Your viewers will know that sometimes you have a football team that’s disappointing,” the Tory leader told GB News. “There’s a new captain, there’s a new coach, there’s a new owner, effectively – which is all me.” Continue reading...
The Guardian
George Galloway contests London byelection without setting foot in UK
Veteran leftwinger has been ‘in exile in the east’ in Russia and not been to Holborn and St Pancras constituency since campaign began George Galloway has been elected seven times to parliament, but his attempt to succeed for an eighth this week, in the London seat formerly held by Keir Starmer, is undoubtedly his most curious effort yet. Since the byelection campaign began, the leader of the Workers party of Britain has yet to set foot in the UK, let alone the Holborn and St Pancras constituency, because he is in what he describes as “self-exile” after being questioned by counter-terrorism police at Gatwick airport a year ago. Continue reading...
The Guardian
Couples would be able to leave £1m and family home exempt from inheritance tax under Tories, says Badenoch – as it happened
Conservative leader says proposed measures would halve the number of families paying inheritance tax Chris Philp , the shadow home secretary, is speaking now at the conference. He described Nick Timothy as the “Bob the Builder” of the next parliament on the basis of the Tory pledge to build 50,000 prison places. “Can he fix it? Yes he can,” Philp said. He went on: I know we didn’t get everything right in government, but we now have a plan to make things better, whereas Labour is making them worse. Dangerous men released early from jail. Police numbers down by 2,000. Stop and search opposed. 92% of crime unsolved. Illegal immigrants and foreign criminals not deported. So many parts of government are corrupted by radical identity politics and a deference to clan culture. We can no longer trust our institutions to work for us all, to uphold the principle that justice is blind, that we’re al