Presented by Lloyds Banking Group

By ANDREW MCDONALD

with MARTIN ALFONSIN LARSEN

Good Thursday morning. This is Andrew McDonald.

DRIVING THE DAY

**COP IN, THEN COP OUT: **Keir Starmer has escaped the Westminster circus for a very brief stint at COP30 in Brazil, where he’ll be showing his green side to world leaders. The British public won’t see much of it, as he’s got no press pack in tow. But at least he’ll get to avoid — well, mostly — having a foreign trip derailed by questions back home, where the row about whether his deputy messed up over another accidental prisoner release is in full swing.

**Spinning around: **Fresh from hanging out at the Earthshot Prize do last night — where, according to one witness, our PM was “clapping along as Kylie Minogue gyrated with six buff Brazilian dancers to a megamix of her greatest hits” — the PM will travel to Belém with the prince of Wales for the big day. Starmer will do all the usual bilats with world leaders and business titans to talk climate and clean energy (No. 10’s big retail offer from Starmer’s flying visit) before delivering a “national statement” on the importance of saving our grandkids from climate change. Expect that in the mid-afternoon, and for streams to pop up.

**Best of luck with that: **The PM’s one bit of media action is a pool clip in the early evening, which No. 10 hopes will be all about his clean energy announcement. And not, say, freed prisoners roaming around the U.K. and whether his deputy PM misled parliament (more on all that below).

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**Jobs at home, good: **Starmer’s policy offering is domestic, despite the tropical backdrop, in a bid to sell the visit to the British public. He’s announcing clean energy deals in Greater Manchester, Belfast and Norfolk’s Great Yarmouth; PA write-up here.

**Trees abroad, bad: **But what he’s lacking — as Playbook reported Wednesday and my colleague Charlie Cooper has been hearing for weeks — is any U.K. government cash for the major new tropical forest fund that host Brazil wants to make the centerpiece of the summit. The government confirmed Wednesday it would not be providing taxpayer money to the snappily named Tropical Forest Forever Facility, after the Treasury won a Whitehall battle over direct U.K. contributions.

**Which prompted … **a snippy overnight statement from the World Wildlife Fund, which called on Starmer to reconsider and pointed out that much less wealthy countries have managed to find the cash from somewhere. Being lambasted by the WWF on the eve of showing up to COP30 for a brief visit might not be the best look for a PM trying to prove his green credentials to world leaders. The Guardian hears the Brazilians are fuming too, and Tory peer Zac Goldsmith is piling in on the PM in comments to the paper.

**Missions are critical: **It all rather captures the Starmer approach to climate action, as my green-fingered POLITICO Pro colleague Charlie writes in a great walk-up piece out this morning. If it suits the domestic economic and political agenda of growth and bearing down on the cost of living, great. If not, then there is no guarantee of No. 10 and Treasury support.

Go hard or go home: As Politics at Sam and Anne’s pointed out on Wednesday, the government’s whole vibe around this summit feels a bit reluctant. It was assumed Starmer might not go at all, until he decided to make the trip two to three weeks ago (spurred on by the rise of the Green Party, perhaps). And yet the bare minimum media presence means it will get little coverage and feel low-key back in Blighty. No. 10 insists this is all normal, yet it remains unusual for prime ministers not to take a traveling pack with them to a major international summit.

Unless … COP doesn’t count as a major summit these days?

**And here’s the point: **As Reuters points out, the leaders of four of the world’s five most-polluting economies — China, the U.S., India and Russia — haven’t bothered turning up. The Donald Trump angle is neatly summed up in Tim Shipman’s great Spectator long read this morning, which hears from a U.S. official that an angry president “tore [Starmer] a new one” (!) on his failure to better exploit North Sea gas in one of their private meetings at Chequers. But back to events back home …

**BAD COP: **David Lammy is under a heap of pressure — both over the release of a second migrant sex offender by accident, and over his handling of PMQs Wednesday as the scandal prepared to explode. The story splashes most of the papers.

**Sh*ttest job of the day: **The morning shows are even more of a must-watch (and listen) as you groggily get ready for the day. The government has hastily arranged a broadcast round for Lammy’s deputy in the MoJ, Alex Davies-Jones, who gets the really fun junior ministerial task of having to explain to hardened broadcast journalists how her boss didn’t f*ck up. Lammy’s shadow Robert Jenrick is also cracking his knuckles in preparation. Times at the bottom of this email as always.

**Of course … **as my colleague Emilio Casalicchio explained in Playbook PM, the Tories’ record on accidentally releasing prisoners ain’t the best either.

**Last night: **Lammy’s team put out a brisk late-night statement insisting that “facts were still emerging” about the released prisoner when Lammy entered the House of Commons and promptly pretended not to know anything about something he knew about. The statement confirms that the government seems to be taking a three-pronged approach to defending Lammy on this.

**The first: **Blame the system, and the Tories for not fixing it. The MoJ spox said the “crisis in the prison system this government inherited is such that basic information about individual cases can take unacceptably long to reach Ministers.”

**The second: **Blame Tory stand-in James Cartlidge for duffing up his question by asking about a released asylum-seeker (the individual is not an asylum-seeker). The statement points out that Lammy was asked questions only about the release of an asylum-seeker.

And the third … is to hide behind the fact the case was subject to a live police investigation. There’s a problem brewing there though, as someone at Scotland Yard has briefed the Mail and the Times to suggest they’re unhappy at being used as political cover and would have had no issue with Lammy confirming the release.

**One question … **is why Lammy never returned to the Commons to give a statement once he had learned those all important details. The Times’ Geri Scott, Steven Swinford and Max Kendix hear that Speaker Lindsay Hoyle was angling for an MoJ minister to come do exactly that — but that Labour aides advised it would be “career suicide” for either Lammy or another minister to return and do so. Listen for how strongly Davies-Jones denies that one this morning.

**A final question to ponder: **What happened to the “strongest release checks to ever be in place,” which Lammy promised in the wake of last month’s MoJ disaster?

****COP30 is back on the political agenda. **For a limited time, access POLITICO Pro Morning Energy & Climate for free and receive exclusive insight into the negotiations.Sign up now.**

ON THE ECONOMY

**BOE-RING: **We’re getting the last pre-budget interest rates decision from the Bank of England’s policy board at **noon **… and those who follow this kind of thing closely are expecting the bank to hold rates at 4 percent, despite a small interest rate cut every three months since August last year.

**Which, if so, isn’t really a surprise … **since the bank might be keen to wait for the outcome of the budget later this month before continuing its rate-cutting cycle. The Treasury will respond via a spokesperson following the decision.

**So in the meantime: **We can all get on with our favorite pre-budget hobby: speculation.

**Over the top: **Telegraph pol ed Ben Riley-Smith has seen enough and goes hard in calling one new measure to come from Reeves: a new pay-per-mile tax for electric vehicle drivers. The paper’s splash reckons EV drivers will be hit by a 3p per mile tax on top of the other road taxes — the thinking being that it can be framed as a fair move since EV drivers currently benefit from not having to pay fuel duty. The Sun’s Ryan Sabey heard similar whispers last month.

**And remember: **The Telegraph hears the move will raise the Treasury an estimated £1.8 billion by 2031 — helpful, but not exactly going to fill the £20-30 billion black hole many think Reeves is looking to plug. It seems to be aimed more at covering the fall in income from fuel duty to the Exchequer caused by the EV boom.

**Funnily enough: **The Times points out that a per-mile tax on electric vehicles based on weight was once suggested by the Resolution Foundation in 2023. The think tank was run at the time by one Torsten Bell.

**Bank backing: **One option that appears to have been closed off by Reeves’ allies is a raid on the banks — with the FT carrying sourcing from three different people close to the process making it clear the Treasury isn’t minded to raise taxes on banks. Thursday night drinks in the City will hit even harder than usual tonight.

Mel’s been watching the Zeitgeist Tape: But since we’re otherwise waiting for the detail of how exactly Reeves will raise taxes in three weeks … we can get used to much more of this kind of thing from her opposite number Mel Stride, who has a “Traitors” inspired video about Reeves’ since it’s the finale of that show tonight.

**And this too: **The Tony Blair Institute’s latest helpful intervention is an overnight warning to Reeves that she should make sure any tax rises are “temporary and conditional” and that voters are rewarded with tax cuts before the next election … and the Confederation of British Industry has (obvs) insisted Reeves raise taxes on workers rather than businesses. Both get a write-up in the Sun.

ALSO MAKING ECONOMIC MOVES … Reform’s Richard Tice, who used his Bloomberg speech Wednesday night to seemingly signal that he’d scrap cash ISAs.

**Well, sorta: **Tice’s speech was more of a vibe fest in which he floated ideas, rather than solid announcements, to an audience of hacks and City types. Asked by POLITICO if he wants to go further than Labour on trimming the tax-free limit on cash ISAs, he answered with a question of his own: “The bigger question is … why would you give tax relief to leave the money sitting in cash?” The four working groups he’s setting up to do economic thinking, as trailed in Wednesday’s Playbook, might help him get to the answer.

**More vibes: **Labour spinners jumped on a line from Tice on the possibility of moving toward a “flatter” tax system, claiming it shows Reform wants massive tax cuts for high earners. But Tice only mentioned it was worth looking at it during a lengthy spiel on tax codes. It’s hard to do thorough scrutiny of vague possibilities pulled out of thin air.

**Well, at least that’s clear: **Speaking at the event, Reform’s Treasurer Nick Candy picked a side in the party’s Tice versus Zia Yusuf scuffle for who gets to be chancellor in any future government. Candy told the business chiefs in his closing remarks: “A lot of chancellors and chancellors-in-waiting have sat in the hot seat at Bloomberg. I wonder whether you might have just seen another one.” Your move, Zia.

TODAY IN WESTMINSTER

**PARLIAMENT: **In a short (but sweet) November recess.

**STRIKE! **The BMA has rejected a fresh offer from the government on its dispute over resident doctors, meaning a five-day strike in a fortnight will go ahead. In a sign of Wes Streeting and his team’s escalating anger at the union, DHSC last night put out a “line-by-line rebuttal” of the BMA’s letter to the health secretary. More from the Beeb here.

**WATCH THE HIGHLANDS: **It ain’t in Westminster but … an emergency council meeting in Inverness has the potential to produce uncomfortable headlines for politicians down here. A special meeting of the Highland Council is being held at **2 p.m. **to discuss Home Office plans to use the Cameron Barracks on the outskirts of Inverness as temporary accommodation for asylum-seekers, a move enraging local politicians and even angering the generally pro-refugee SNP. The meeting will be streamed here.

**The anger stems around … **the fact the plans would see around 300 asylum-seekers moving into army barracks which are at the same time set to be vacated by soldiers (who are being deployed). One person with knowledge of the situation said the soldiers’ families, who will remain at the barracks, are “not very happy” about sharing the space with incoming asylum-seekers.

**Worth remembering: **Local authorities in England have taken the Home Office to court over the housing of migrants in their areas. Another lengthy court case — and under the mysterious shroud of Scots law — would not be welcomed by Whitehall.

**Also seems non-ideal: **The Telegraph’s Charles Hymas hears from a Home Office whistleblower who claims the department can still approve claims from asylum-seekers charged with crimes, as long as their offense does not merit a prison sentence of 12 months or more.

**COMING ATTRACTION: **Former BBC official Michael Prescott, author of the dossier on the Beeb which has been splashing the Telegraph all week, will give evidence to the DCMS committee next Wednesday.

**The latest from the dossier … **is on concerns about how the BBC reports stories related to trans people, with the report featuring worries about the influence of an “LGBT desk” on the BBC’s news team. Read Gordon Rayner’s write-up here.

**THE RUNNERS AND RIDERS … **to become the U.K.’s ambassador to the U.S. after Peter Mandelson was sacked from the position include former FCDO Political Director Christian Turner … former Permanent Representative to the WTO Simon Manley … and the PM’s business and investment adviser Varun Chandra, according to Tim Shipman’s Speccie cover story — which is merely the latest round of lobby rune-reading. Interviews are due to take place next week before Starmer makes the final decision.

But who’s the favorite? Shippers reckon Chandra is the frontrunner because of his strong relationships with key Trump administration personnel. But this is once again coming down to a choice between a political appointee and a career bureaucrat … which went so well last time.

NO TIME TO DIE: The special Lords committee on assisted death is racing to prepare a brief of the evidence it heard over the past three weeks for publication on Friday. The peers wrapped up their intensive sessions on the bill last night after an appearance by Care Minister Stephen Kinnock, who revealed the government will set out proposals to improve palliative care “in a matter of weeks.” Kinnock said the bill had been a “catalyst” to push end-of-life care up the political agenda.

But but but: Kinnock also highlighted some of the open questions about the assisted death plan. He accepted there will “need to be some reprioritization” of NHS funds to pay for the new regime — but the government remains unable to set out where the money might come from. He also admitted it was “impossible” to say how much profit private clinics might be able to make from providing the service. The Lords will hold their full committee stage debate on the bill on Nov. 14.

**STATS DROP: **The Home Office will release figures on the number of people referred to the Prevent program in the year from April 2024 to March 2025 at **9.30 a.m. **here.

**TRUST IN TRUMP: **Defence Secretary John Healey has insisted Donald Trump is capable of persuading Vladimir Putin to enter peace talks on Ukraine even though negotiations continue to stall. “President Trump is the figure that can bring Putin to the table, that can potentially deliver an end to the fighting,” he said, speaking to POLITICO’s Esther Webber on a flight from Norway to Paris to meet the new French defense minister. He stressed that the work of the coalition of the willing was being “regularly refreshed” and its HQ is now up and running in Paris, including senior British military personnel.

**WE DON’T NEED NO EDUCATION: **The Institute for Government has a report out about schools which finds that 23,000 primary school classrooms are empty across England, the highest number since records began. London’s classrooms are emptying nearly twice as fast as those in other regions. It gets a write-up in the FT.

VERY INTELLIGENT AI LATEST: SNP Deputy Westminster Leader Pete Wishart has said he will seek legal advice after Elon Musk’s Grok falsely labeled him a “rape enabler” on X. The AI chatbot apologized on the standalone Grok app, saying the remark was “wrong, inflammatory and untrue” and “crossed into unacceptable personal defamation” … but then repeated the allegation on X. Wishart said he was “shocked to be described in such an appalling and defamatory way” and warned it raises a worrying precedent about AI. The National has more details.

BEYOND THE M25

PLACE IN HISTORY SECURED: Scottish First Minister John Swinney told U.S. President Donald Trump in September that he “might as well go big” when shown models for the president’s plans to renovate the White House’s East Wing, which he later controversially had demolished, according to Tim Shipman.

SURPRISE! An unannounced visit to Ukraine by movie star and humanitarian Angelina Jolie drew scrutiny of her companions, with multiple sources claiming a member of her entourage was unexpectedly drafted into the Ukrainian military. My colleague Veronika Melkozerova has the story.

GAZA NEWS: POLITICO’s Jamie Dettmer has an interview with the former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, Ami Ayalon, who tells him that the U.S.-led Gaza peace plan has “more holes than Swiss cheese” … represents only the “first step in a journey of a thousand miles” … and must guarantee a two-state solution to be successful. Read the interview here.

GROUNDED: U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said he would order 10 percent of flights at 40 national airports to be cut from Friday as the government shutdown dragged onto its 36th day, the longest in history, Reuters reports. Air traffic controllers and transportation security agents have so far been forced to work through the shutdown without pay.

APOCALYPSE … SOON? Russian President Vladimir Putin has told members of his security council to draw up preparations for nuclear weapons tests in response to Donald Trump’s order that the U.S. begin testing nuclear weapons on an “equal basis” with Russia and China. The FT has the story.

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MEDIA ROUND

Victims Minister Alex Davies-Jones broadcast round:** **Times Radio (7.05 a.m.) … Sky (7.15 a.m.) … BBC Breakfast (7.30 a.m.) … LBC (7.50 a.m.) … Today (8.10 a.m.) … GMB (8.30 a.m.) … GB News (9.05 a.m.).

Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick broadcast round: GMB (6.45 a.m.) … Today (7.09 a.m.) … Talk (7.30 a.m.) … Times Radio (7.45 a.m.) … GB News (8 a.m.) … BBC Breakfast (8.30 a.m.) … LBC (8.45 a.m.) … Sky (9.15 a.m.).

**Also on Nick Ferrari at Breakfast: **Former Justice Secretary **Alex Chalk **(7.10 a.m.).

**Also on Good Morning Britain: **Prison Officers’ Association National Chair **Mark Fairhurst **and former Wandsworth inmate **Chris Atkins **(8.15 a.m.) … former Chancellor **Kwasi Kwarteng **and former Shadow Paymaster General **Jon Ashworth **(8.45 a.m.).

Also on Times Radio Breakfast:** **Former HMP Wandsworth Head of Security Ian Acheson (8.05 a.m.) … Labour peer **Ayesha Hazarika **and comedian Geoff Norcott (9 a.m.) … economist Arthur Laffer (9.35 a.m.).

**Also on Sky News Breakfast: Chris Atkins **(7.30 a.m.) … Mumsnet CEO Justine Roberts (7.45 a.m.) … former U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Christiana Figueres (8.15 a.m.) … Spectator Editor Michael Gove (8.30 a.m.).

**Politics Live **(BBC Two 12.15 p.m.): Shadow Transport Secretary Richard Holden … Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh … Night Time Industries’ Association boss Sacha Lord.

Matt Chorley’s 5Live show: Labour Deputy Leader Lucy Powell (2.10 p.m.).

TODAY’S FRONT PAGES

POLITICO UK**:**** **Keir Starmer, climate leader (when the Treasury lets him).

Daily Express**: **‘Shocking’ release of Algerian sex attack convict.

Daily Mail**: **Police warn of a Labour soft justice crimewave.

Daily Mirror**: **Not again …

Daily Star**: **Call of Duty.

Financial Times**: **China will win AI race with America, says Nvidia’s chief.

Metro**: **Lammy grilled over latest jail bungle.

The Daily Telegraph**: **Pay per mile tax to hit drivers in Budget.

The Guardian**: **Lammy under pressure after two more prisoners mistakenly freed.

The Independent**:**** **Two more prisoners on run after release from jail by mistake.

The i Paper**: **Manhunt for new missing prisoners as Deputy PM feels heat over blunders.

The Sun**: **I’m Meghan a movie.

The Times**: **Lammy snared by latest migrant release blunder.

TODAY’S NEWS MAGS

The New Statesman: Exposed: Britain’s next maternity scandal.

The Spectator**: **Gilded age.

LONDON CALLING

****WESTMINSTER WEATHER: ****High 17C, low 14C. Cloudy most of the day with some sun in the late morning.

SPOTTED … schmoozing at a drinks reception at Bloomberg HQ before the speech by Reform’s Deputy Leader Richard Tice: Reform Treasurer Nick Candy … Centre for a Better Britain’s Jonathan Brown … Reform MPs Lee Anderson, Danny Kruger and Sarah Pochin … former No. 10 SpAd Andrew Gilligan … the Telegraph’s Liam Halligan … Bloomberg’s Constantin Cotzias … Pimlico Plumbers founder Charlie Mullins … senior figures from Deutsche Bank, Octopus Energy, Daiichi Sankyo, Bain, Goldman Sachs … and representatives from the Chilean and German embassies.

**A totally representative sample: **In a closing speech at the end, Candy — who had breakfast with Farage that morning — asked how many people in the room would hire Chancellor Rachel Reeves as their finance director, to which not one person raised their hands. He also said Labour has “lost its way” since former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s premiership, and that the Tories “failed in government” across 14 years.

**Also spotted … **a senior Lobby journalist engaged in an argument with another cyclist as they pedaled away from parliament, which ended in said journalist accusing their rival of “riding like a wanker.”

PEDDLING POLITICS: The Royal British Legion set up exercise bikes in Portcullis House Wednesday and challenged MPs to clock up the furthest distance they could in five minutes. The top performer was Conservative MP Ben Spencer, who managed 4.73 kilometers. Lib Dem Helen Maguire was second with 4.47 kilometers. Bottom of the list were Foreign Office Minister Catherine West (2.16 kilometers) and Roads Minister Lilian Greenwood (2.21 kilometers). Speaker Lindsay Hoyle made it 2.8 kilometers.

CONDOLENCES … to the Telegraph’s Liam Halligan, whose father Martin has died.

NEW GIG: Former UK Finance Head of Public Affairs Jonathan Lima-Matthews is joining JPMorgan Chase as a vice president in its EMEA government relations team.

JOB AD:** **The Spectator is after a new political correspondent to replace the outgoing Lucy Dunn.

WRITING PLAYBOOK PM: Emilio Casalicchio.

**WRITING PLAYBOOK FRIDAY MORNING: **Andrew McDonald.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO:** **Shadow Policy Renewal and Development Minister **Neil O’Brien … Bolton West MP Phil Brickell **… former Irish Ambassador to the U.K. **Adrian O’Neill … newspaper executive David Montgomery **… PA Chief Political Photographer Stefan Rousseau … and POLITICO trade reporter Caroline Hug. ****

PLAYBOOK COULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT: My editors Zoya Sheftalovich, **Alex Spence **and Dan Bloom, researcher Martin Alfonsin Larsen and producer Dean Southwell.

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