Farage urged to ‘come clean’ over alleged election spending breaches in Clacton

The Reform UK leader, Nigel Farage, has been urged to “come clean” over his election campaign in Clacton after a former aide claimed his party breached spending rules, Kevin Rawlinson reports.

Labour Together reportedly canvassing party members on leadership candidates

Good morning. The most significant event of the day will probably be the meeting that Keir Starmer is hosting in Downing Street for the E3 (the leaders of Britain, France and Germany), and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

There will be some mention of that here, but Jakub Krupa will be leading the coverage of that on his Europe live blog.

Before that meeting starts, Starmer will be on a visit to promote a government announcement about 50,000 new apprenticeships being offered. In a news release, the Department for Work and Pension says:

50,000 young people across the country will be better equipped for jobs of the future through a major investment to create more apprenticeships and training courses.

The £725m package of reforms to the apprenticeship system will help to tackle youth unemployment and drive economic growth, with thousands more young people expected to benefit over the next three years.

The latest funding includes a £140m for a pilot where mayors will be able to connect young people – especially those not in education, employment or training (NEET) with thousands of apprenticeship opportunities at local employers.

But Starmer is likely to face questions about a story in the Times by Patrick Maguire saying that Labour Together, the Labour thinktank that used to be run by Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s chief of staff, and that played a role in helping Starmer win the Labour leadership, is surveying Labour party members to find out if they think any of potentially eight other candidates might make a better leader for the party at the next election. Maguire says:

A survey sent to local Labour parties, seen by The Times, prompted members to name the politicians who stood “the best chance of leading Labour to electoral victory at the next general election” compared with Starmer and to rank those they would be likely to vote for in a leadership election.

Eight senior Labour politicians were named alongside Starmer. The five cabinet ministers in the survey are Wes Streeting, the health secretary; Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary; Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary; Ed Miliband, the energy secretary; and Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister.

Labour Together also listed Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister; Andy Burnham, the mayor of Greater Manchester; and Lucy Powell, who was elected deputy leader of the Labour Party in October.

The thinktank is also asking party members if they prefer “Labour politicians who have principles but are prepared to compromise to get the best outcome possible” or “Labour politicians who stand by their principles no matter what”.

Labour Together, which is now run by Alison Phillips, the former editor of the Daily Mirror, has not commented on the story. There have been suggestions that it wants the data so that it can benchmark the accuracy of its own membership polling against the results of polling conducted by other organisations. (Getting accurate polling data about members of political parties is notoriously hard, because the samples are small.)

But the fact that it is even asking these questions will confirm suspicions that party insiders are gearing up for a leadership challenge at some point within the next year. Although sometimes described as a Starmerite thinktank (because of the McSweeney link), Labour Together was not set up to support Starmer’s bid for the leadership. The founders were primarily concerned with opposing Corbynism, and in the period before the 2019 election it spent a lot of money on internal party polling that showed that, while a majority of members supported Jeremy Corbyn and his values, there were enough of them who cared about winning the next election to make it possible for a non-leftwinger to succeed him.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Keir Starmer is visiting a McLaren facility to promote government plans to make available 50,000 new apprenticeships.

10am: John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, gives a speech on independence.

10.30am: Kemi Badenoch holds a press conference about the proposed Tory terms for reference for the national inquiry into grooming gangs.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

Lunchtime: Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, Emmanuel Macron, the French president, and Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, are due to arrive at Downing Street for talks with Starmer.

2pm: David Lammy, the deputy PM and justice secretary, gives a speech on measures to stop the UK being used as a base for money laundering.

2.30pm: Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 3.30pm: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is expected to give a statement to MPs about the child poverty reduction strategy.

3pm: Ed Miliband, the energy secretary, gives evidence to the Commons environmental audit committee on the Cop30 conference.

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