Former Tory minister says management hopefuls ‘too frightened of party membership’ – UK politics reside

A variety of MPs are on vacation or working of their constituencies throughout summer season recess, however a handful proceed to be very vocal on social media, together with Reform UK deputy chief Richard Tice. He has recommended this morning that the variety of individuals crossing the Channel ought to represent a “national emergency”.

Tice has additionally repeated his demand that there needs to be arrests over violence involving police at Manchester airport a number of weeks in the past. Two law enforcement officials are beneath prison investigation for assault, and law enforcement officials and members of the general public have been injured in an incident that was broadly seen on social media.

The UK jobs market bucked predictions of an extra weakening in June after official figures confirmed unemployment fell however wages development slowed to its lowest for 2 years.

Unemployment unexpectedly dropped to 4.2% from 4.4% within the three months to June from the earlier three months, in keeping with the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics (ONS).

Nonetheless, wage development, excluding bonuses, was 5.4% 12 months on 12 months over the three months to June, slipping from 5.7% within the earlier three months and represented the smallest enhance because the interval to July 2022, when it was 5.2%.

Adjusted for inflation, wages rose by 1.6%, which means many staff will expertise a continued enchancment of their way of life.

The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, stated: “Today’s figures show there is more to do in supporting people into employment because if you can work, you should work.

“This will be part of my budget later in the year where I will be making difficult decisions on spending, welfare and tax to fix the foundations of our economy so we can rebuild Britain and make every part of our country better off.”

Reeves will ship her first price range on 30 October.

Learn extra right here: UK unemployment falls as wages development hits lowest in two years

You can even observe reside protection of response to these figures on our enterprise reside weblog with my colleague Graeme Wearden:

As if to underline David Gauke’s level that the Conservative management candidates are but to point out their tooth within the contest, Kemi Badenoch has simply merrily retweeted Mel Stride speaking about right now’s unemployment figures.

In his submit, Stride stated:

Figures out this morning present unemployment fell and employment rose within the second quarter of this 12 months. Extra proof that Labour’s claims of the ‘worst economic inheritance since the second world war’ are full fantasy. They inherit an unemployment charge half what they left us in 2010.

Former justice minister David Gauke has cautioned that the present contest for the Conservative occasion management is failing to study the lesson of why the occasion suffered such an enormous defeat within the normal election, and the crop of candidates are “too frightened of the party membership”.

In an interview on Instances Radio, he advised listeners “You want it to be a respectful leadership campaign. You don’t want lots of abuse. But the Conservative party suffered a massive defeat in July, its worst performance in its history, and there’s an awful lot of soul searching that needs to be done.

“And in the end, whoever wins this contest isn’t going to be able to lead on the basis of unity. You’re actually going to have to have a platform and demonstrate leadership, and hope to persuade people to fall in behind you. Appeals to unity aren’t going to cut it if you are not making progress in the opinion polls, if you are not looking like an alternative government.”

Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel, Mel Stride and Tom Tugendhat are working to be chief.

Gauke was certainly one of a number of MPs suspended from the occasion by then prime minister Boris Johnson in 2019 over his votes on Brexit points. He advised Instances Radio he had now rejoined the occasion with the intention to have his say within the management contest.

He recommended that one factor within the contest is perhaps individuals searching for to emulate “a very successful model deployed in 2020 by Keir Starmer.”

Gauke stated “[Starmer] ran as a continuity candidate. Then about a year after he won, changed strategy, demonstrated some leadership, was a ‘change’ leader trying to modernise his party, and that resulted in success.

“At the moment, you feel that all of the [Conservative leadership] candidates are too tentative to do that, that they’re too frightened of the party membership. Maybe thinking get through on the other side, and then who knows what you can do. But at the moment, by and large, they do feel as if they’re just sort of wanting to get there first and then we’ll do the modernisation afterwards.”

“The difficulty with that strategy is that you don’t have a mandate, and that people will cry betrayal, and that you might not have the authority you need to do what I think has to be a very big, very ambitious modernisation of the party.”

Welcome to our rolling protection of UK politics for Tuesday. Listed here are your headlines …

It’s Martin Belam with you right now. We’re very becalmed in summer season recess for the time being, so it is perhaps fairly a sluggish information day, though we expect a speech from Tom Tugendhat this afternoon. Please do e-mail me in case you spot typos, errors or omissions – martin.belam@theguardian.com.