Rishi Sunak grilled by Andrew Neil but Liz Truss declines invitation – Tory leadership race live

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Andrew Neil’s one-to-one interview with Rishi Sunak is being broadcast by Channel 4 at 7.30pm. We will be liveblogging it.

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Keir Starmer has been urged not to abandon a key leadership pledge of abolishing the House of Lords, with Gordon Brown warning that plans to “gerrymander” parliament’s upper chamber by flooding it with dozens of Tory peers proved the need for drastic reform.

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Alarm was raised by the former Labour prime minister over a proposal drawn up by a political lobbying group for Boris Johnson to appoint up to 50 new Conservatives to ram contentious legislation through given a series of embarrassing defeats by peers.

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Brown said the leaked document he had seen from CT Group – run by Lynton Crosby, a key adviser to Johnson – “legitimises straightforward bribery” by recommending those who vote loyally be rewarded with special envoy positions, honours and lunches at Chequers.

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Nicknamed “Operation Homer”, the plan also said new peers would have to give a written undertaking to support the government in key votes on controversial legislation, likely to include the Northern Ireland protocol bill that would unilaterally override the Brexit deal.

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Under the cover of levelling up the Lords by picking peers from under-represented parts of the UK, the paper admitted it was the “perfect excuse” to ensure a swathe of loyalist law-makers are ennobled.

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Writing in the Guardian, Brown said the proposal “makes no bones about the defenestrated prime minister’s aim to pack the House of Lords” that would see him “ride roughshod over every convention and standard of propriety in an effort to secure political nominees who will vote for the Tory government”.

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He added that the paper’s claim the media could be easily blindsided by the appointment of a few controversial figures or celebrities to avoid criticism of the sheer number of “cronies” appointed would amount to “gerrymandering”.

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“The solution is to reform the Lords, not reinforce its unrepresentativeness,” Brown said, calling for Starmer to pick up the mantel of trying to abolish the un-elected upper chamber in parliament.

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Read the full story here:

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The former shadow transport minister Sam Tarry has written a comment piece for the Guardian in which he says it would have been a dereliction of duty for him as a Labour MP to refuse to join a picket line.

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The Labour leader, Keir Starmer, sacked Tarry on Wednesday for giving a series of interviews from a rail union picket line outside Euston station in central London that were not in line with party policy.

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He points out that that during the three lockdowns we had at the height of the pandemic, Rail employees “put their own safety and wellbeing in jeopardy” to ensure other key workers were able to get to work, and that medicines and other provisions could be transported.

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He writes:

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These Covid heroes had the right to expect Labour, the party of working people, to stand with them and speak out against the war that the Tories have declared on them.

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That’s why I stood on the picket line at Euston, with my friends and allies in the RMT and TSSA transport unions, and why I gave media interviews in support of these workers.

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That was my duty, as a shadow transport minister for the Labour party. It was an extension of my role as the Labour MP for Ilford South, and the job I did for eight years before entering parliament as an official for the Transport and Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA).

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It’s a crime that in the 21st century so many of Britain’s rail workers, are living in conditions of in-work poverty, where even after a full day’s hard and stressful work they are often unable to afford the basics of food, rent and fuel, among other essentials.

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However, victory could soon be within the grasp of the rail workers, and Labour can and should play a critical role in inflicting a defeat on the Tories over this.

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The overwhelming majority of Labour party members have been utterly resolute in their support of the rail workers. Only this week on the picket line, I spoke to Labour members from across London, who turned out to show their solidarity with the RMT and TSSA.

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Banners from local Labour parties were photographed and posted online, from coast to coast, during the last day of strike action. That support and solidarity can assert itself in the Labour party in the weeks and months ahead.

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Constituency Labour parties, and other affiliates, must pass emergency motions in support of the striking rail workers, to go to the Labour party conference in Liverpool in late September.

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Labour party members taking part in the selections for parliamentary candidates must challenge would-be MPs to commit to supporting the rail strikers, and other industrial disputes in the seats that they seek to represent. Labour needs to show it is on the side of workers across Britain, that we have a plan for a pay rise, and to rebalance the economy in favour of the vast majority.

\n

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Read the full piece here:

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Keir Starmer’s ban on Labour MPs going on picket lines was a “fundamental mistake” that caused a “complete car crash” in a week when the party should have been talking about increasing workers’ wages, Sam Tarry has said after he was sacked from his role as a shadow minister following media appearances at an RMT picket line.

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In a defiant riposte to the Labour leadership as he once again joined a picket line, the MP rejected Starmer’s statement that he had been sacked for making up policy “on the hoof” as he stood alongside striking workers during rail action. Trade unions were the ones “showing true leadership at the moment”, he added.

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“At the end of the day I thought it was time we were really clear about who’s side we were on, and I am on the side of ordinary British workers,” said Tarry, giving fresh interviews after joining striking workers from the Communication Workers Union (CWU) on Friday morning in central London.

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“I didn’t make up policy. All I said is that surely it should be right that we make an offer to workers in this country that matches inflation, because otherwise all they are getting offered is a real-terms pay cut,” he told Sky News.

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Tarry’s comments came as thousands of BT and Openreach workers were striking across the UK on Friday in a dispute over pay. The CWU said it would be the first national telecoms strike since 1987 and the biggest ever among call centre workers.

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Another strike will be held on Monday, after union members voted in favour of industrial action in protest at a £1,500 pay rise.

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Strikes, ‘food banks’, takeover fears: the sea of troubles circling BTRead more

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Starmer, who removed Tarry from the party’s frontbench earlier this week as shadow minister for buses and local transport, has previously warned shadow ministers not to join picket lines, although several did so during the last rail strikes in June and did not lose their jobs.

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Read more here:

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The British public would never have forgiven the Conservatives if the financial markets had crashed after Rishi Sunak quit as chancellor, Ben Wallace has said as he stepped up attacks on the Tory leadership candidate after endorsing his rival Liz Truss.

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Wallace, the defence secretary, also suggested he was throwing his weight behind Truss because she recognised that the “threats we face every day” needed to be “funded properly”.

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Speaking after coming out for Truss overnight in an article for the Times, Wallace continued to go on the offensive against her opponent, telling Sky News that Sunak’s decision to cut entrepreneurs’ relief when he was chancellor was not a way to create “either wealth or indeed growth”.

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Sunak was the second senior cabinet minister to resign from Boris Johnson’s government this month, after Sajid Javid, triggering Johnson’s downfall a few days later. Allies of Johnson blame Sunak more than anyone else for his departure.

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Wallace contrasted his own decision and that of the home secretary, Priti Patel, to stay in their posts with Sunak and others’ resignations.

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“What if the markets had crashed? What if the home secretary had done that and there had been a terrorist attack? The public would never forgive us,” Wallace told Sky News.

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He appeared to echo criticism of Sunak’s record on defence spending. As chancellor, Sunak reportedly resisted pressure for a big increase in UK defence spending in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

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Wallace said: “I am the secretary of state for defence, I want to find a candidate that’s going to do right by the department and recognise that the threats we face every day are very real and are growing and that they need to be funded properly.”

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In a thinly veiled swipe at Sunak, Wallace wrote in the Times that Truss was “a winner not because she’s a slick salesperson but because she is authentic”.

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Read more here:

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Labour MP Sam Tarry, who was sacked from his role as a shadow transport minister earlier this week following media appearances at an RMT picket line, joined a rally for striking BT workers on Friday morning.

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Addressing the Communication Workers Union (CWU) rally as thousands of BT and Openreach workers strike in a dispute over pay, Tarry said “it’s good to be back”.

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He said:

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We need a Labour leadership that is prepared to stand up and does not look the other way when BT workers are going to foodbanks.

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He said the Labour party needed to be clear they would defend workers right to the hilt and extend their rights in the workplace.

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He added:

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Let’s be absolutely clear – it is not good enough, it is not good enough for the Labour party to say that we probably won’t be able to give you a pay rise in line with inflation. Because that means the Labour party is committed to cut people’s wages in real terms and that is totally unacceptable.

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He added:

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If I’m sacked for having said that live on TV and not supposed to [have] been on that picket line then people need to have a really hard think about what the Labour party is for.

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Because for me the clue is in the name: Labour. On the side of working people.

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He added that “things were changing” and it was “time to fight back” and “reclaim our party”.

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The Defence Secretary has suggested he supports Liz Truss in the Tory leadership race because she recognises that the “threats we face every day” need to be “funded properly”.

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Explaining why he had chosen to back Truss, Ben Wallace told Sky News he had decided at the beginning of the contest to “stand back” and look at their performances during hustings events.

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I am the Secretary of State for Defence, I want to find a candidate that’s going to do right by the department and recognise that the threats we face every day are very real and are growing and that they need to be funded properly.

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We can’t just sort of pretend they will go away by themselves.

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So you know, I looked at their performances. I looked at them on the hustings, but I also know them both. I’ve been in Cabinet for two years with both the Chancellor and indeed Liz Truss. And so, you know, it was important for me to work out who was the right person to take us forward. So, you know, I know Liz, she’s very straight. She’s authentic, what you see is what you get, but also she has been very consistent in her support for defence and security. She reads the same intelligence reports I do.

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I felt it was the right person to back.

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Welcome to today’s Politics Liveblog. I’ll be covering for Andrew Sparrow today. Do drop me a line if you have any questions or think I’ve missed anything. My email is nicola.slawson@theguardian.com and I’m @Nicola_Slawson on Twitter.

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Key events

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