Isabel Hardman

Given everyone has won a prize in this round of by-elections, the three main party leaders have been feasting on their respective wins. Rishi Sunak has arguably had the best day by holding one seat when his party had briefed it would lose all three. He has used the win in Uxbridge to say that the next election is still in play: ‘Westminster’s been acting like the next election is a done deal. The Labour party has been acting like it’s a done deal. The people of Uxbridge just told all of them that it’s not. No-one expected us to win here. But Steve’s [Tuckwell] victory demonstrates that, when confronted with the actual reality of the Labour party, when there’s an actual choice on a matter of substance at stake, people vote Conservative.

Everyone was very keen to attack Labour at today’s Prime Minister’s Questions, particularly over Keir Starmer’s decision not to scrap the two-child benefit limit. Before the session, SNP staffers handed out ‘controls on family sizes’ mugs to journalists in the Commons press gallery, a reminder of Labour’s disastrous 2015 ‘controls on immigration’ mug. Then SNP leader Stephen Flynn, and later Pete Wishart, both called the policy ‘heinous’. Flynn even said Scottish children were used to living in poverty, which prompted some ironic shouts from MPs on the other side of the house: the SNP has the power to change benefits policies anyway, but hasn’t scrapped the two-child limit on the grounds of affordability (the same argument Labour is making).

Keir Starmer is in the middle of his first proper row with his party. The Labour leader is not rowing back from his decision to tell Laura Kuenssberg that he wouldn’t reverse the two-child limit on child benefits. In fact, he’s leaning into it, even though he has achieved the incredible feat of uniting Rosie Duffield and Lloyd Russell-Moyle against it (the two backbenchers are normally found disagreeing vehemently on sex and gender). At today’s shadow cabinet meeting, the Labour leader told his top team that they would have to get used to these kinds of uncomfortable decisions because ‘tough choices is not a sound bite’. He insisted that ‘it’s vital to us being able to do what we need to do in government and getting over the line’.

Are you tiring of the stand-in routine at Prime Minister’s Questions? Oliver Dowden seems to be. When he first started this now regular gig for Rishi Sunak, the Deputy Prime Minister was clearly delighted that he could deliver the lines he’s been coaching other prime ministers to say for years. Today, as he stood in for Sunak for a second week running, he looked as though he could do with a break. His jokes were not well delivered: he teased Angela Rayner for wanting John Prescott’s old job (which she already has), and he also fluffed what was already a poor line about Keir Starmer hating tree huggers but being ‘very keen on hugging the magic money tree’. That was a reference to a reported put-down by the Labour leader of his shadow net zero secretary Ed Miliband.

The Illegal Migration Bill is back this afternoon for ‘ping pong’ – the final stage of its legislative passage where MPs and peers bat amendments between their respective chambers until a compromise is found. There were 20 such amendments for the government to deal with and there is still a chance that some key Conservatives might rebel tonight. Ministers want to overturn 15 changes. Two of the loudest critics are, inconveniently, former home secretaries Two of the loudest critics are, inconveniently, former home secretaries. Theresa May has criticised the Bill throughout its passage and it is still not clear whether she will vote with the government or rebel tonight.

Why was there a service in Westminster Abbey thanking God for the NHS today? Some 1,500 NHS workers, many in uniform, packed into the Abbey along with politicians to mark 75 years of the service. As a celebration of the work those people have done, it was a good event: the Dean of Westminster, David Hoyle, paid tribute in his sermon to the ‘sheer bloody-minded persistence of tired, stressed, wonderful people in the NHS’. There were testimonies from healthcare workers who had treated sickle cell patients and children with cancer from Ukraine. And of course there were readings from Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer and an address from NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard.

Does the NHS need a royal commission? Sajid Javid, the former health secretary, thinks so. ‘It is abundantly clear the status quo cannot continue,’ he writes in the Times. He argues that ‘a dispassionate and honest assessment is required’ from an ‘institution that is above the political fray’. Javid suggests that a royal commission that is ‘set up correctly’ could perform this function. Royal commissions sound august but don’t have a great track record of really helping governments make difficult decisions. They have become a byword in Westminster for kicking something not so much into the long grass as into a thick forest of delay. The Labour government set up one on social care in 1999, and rejected its most important proposals.

How unhelpful are the New Conservatives to their party in government? They insist that they’re fully supportive of Rishi Sunak, but today’s 12-point plan to cut net migration isn’t exactly a love letter to the Prime Minister. Someone who does seem rather less annoyed by the new caucus is Suella Braverman, who as luck would have it was taking Home Office Questions in the House of Commons this afternoon. One of the members of the new caucus, James Daly, had a question about ‘what steps she is taking to reduce net migration’, and the Home Secretary replied: Net migration is too high, and this government are determined to bring it down. Indeed, that was one of the reasons why I voted and campaigned to leave the European Union in 2016.

Will the government meet its NHS target? Health Secretary Steve Barclay was asked about this when he did the broadcast round this morning, arguing that even though there were record waiting numbers, the government had successfully reduced the longest waits. But as Fraser wrote this week in his Telegraph column, Rishi Sunak is having to face up to the chance that he might miss this (and most of his other) five ‘priorities’ which he said the British people should judge him against at the next election. But voters might be paying a little less attention to another area of care where things are visibly going backwards: mental health.