Lucy Dunn

Stephen Flynn’s Westminster group may consist of only nine MPs, but the SNP has still managed to make its mark in London. Flynn’s performance in Prime Minister’s Questions – when his group get a question – has marked him out as a savvy political operator and earned him grudging respect from politicians from all sides of the Chamber. The SNP has used parliamentary procedure to pile pressure on Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government – the Gaza vote last year, for example, saw the PM suspend six politicians, one of whom has now gone on to form her own new party. Ahead of an election year in Scotland, the SNP has also highlighted Labour’s weaknesses (on issues like new oil and gas licenses, of which Flynn is in favour) north of the border.

Plans for a national inquiry into grooming gangs are underway, but will the inquiry actually happen? The Labour-led probe has not yet started and has almost been derailed by survivors on the victim liaison panel dropping out, complaints about transparency and concerns about the scope of the inquiry. Today, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch set out her party’s preferred terms of reference for the inquiry – a move she insisted was not party political, but one that she hopes Labour will act on.

Tackling child poverty is this government’s ‘moral mission’, Keir Starmer insisted today. The Prime Minister has unveiled plans that he claims will lift some 550,000 children out of poverty by the end of the decade. The headline announcement of the government’s child poverty strategy came in last week’s Budget when Rachel Reeves announced that, after months of dithering, Labour would scrap the two-child benefit cap. While a number of the measures in today’s policy bundle have already been announced, there are a few new elements.

The Scottish government is set to announce a national review of the grooming gang evidence in Scotland, after coming under pressure to take action on reports of organised sexual exploitation. An independent judge will assess the situation in Scotland, with their conclusions then used to help the government decide whether there should be full public inquiry. The Scottish Conservatives have been clear for some time that their position is to move straight to a national probe, while Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has welcomed reports that a review is forthcoming.  The SNP government has, however, been accused of dragging its feet on the issue – with political opponents insisting that justice secretary Angela Constance has demonstrated a ‘lack of interest’ in the issue.

After months of pressure from Britain, France has agreed to begin intercepting small boats in the Channel. The move comes after Keir Starmer wrote a letter urging Emmanuel Macron to support the proposal, telling the French leader that we ‘have no effective deterrent’ for migrants hoping to get to the UK illegally by sea. As reported by Le Monde, Starmer insisted: ‘It is essential that we deploy these tactics this month.’ France will intervene only before traffickers have picked up passengers The plan will see French security forces allowed to stop the small boats while they’re at sea, the caveat being that France will intervene only before traffickers have picked up passengers.

There was a feeling of relief in the air at the SNP’s conference in Aberdeen when, for the first time in years, organisers could accurately describe the main hall as full. The choice of the P&J Live was a risky one (and one, I was told, that is unlikely to be made again) given its expansive size makes everything else, including the crowd, seem pretty small. But a sense of cautious optimism persisted: First Minister and party leader John Swinney had stabilised the party after a torrid few years of infighting and police probes and, in part thanks to Nigel Farage’s effectiveness and Keir Starmer’s lack thereof, the party was back to polling well ahead of Labour.

There may have been a decent turnout of both youthful Tory members and elderly cardholders at this year’s Conservative party conference in Manchester, but it was the missing group in the middle that made all the difference. The crowds were significantly slimmed down without the corporate types, with parts of the venue ghostly quiet by mid-afternoon. And the party could have done with more support from its elected representatives: despite the Holyrood election being just seven months away, just a smattering of MSPs journeyed down from Scotland.

The Conservative party conference is in full swing and the Spectator is hosting a myriad of events across the next few days. This afternoon we hosted a panel conversation revealing exclusive Ipsos polling conducted for the conference. It revealed that ultimately the Tories may be down but they are definitely not out. The survey found that a majority of Brits believe that the Tories still have another general election win in them – while just 50 per cent felt the same about Labour, one of the more positive poll results for the Conservatives in months.  In more (relatively) good news for the party, more people think that Reform’s Nigel Farage would make a bad prime minister than a good one (42 per cent to 34 per cent) – although voters aren’t convinced by Kemi Badenoch.

Scottish Labour may be down but they’re not out. The polls have not been moving in their favour over the last few months and on the eve of Labour’s conference in Liverpool a Norstat survey for the Sunday Times brought more bad news: never mind losing out on first place at the 2026 Holyrood election, Scottish Labour could crash into third next year thanks to a surge in support for Nigel Farage’s leaderless tartan outfit. It would be a pretty humiliating state of affairs.  Yet despite all this, the mood in Scottish Labour is oddly buoyant, even upbeat. At the conference’s Scots Night, the Prime Minister made a quick cameo – bouncing into the soulless basement room to inform attendees that, no doubt about it, Anas Sarwar was going to be Scotland’s next first minister.

Today the High Court ordered a company linked to ex-Tory peer Baroness Mone to pay £122 million to the Department of Health for breaching an NHS contract during the pandemic. The company – PPE Medpro – was set up by a group led by the peer’s husband Doug Barrowman. During the pandemic, Mone recommended the company to the government through the ‘VIP lane’ on the same day it was incorporated – fast-tracking it to the top of a priority list for personal protective equipment (PPE) contracts.

Keir Starmer’s keynote speech in Liverpool was punchier and more powerful than the Prime Minister’s usual interventions. The Labour leader announced that his party will scrap Tony Blair’s target that 50 per cent of children should go to university, replacing it with the aim of seeing two-thirds of kids get a degree or gold-standard apprenticeship. The PM told his party: ‘I don’t think the way we currently measure success in education… I don’t think that’s right for our times.’ Starmer has riled Farage Like many of his colleagues have throughout this conference, the Labour leader took aim at Nigel Farage and Reform.

Labour mayors are stealing the limelight at Labour conference. As Sir Keir Starmer continues to struggle with staffing issues, policy positions and a prevailing surge in support for Reform UK, new polling for Sky News has revealed that six in ten Labour members would back Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham to be leader, with fewer than half of that proportion backing Starmer. When it comes to the deputy leadership position, No. 10’s favourite pick – Bridget Phillipson – also comes in second place with the membership, as more than a third would prefer ex-cabinet minister Lucy Powell. Burnham is significantly ahead of elected Labour MPs among the membership.

Another one bites the dust: Steph Driver, Keir Starmer’s head of communications, has announced she will leave No. 10 – making her the latest Starmer aide to quit. Driver was a loyal companion to the Prime Minister even before his election, spending five years as his chief of communications when he was in opposition. She became deputy director after Labour’s 2024 landslide victory before more recently being promoted to director of communications in Downing Street. Her resignation, which follows a period of bereavement leave, will come as a huge loss to the PM whom, it is understood, was one of many senior figures who tried to persuade her to stay on.

Peter Mandelson is no longer US ambassador to the UK, but tough questions remain for Keir Starmer about why he appointed the ‘Prince of Darkness’ in the first place. Downing Street distanced itself from Mandelson last week, with the Prime Minister’s spokesperson claiming that new information had emerged about Mandelson’s relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein that put things in a different light. Mandelson was sacked just days after Starmer had defended his man in Washington amid criticism from his backbenchers. Now news has come out that the House of Commons will debate Mandelson’s appointment tomorrow. The backlash continues...

Shabana Mahmood wasn’t given long in her new gig before facing the media. She became Home Secretary on Friday afternoon, after former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner resigned over an ethics probe into her tax affairs, and this morning set out her stall on immigration. Positioning herself as a ‘whatever it takes’ minister, Mahmood says she is prepared to suspend visas for workers coming to the UK from nations that will not enter into returns deals – bringing Labour into closer alignment with the Conservatives and Reform on its immigration policy.  Mahmood promised she would go ‘further and faster’ than her predecessor Yvette Cooper on the small boats crisis, adding that she was ‘not the sort of person who hangs around’.