Steerpike

Conference season has begun in earnest and the Lib Dems are having a whale of a time in Brighton. After their best results in a century, the party is in a bullish mood, with Sir Ed Davey even rocking up yesterday on a jet ski. The next James Bond perhaps? And it's in that spirit that the party has unveiled its latest merchandise, four months after their triumphs across the Blue Wall. The unofficial mascot for the party is now a cuddly Liberal Democrat cat, with items selling out on the first day of the Brighton conference. It's the latest anthropomorphism for a party leader after Paddy Ashdown's parrot, Charles Kennedy's duck and Nick Clegg's teddy bear.

Oh dear. It seems that the 'passes for glasses' row isn't going away any time soon. A month after it was revealed that Lord Alli had received a Downing Street pass after bankrolling Keir Starmer's wardrobe, today's Sunday Times contains a fresh development. Not content with dressing up the Prime Minister, it seems that Alli has also been kitting out his wife Victoria too. Perhaps he bought the couple matching outfits? Unfortunately for Sir Keir, while his clothes were declared in line with parliamentary rules on donations, the same cannot be said for those worn by his wife. The Sunday Times reports that the clothes were given to Lady Starmer before and after her husband entered Downing Street in July, with Labour HQ helping to organise the delivery of the goods for Lady Starmer.

To the Women and Equalities Committee, to which Labour's Sarah Owen has been elected chair. The Labour MP for Luton North achieved a majority of 7,500 in the July election and now has a select committee chairmanship under her belt too. But not everyone is especially thrilled by the announcement – not least because Owen seems to have more than a little difficulty defining, er, a woman... The day after Owen was elected committee chair, the Luton North MP appeared on the BBC's Woman's Hour with Anita Rani. But when Rani got to the all-important question of what a women is, the chair of the Women and Equalities Committee struggled to answer.

To Scotland, where the closure of the country's only oil refinery has been announced today. The site will shut next year – resulting in the loss of 400 jobs – after refining company Petroineos said it was unable to continue to compete with similar organisations around the world. With the news comes a wave of frustration across both Scotland and the UK. First Minister John Swinney has admitted he is 'deeply disappointed' by the development, while the leader of the Scottish Tories Douglas Ross has slammed the move as a 'devastating blow to the workforce'. Quite. And Sir Keir's Labour government has also expressed regret at the decision.

With two months to go until his successor takes over, Rishi Sunak only has a handful of PMQs sessions left. But never fear: with the end of the Starmer/Sunak show comes a new leading man in the latter's place. Nigel Farage – the man who loves to claim he's the real 'Leader of the Opposition' – today got a chance to put that assertion to the test. He faced off against Sir Keir in the Commons as the Reform leader was called by Speaker Hoyle to ask his first question of the new Prime Minister. In typical Farage style he didn't disappoint, asking Starmer the following: Yesterday we witnessed some extraordinary celebratory scenes outside Britain's prisons where, in some cases, serious career criminals were released.

Happy prisoner release day, one and all! Today's move to let out the lags is all part of the Ministry of Justice's efforts to ease the pressures on Britain's overburdened prisons. To mark this auspicious occasion, hacks across the country have descended on various prisons to interview inmates being released to the outside world. And after doing time at His Majesty's pleasure, the hardened 'crims certainly seem to have a way with words... Quote of the day surely has to go to the Daily Mail for this dispatch from HMP Isis, a Category C young offenders institution in Thamesmead. The paper writes evocatively that 'as the sun rose in London today' the first inmates to be released were 'greeted by family members'.

It's less than 60 days to go until polling day in America and the race could not be closer. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are due to debate on Tuesday night in what could be one of the most consequential clashes of modern times. So, with all eyes on the National Constitution Centre in Philadelphia, who better to ask about Trump's mindset than the Brit who knows him best? Step forward Piers Morgan, who appears on today's Americano podcast with Andrew Neil and Freddy Gray. After the shocking assassination attempt in July, Gray asked, has The Donald now softened and changed?