Tom Goodenough

Members of the Royal Family have gathered at Balmoral amid concerns for the Queen's health. Buckingham Palace released a statement this afternoon saying Her Majesty was 'comfortable' but that 'the Queen’s doctors are concerned for Her Majesty’s health and have recommended she remain under medical supervision'.  Prince Charles, Camilla and Princess Anne are at Balmoral. Prince William, the Queen's eldest grandson and second in line to the throne, is on his way there. Prince Harry is travelling to Scotland too. Prime Minister Liz Truss has said 'the whole country will be deeply concerned by the news'.

Liz Truss has won the race to become Tory leader and Britain's new Prime Minister. Truss, who was the runaway favourite to win, defeated her rival Rishi Sunak by 81,326 votes to 60,399 – a margin of 57 per cent to 43 per cent. She will take over from Boris Johnson tomorrow, after flying to Balmoral to see the Queen. Her new cabinet is expected to be in place by tomorrow night, with Kwasi Kwarteng the firm favourite to be appointed chancellor. Truss is likely to appoint James Cleverly as foreign secretary and Suella Braverman, the current attorney-general and former leadership contender, as home secretary. During her acceptance speech, Truss paid tribute to Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson, whom she described as 'my friend'.

Love him or loathe him, Donald Trump is a brilliant political opportunist. And the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate last night may have handed the former president a significant boost in any future run for the White House. Speculation is rife that The Donald will have another shot at the presidency – and the dramatic events of the last 24 hours have catapulted Trump back into the headlines.  To no one's surprise, Trump is making the most of being back in the limelight, releasing an apocalyptic campaign video this morning in which he paints a picture of an America in decline.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?

Penny Mordaunt’s flip-flopping over gender self-ID makes it difficult to know where she stands. But on another issue she has made things abundantly clear: Mordaunt doesn’t understand how the internet works. If she makes it to the final round of the leadership contest this afternoon – and indeed to No. 10 – Mordaunt has vowed to make the likes of Facebook and Google pay when news content appears on their sites. This half-baked plan makes a fundamental misunderstanding. Mordaunt says: ‘We will create a news bargaining code, similar to the law that has been passed by the Australian government.

Chris Pincher remains a Tory MP this morning, but how long will that be the case? The Conservative deputy chief whip resigned from the government last night, following allegations that he groped two men at a private members' club on Wednesday evening.  In a letter to Boris Johnson, Pincher said he 'drank far too much' and 'embarrassed myself and other people'. But while the Prime Minister accepted Pincher's resignation from the whips' office, it is believed that Downing Street is reluctant to kick Pincher out of the party because of the speed with which he admitted what he'd done.

Boris Johnson has won a confidence vote in his leadership – but nearly 150 Tory MPs voted against him in a huge blow to the Prime Minister's leadership. The PM won the support of 211 Conservative MPs, while 148 voted against him in the ballot of Tory MPs.  The PM insisted that this was a 'very good result for politics and for the country.' Reacting to the ballot, Boris Johnson said: 'What we want to do is get on'. The PM also did worse than Margaret Thatcher in her confidence vote against Michael Heseltine in 1990 Boris's allies have rallied around the PM in the wake of the vote, with Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi saying Boris had won 'handsomely'. Zahawi added: 'What do you think president Zelensky is doing tonight?

Westminster council has fallen to the Labour party for the first time ever, as the Tories suffered a string of defeats in local elections across Britain overnight. The party also picked up Wandsworth council for the first time since 1978, with the defeated Tory council leader Ravi Govindia admitting many voters raised 'the issue of Boris Johnson' during the campaign.  Elsewhere in the capital, the Conservatives conceded defeat in Barnet, which has never had a Labour majority. Barnet's Tory leader Daniel Thomas said losing the council 'doesn't bode well for us' at the next election and described it as a 'warning shot' for Boris Johnson. Meanwhile London mayor Sadiq Khan said the Prime Minister had been a 'vote-winner for Labour'.

Can Boris recover from the storm of partygate? The Prime Minister has pinned his hopes on being exonerated – or at least not entirely condemned – by Sue Gray in her investigation into Downing Street festivities during the pandemic. And yet, whatever she says, the writing might already be on the Red Wall for Boris.  Support for the Prime Minister has collapsed in those constituencies which handed Boris his 80-seat majority in the 2019 election, according to new polling. Labour now enjoys an 11-point advantage over the Tories in the Red Wall.  Crucially for the PM, the main reason given for many voters in turning their backs on the Conservatives are ongoing revelations about partygate. The poll of 518 people, conducted by J.L.

Has Azeem Rafiq been forgiven yet? He's certainly working on it. After finding himself on both sides of a racism scandal, the former Yorkshire cricketer's rehabilitation PR operation has been nothing if not swift. As the story broke last week that Rafiq had sent messages mocking Jewish people, he apologised immediately: 'I am incredibly angry at myself and I apologise to the Jewish community'. The following day, in an interview with the Jewish Chronicle, Rafiq apologised again: 'My genuine feeling is that I deserve the flak. I f***ed up'. 'It’s for the Jewish community to decide whether you guys accept my apology,' he added. Is this really how apologies now work?

Tulip Siddiq has campaigned nobly for the return of her constituent, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. The Labour MP is again doing her bit to try and persuade the Iranian government to free the British-Iranian mum, who has been locked up on trumped-up charges in Iran. ‘After over four years in Evin Prison, Nazanin has been under house arrest in Iran and is unable to leave the country,’ write Siddiq and the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, in the Evening Standard today. ‘Though responsibility for her predicament lies with Iran, there is more that the UK Government could be doing to help her,’ she writes. She’s got a point: Boris Johnson has made the situation worse, not better, for Nazanin, by clumsily intervening to suggest that she was training journalists.

Gary Neville was a fine footballer but he is a confused pundit. He keeps trying to get political when talking about football — and it’s boring. During England’s Euro 2020 semi-final game this summer, he obnoxiously suggested Gareth Southgate, the England manager, had shown more leadership than the Prime Minister. It was an irritating and unnecessary moment of politics in what should have been a moment of celebration. Now, he’s at it again. In an interview with the Times, Neville has been talking about politics: ‘I’d love half an hour across from Boris Johnson at the despatch box. I’d be angry with myself if I didn’t tear him to shreds just on basic principles of behaviour.