Keir Starmer denies Partygate has distracted Labour from cost of living crisis – as it happened

Labour leader Keir Starmer. Photograph: Doug Peters/PA

6.00pm BST

Afternoon summary

• Keir Starmer has rejected claims that he let Partygate distract from Labour’s campaigning on the cost of living. (See 2.54pm.)

• Boris Johnson has threatened to “privatise the arse” off the Passport Office if it cannot clear its backlog and deliver better value for money, a senior government source has told reporters. He made the comment in private as the cabinet met to discuss cost-free measures the government could take to help people cope with rising prices. (See 9.17am.) No 10 did not mention the proposal to privatise the Passport Office in its post-cabinet lobby briefing for journalists, but instead Downing Street signalled that one of its cost of living initiatives would involve cutting staff/child ratios in nurseries, to reduce childcare costs for parents. (See 12.33pm.)

• Angela Rayner has revealed she begged the Mail on Sunday not to run a story claiming a Conservative MP compared her to the character in Basic Instinct, saying the “classist” comments in the piece were disparaging about working-class people.

• Ministers appear unlikely to make the forthcoming extra bank holiday in honour of the Queen’s platinum jubilee permanent, as Downing Street poured cold water on the plans and emphasised the high cost to the economy of such a move.

• Imran Ahmad Khan, the MP found guilty this month of molesting a 15-year-old boy, advised the government on child sexual exploitation while under police caution, the Guardian can disclose.

• Peers have been debating Commons amendments to the nationality and borders bill. The bill is in the process of “ping-pong”, where it shuttles between the Commons and the Lords until the two chambers can resolve their disagreements, and peers are still pushing for measures to ensure the bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention, to allow asylum seekers the right to work after six months, to stop the automatic criminalisation of asylum seekers arriving in the UK on small boats and to limit the use of offshoring. A measure of the opposition to the bill came in the debate when Viscount Hailsham spoke about his reservations about the government’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. Hailsham - who was seen as a rightwinger when he served as agriculture minister in John Major’s cabinet in the 1990s - said:

The experience of the Israeli government when they tried something rather similar is not encouraging. I have great reservations about the legality of what is proposed.

I do note, of course, that ministers have repeatedly said that the policy is consistent with international law and our obligations under the 1951 convention. However, ministers repeatedly said that the policy of turning back the boats of asylum seekers was both legal and practical. However, it seems that in the face of legal challenge, both as to the practicality and legality of the policy, the Home Office yesterday backed away from that position. I view the advice from the Home Office - this Home Office - on these matters with very great caution.

But above all my reservations about the Rwanda policy are based on my concerns as to its propriety. Can it be right to offload the responsibility for individuals who for a time have come into our jurisdiction, offload them to somewhere else? For by doing so we will have ensure that ministers who are responsible for where they have gone are not accountable for the way they are treated. And I am finding myself extraordinarily uncomfortable with that concept.

Peers will vote on the bill, and three others in the “ping-pong” process”, later this evening.

Viscount Hailsham Photograph: HoL

Updated at 6.29pm BST

5.15pm BST

UK's 'self-lacerating classes' should realise much of world admires their country more than they do, Australian diplomat says

Britain’s “self-lacerating classes” should realise that much of the world admires their country much more than they do, the outgoing Australian high commissioner has said.

Speaking at an event hosted by the British Foreign Policy Group thinktank, George Brandis, who has represented his country in London since 2018, said:

Britain has a lot of moral authority in far away places.

One thing that rather bothers me is that there are some in the commentariat, possibly some even in the Foreign Office, who are almost guilty about Britain’s imperial past and therefore think notions like the Commonwealth should be uttered sotto voce.

Could I tell you that among the small island states of the south-west Pacific, Britain is loved, the Queen is loved, all of the majesty of the British state is admired in those small nations which are now a very critical part of the world because they’re an object of Chinese ambition.

Britain should not underestimate its soft power in a lot of the small Commonwealth nations as the nation whose head of state is the head of the Commonwealth, and nowhere is that more so than in the south-west Pacific.

I just wish that the self-lacerating classes in Britain would realise that the world respects their own country a lot more than a lot of them do.

George Brandis. Photograph: Hollie Adams/AFP/Getty Images