Summary of the day …
Conservative leadership hopeful Tom Tugendhat has said Keir Starmer failed the country during the recent violent disorder in England and Northern Ireland. He has also criticised Nigel Farage for amplifying false information, and said he had been “deeply irresponsible and dangerous” in trying to amplify “false information”. He also hit out at Farage for condemning the breakdown of law and order before the riots “but not the riots themselves”. Elon Musk was also a target for Tugendhat, who said the unelected billionaire’s claim that civil war was inevitable amid the disorder in parts of the UK was “delusional” and “simply false”
Tugendhat also accused the prime minister of “pretending” that he inherited full prisons and had to introduce an early release scheme. The early release scheme had actually begun under Rishi Sunak’s government. Tugendhat also said that Starmer should have sacked Jess Phillips over her reaction to footage of journalists being menaced on camera
Former justice minister David Gauke has cautioned that the current contest for the Conservative party leadership is failing to learn the lesson of why the party suffered such a huge defeat in the general election, and the crop of candidates are “too frightened of the party membership”
Health secretary Wes Streeting has said he “totally understands” why the families of Barnaby Webber, Grace O’Malley-Kumar and Ian Coates have accused the NHS of having “blood on its hands”. Speaking to viewers on Sky News, Streeting said: “The hard truth here is that had the NHS done its job, had there not been multiple fundamental failures, three innocent people might still be alive”
A group of 120 police officers from Scotland is to receive orientation training in Belfast on Tuesday before a week-long deployment to bolster the over-stretched Police Service of Northern Ireland. Police in Northern Ireland announced they had arrested a second man over an attack on a mosque at the weekend
Former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell has called for an inquiry into the process of migrating people on to universal credit after the DWP has published a set of figures which he suggests is “extremely worrying” and “could mean many of the poorest are losing all support”. The numbers appear to suggest that a third of claimants sent notices to migrate to the universal credit system have not responded to them, and their legacy benefit claims have been closed
The UK jobs market bucked predictions of a further weakening in June after official figures showed unemployment fell – but wages growth slowed to its lowest for two years
Conservative leadership candidate James Cleverly seized on today’s economic news to suggest that things were going well for the economy under Rishi Sunak’s government. “Inflation down. Employment up. Fastest growth in the G7. That was Labour’s real economic inheritance, but Rachel Reeves still wants to raise your taxes,” he said. Priti Patel commented “We must continue to hold Labour to account over their falsehoods on the economy. Today’s positive news on employment figures shows the Conservatives left an economy moving in the right direction”
Labour market statistics have shown Scotland’s GDP grew by 0.3% in May, and by 0.9% in the three months leading up to May. The Scottish government says the latest figures represent the highest number of payrolled employees in Scotland since July 2014, with median monthly pay the highest recorded yet
The number of people waiting more than 12 hours at A&E in Scotland has dropped below 1,000 in a single week for the first time since December
That is your lot from me, Martin Belam, for today. Thank you for reading. I will be back with you tomorrow.
Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor
Anas Sarwar has suggested Scotland has so far escaped the violent riots which have hit England and Northern Ireland in part because the media and Tories in Scotland did not whip up resentment over immigration and race.
The Scottish Labour leader told the Matt Forde’s podcast The Political Party he thought it essential that Scotland avoided thinking there was “a DNA difference” between someone in Scotland and someone in England.
But he added: “Do I think our demographics are different? Yes. Do I think our political discourse is different in Scotland? Yes. Do I think our chattering class and our media is different in Scotland? Yes. Do I think we have less of a thriving right wing or right of centre media bubble in Scotland? Yes.
“I think all of that has helped contribute to us not having the same problems as you have seen in other parts of the UK. I think there are certain things the UK Conservative party and UK Conservative politicians would say that thankfully up until now a Scottish Conservative politician would not say, and I think that something to be welcomed.”
But he said there was still “engrained prejudice” in every community in Scotland, while the far right tried to mobilise, particularly in Glasgow. But the country’s closeness and a very well organised community resistance to the far right had helped “repel them”, he said.
Sarwar’s remarks point to different Scottish editions of UK papers blamed for stirring up prejudice, such as the Daily Mail. The Mail in Scotland routinely runs different lead stories to editions in England.
The Scottish Tories are habitually closer to the centre than at UK level, and avoid the Tory rhetoric and attack lines on migration and multi-culturalism adopted since Theresa May’s departure as prime minister.
