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.
Something a little lighter here from the Guardian’s Scotland editor Severin Carrell:
Anas Sarwar has revealed that Keir Starmer has a unique place in the Sarwar family home in Glasgow. There the prime minister is a pro-wrestler who fights Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un on the PlayStation.
The Scottish Labour leader told a fringe festival audience in Edinburgh that he came home a few days ago to hear Starmer’s name being shouted out by his eight-year-old son; he peeped around the door to find Starmer fighting a bout alongside Joe Biden.
Sarwar told Matt Forde’s Political Party his oldest son was heavily into football, while his 14-year-old was keen on American pool, “and I have got an eight-year-old who has an obsession with wrestling, and we watch WWE together, which is great fun.
“And I came home last week and I heard him playing his WWE 2K24 on his PlayStation [and] all I could hear was him going ‘SIR KEIR STAAARMER’, and I thought what was he doing, and he was playing his wrestling game.
“He’s downloaded Keir Starmer as a wrestler and I was watching him, and he was doing a wrestling match with Keir Starmer and Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, Kim Jong-un and Rishi Sunak. He’s downloaded those characters to his wrestling. I’ve not told Keir yet.
“He of course wants Starmer to win, but he’s now threatening to create a character for me and make it available for public download.”
The PSNI has said in a statement that a second man has been arrested in connection with an attack on a mosque at the weekend in Newtownards.
It said “The man, aged 46, was arrested on suspicion of a number of offences, including attempted arson with intent to endanger life, making a petrol bomb and criminal damage. He has since been released on police bail.”
With apposite timing, while Tom Tugendhat was giving that talk blaming all and sundry for the recent violent disorder in England and Northern Ireland, Maya Goodfellow, author of Hostile Environment: How Immigrants Became Scapegoats, has this opinion column for us today:
Westminster must take a long, hard look at itself: what many politicians now condemn, they also had a hand in manufacturing. The political “centre” usually reacts to the far right by denouncing its methods and distancing themselves from its coarse, racist rhetoric – but ultimately conceding to its underlying argument. In the days after the general election, Tony Blair advised Keir Starmer that to ward off the far right, he should celebrate what is good about immigration but be sure to “control” it. No matter how respectable and sensible such advice may seem to some within our political classes, the sentiment that “controlling” immigration is a way to appease socially conservative voters is one cause of the corrosiveness.
Why? Because it implies that a fear of immigration is a legitimate concern, and that reducing immigration is the appropriate method to assuage that fear. It is this sentiment that could shape what comes next. One Conservative commentator has already suggested that reducing immigration is at least part of the picture in responding to the violence. In an acutely uncomfortable TV interview about the riots with the independent MP Zarah Sultana, Ed Balls maintained that “if you fail to control and manage immigration properly then things go wrong”.
Are concerns about immigration “legitimate”? Demonstrably, no. People who arrive in the UK aren’t to blame for an economy designed to benefit the richest while exploiting and abandoning the poorest – immigration is not a significant causal factor of low wages and it’s not why people have insecure jobs. Anti-immigrant feeling isn’t a natural, inevitable reaction to change either. One study found areas with low levels of immigration had some of the highest proportion of leave voters in them – a vote that was at least partly motivated by anti-immigrant concerns. No: it is mainstream politicians and certain sections of the media that summon these feelings. They characterise certain groups of people, usually those who aren’t white (or not-quite-white), as a cultural threat – often targeting Muslims, no matter where they were born.
Read more here: Maya Goodfellow – We keep hearing about ‘legitimate concerns’ over immigration. The truth is, there are none
Conservative leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat has criticised the reporting of some court cases involving the use of social media, saying that in some cases it has “stretched the truth quite markedly”.
After criticism of sentences handed out to people who were found guilty of incitement online, Tugendhat said “It isn’t just that somebody said something, it’s that they also recommended how to attack, how to do harm, how to bring violence to individuals. That’s not the same.”
He said “Freedom of speech is not unqualified. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression is the ability to associate and share ideas, and we need to be very careful that when we say various freedoms are limited, that it’s not just being wrong that’s limited, it’s not just being mistaken that’s limited, it’s when you are actively doing harm. That’s where we have got to balance these rights.”
A couple of more things from the Q&A afterwards with Tom Tugendhat which PA Media have picked up on. He ruled out making a deal with Reform UK if he became Conservative leader. He said Elon Musk’s claim that civil war was inevitable amid the disorder in parts of the UK was “delusional” and “simply false”. He also said on social media that “I refuse to be on TikTok because the algorithm is set by a foreign dictatorship”
I should just add, by the way, that I use Otter AI to transcribe speeches like that, which is way more reliable than my shorthand, but does mean as I try to put it into the King’s English and/or Guardian style for the blog as I go along I sometimes miss homophones, US spellings, or the fact it simply refuses to learn how to spell Keir Starmer correctly, so apologies if you spotted any of that in the last few blocks.
I didn’t quite catch who it was, I think it was Christian Calgie of the Daily Express, who given the opportunity to ask a question of Tom Tugendhat, said:
Mass immigration. Segregated communities. Lack of prison places. Weak justice for criminals. Importing identity politics from abroad. Looking at cracking down on freedom of speech. Collapsing social trust. This is just a shocking list of Tory failures, isn’t it?
Tugendhat replied that “this is a list of areas that we must improve on. And it’s not Tory or Labour. It is a list of areas that this country must get better at.”
The Tory leadership hopeful continued “You can import division. You can import ideas of separateness. Or you can remember who you are.
“One of the great things about this country, one of the things I love about this country, is we don’t qualify Britishness. We’re not like some countries where you’re a hyphenated nation, you’re just British. And we should be deeply proud of that.”
“You’re just British” is going to come as surprising news to the considerable number of people within the UK who identify more closely with one of its constituent parts than with the whole.
In this speech as part of his leadership bid for the Conservative party, shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat has made this pitch, saying:
This is not a counsel of despair. If we are honest with ourselves, the solutions will follow. The reform of our police and criminal justice system, the renewal and in some cases, replacement of our national institutions. The restoration of pride in our community and our country, its history and its culture, the rejection of militant identity politics in all its forms, the construction of a new economic model and the promise of a new social contract in which we understand our obligations as well as our rights and we all have the respect and the self-respect that comes with fending for ourselves, providing for our families and contributing to our common life together.
It will take honesty, and it will take courage, and it will take leadership. But of course, it can be done, because what needs to be done in the national interest must be done.
After a lengthy passage listing everything he thinks is wrong with the modern UK, Tom Tugendhat finishes by describing it as “the greatest country on Earth”.
He said:
Too many people live in communities shorn of civic pride and social capital, too many have lost their sense of self as they are denied opportunity and purpose in their lives. Many people are told, in effect, that they are not needed, that they have too little to contribute. They are parked on benefits and forgotten and social trust is collapsing.
We’ve seen equality of opportunity give way to critical race theory, while the root causes of inequalities go ignored. Activist groups warp the language of inclusion to get what they want, universities indulge in ideologies of grievance instead of transmitting knowledge. Schools, museums and galleries apologise for our country’s history instead of objectively explaining it, and yes, celebrating it.
Ministers are promising a legal definition of Islamophobia, creating a blasphemy law for one faith when anti-Muslim hatred is already a crime. This will undermine free speech, afford special protections uniquely to the beliefs of one religion, and protect extremists from scrutiny and investigation. And we can already see that activists on the left are trying to use the riots to silence those with mainstream concerns about immigration.
We need patriotism and purpose, the patriotism that sees us all part of one nation and the purpose of seeing the goal of our shared prosperity and security, and we need to end the culture of denying the tendency to move hurriedly on from acts of extreme violence, to obfuscate about the identities and motives of the perpetrators.
It is worth noting that latter part in particular, as earlier in the speech he criticised Nigel Farage for expressing his idea that “the truth is being hidden” by authorities about stabbings in Southport and Kent.
Tugendhat accuses Keir Starmer of 'pretending' that prisons were full
In a passage likely to draw a sharp response from the government, Conservative leadership hopeful Tom Tugendhat has accused the prime minister of “pretending” that he inherited full prisons and had to introduce an early release scheme.
Citing a study suggesting than more people with multiple convictions are avoiding jail sentences, Tugendhat said:
Just as he is set to raise taxes, Keir Starmer is doing here what he fundamentally believes in, in this case, releasing criminals early while pretending that he is forced to do so, because that is the inheritance from the Tories.
Now we know it’s nonsense for two reasons. First, he chose to appoint a prisons minister, Lord Timpson, who thinks that only a third of current prisoners should be behind bars.
And second, since the riots, the government has done what it had previously said was impossible. It has created an extra 567 prison places from within the existing estate, yet the government’s mass prisoner release scheme doesn’t start until September.
Now, nobody denies that there are problems with prison capacity, and of course, we should be better at prisoner rehabilitation and much better at probation, but prison punishes offenders and takes dangerous and prolific criminals out of circulation, allowing the rest of us to live in peace. We should be updating and improving our prisoners, not releasing criminals.
It is worth noting that the early release of prisoners was started under Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government, and that prison capacity and sentencing guidlines had been in the gift of the Conservative party during the 14 years it spent in government, including the times during which Tugendhat was minister.
Tugendhat is being disngenious here on numbers, too. It is also the case that prisons were not full, and the Labour government did not claim they were full – but they were below the minimum level of spare capacity of about 900 places which the Prison Service believes is necessary to take account of buildings falling out of use due to illness or safety reasons, or for there to be a sudden surge in prisoner numbers caused by, say, widespread social unrest.
Tom Tugendhat has criticised policing in Birmingham and the West Midlands for, he said “deferring to so-called community leaders while pubs and cars were attacked, windows broken and citizens intimidated.”
He said:
This is not as the police oath requires, policing without fear or favour. No police officer should ever tolerate the presence of a militia, no matter what the provocation or the cause they claim. The intrusion of politics, the politics of protest, the politics of the self-appointed community leaders into policing, must simply end.
He proposes a programme of police reform, which would include making “a new national security police force” and taking counter-terrorism responsibilities from the Metropolitan police.
He says it could cover not just anti-terrorism but “also state threats”.
Tom Tugendhat has said he wants “a tougher, bigger police force”, but says “that also requires better police leadership and the honesty to address recent failings”, referencing what he called “the perma-crisis at the Met.”
Tugendhat has repeatedly referred to anti-Israel marches and said “there was inaction in the face of blatant criminality” during them.
He says that as security minister “I constantly had to encourage the police to make arrests on the day as crimes were being committed, rather than waiting until after the protest had finished” during pro-Palestinian marches.
Tugendhat: Keir Starmer failed the country during recent disorder
In a marked contrast from shadow cabinet messaging during the recent riots in England and Northern Ireland, Conservative leadership hopeful Tom Tugendhat has accused the prime minister of failing the country in the last two weeks.
He said:
I want to consider the issue of leadership. This has been the government’s first real test, and the prime minister fell short when we needed a strong government. We got a party in the mindset of opposition. We needed a leader. We got a lawyer waiting for the case to reach court.
These are early days for the government, and government isn’t easy, but government isn’t a game either. It is more than press releases and retweets, and you can’t be wise with hindsight, something Labour mastered in opposition. You have to be determined and aware throughout. You have to be ready to do the job from day one, public order is too precious, too essential to all of us to be taken for granted.
Tugendhat has gone on to criticise Starmer for not chairing daily Cobra meetings with the police and army from day one. A prime minister not convening or attending Cobra meetings is tricky ground for the Conservatives.
He says that Jess Phillips should have been sacked, and “the riots could and should have been stopped earlier.”
Farage's amplification of fake news 'deeply irresponsible and dangerous' - Tugendhat
Tom Tugendhat has said Nigel Farage has 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”.
He went on to criticise Jess Phillips’ response to scenes of journalists being threatened, calling it “a failure of leadership”. He says “it is not the only failure of leadership by Keir Starmer government over these last two weeks.”
Updated
Tom Tugendhat says we cannot use the “rays of sunshines” of people coming together to clear up after riots to “ignore those whose actions reflect the very worst of our society.”
He condemns “the racist thugs who attacked a mosque in Southport, the sectarian gang who burned down a Muslim-owned shop in Belfast, the mob who set fire to a hotel housing migrants in Rotherham, we need to ask ourselves how we got here and what we must do about it.”
He has now gone on to say “too often over the last two decades or more, we have avoided being brutally honest about the underlying social unrest across society.”
Shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat has opened by saying that “I want to get straight to the point. The disorder we have seen on our streets in the past two weeks is completely unacceptable. Every single perpetrator, every instigator, must be investigated, prosecuted and severely punished. And as a country, we have some serious soul searching ahead of us.”
Conservative leadership candidate and shadow security minister Tom Tugendhat has begun his speech. You can watch it here if you wish …
There is quite a bit of constituency work being mentioned on social media during recess by MPs, and at least one of them making me feel nostalgic for Edinburgh …
The rain didn’t stop a successful litter pick this morning in Pembroke Dock. Thank you to McDonald’s Pembroke Dock and Keep Wales Tidy for organising and for everyone who came out! pic.twitter.com/n3vetLr1M2
— Henry Tufnell MP (@TufnellHenry) August 13, 2024
A big thank you to @swpolice for all of the community outreach they do. It was great to chat to them about keeping communities safe this summer and building on our strong relationship. pic.twitter.com/DPydbnJk1d
— Anna McMorrin MP 🏴🏳️🌈 (@AnnaMcMorrin) August 13, 2024
Best seat on the bus! pic.twitter.com/YNbUlWygCd
— Scott Arthur MP (Edinburgh South West) 🌍🌈🌹 (@DrScottArthurMP) August 13, 2024
We are expecting Tom Tugendhat, who as well as being a candidate for the Conservative leadership is Rishi Sunak’s shadow security minister, to make a speech in a few minutes.
It is clearly part of his leadership campaign, but PA have billed it as “Tom Tugendhat MP will make a speech calling for a national conversation about the underlying causes of the riots, the breakdown of Britain’s social fabric and the rise of criminality on our streets.”
It is worth noting that during the violent disorder of the last two weeks, Conservative spokespersons and shadow ministers on the media round were broadly supportive of the government’s response to the crisis.
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”.
The three were killed by Valdo Calocane, who admitted manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility due to suffering from paranoid schizophrenia, and who was sentenced to indefinite detention in a high-security hospital.
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. That’s why I totally understand why they’ve accused the NHS of having blood on its hands.
For three grieving families, we are seeing the consequences of what happens when mental health services don’t do what they are legally required to do in terms of supervision of patients, provision of medicine and closer supervision of those who might be at risk of harming themselves or other people.
That’s why I’m not ever going to duck the scale of the challenge or the reality that we face today and we inherited at the election. We are going to take action right across the board, but particularly in mental health.
Whether that’s recruiting 8,000 more mental health staff to help cut the waiting list, doing more at the prevention end by putting mental health support in every primary and secondary school in the country, and walk-in hubs in every community.
And reforming the Mental Health Act in a way that gets the balance right between recognising there are people whose liberties are being deprived today, who could live safely in the community, but also recognising for others, there needs to be much better and closer, supervision, so that people like Valdo Calocane are not able to be on the streets causing risk or indeed fatalities to others.”
Posting a clip of his interview to social media, Streeting said “I will spare everyone ‘lessons must be learned’. Action is under way”.
I can’t imagine the unbearable grief that Grace, Barnaby and Ian’s family are going through today.
— Wes Streeting MP (@wesstreeting) August 13, 2024
Their deaths could have been prevented had the NHS been there when it should have been.
I will spare everyone ‘lessons must be learned’. Action is underway pic.twitter.com/ppaUBNAD1y
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.
This is extremely worrying. We need a speedy inquiry to clarify what is happening as this could mean many of the poorest are losing all support. @johnpringdns https://t.co/CyDQwqB4yb
— John McDonnell (@johnmcdonnellMP) August 13, 2024
McDonell was among seven Labour MPs who had the whip suspended in July for six months after he voted for an SNP amendment during the king’s speech debate.
Alex Davies-Jones, the minister for victims and violence against women and girls, has just posted a video of a visit to Tamworth, where in recent far-right led violent disorder a hotel housing asylum seekers was targeted.
In the video the Pontypridd MP tells residents “everything you’ve been through, it’s awful, but we want you to know we are here to support you and help you.”
One of the local residents in the video observes “in these sort of situations we realise the community spirit that comes after. It’s very much been in abundance, and everybody’s really pulled together.”
Another person in the clip says they have remained in contact with some of those who have been forced to move away from the hotel, saying they are “very scared and confused” by what has happened.
“It has left us heartbroken.”
— Ministry of Justice (@MoJGovUK) August 13, 2024
Victims & VAWG Minister @AlexDaviesJones visited Tamworth to meet local group Community Together, hearing first-hand the impact of recent devastating events and seeing how the town has come together. pic.twitter.com/TZDyHAD3Y4
Our community team are asking for your experiences of being affected by industrial action from GPs in England. You can find out how to get in touch with them here …
Tugendhat: Conservative party needs to 'stop being obsessed by Westminster' and focus on country
Tom Tugendhat is expected to speak later on as part of his campaign for the Conservative party leadership. He has just published a campaign video, and I must confess, reading the transcript, for the first few paragraphs you would be hard-pressed to differentiate this from the kind of speech Labour leader Keir Starmer was giving in opposition:
The choice now is not about how do we change the past. I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do about that. It’s how do we change the future. That is the choice that is now being asked of you, and all of us, actually, as members, as to how we decide to act.
Well, the choice is pretty stark, let’s be honest. It’s do we repeat the mistakes of the past? Do we continue to argue amongst ourselves to see factionalism and self-interest, or do we instead change? Do we end the broken promises and actually start delivering? Do we stop the division and start uniting?
Tugendhat did get round though to specifically addressing what this means for the Conservative party, which he said had been “the natural party of government” for 200 years “built on trusting and being trusted by the British people.”
He said the party needed to “start uniting, and not just uniting amongst Conservatives, but uniting across the country.”
He continued:
Let’s be clear, I’m a soldier, and I believe in being clear on what our mission is, and the mission of the Conservative party is pretty simple. It is to sustain and to select conservative voices across the United Kingdom.
We need to stop being obsessed by Westminster, and start being obsessed by the country. We need to remember that we are a party built from the ground up, not the top down. We need to remember that when we preach conservatism, you know what? It would be a good idea to practise it.
You can watch it here …
Our party needs to change. pic.twitter.com/nHZwP5oyml
— Tom Tugendhat (@TomTugendhat) August 13, 2024
Conservative leadership candidate Priti Patel has also commented on today’s economic news. She posted to social media to say:
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 are looking for any excuse to raise taxes, which will only damage jobs, growth and hit hardworking families and businesses hard.
Patel has also said that yesterday she spoke to Conservative members of the Senedd, adding “The Welsh Labour government has been a disaster on almost every issue. Our Conservative MSs play a crucial role in holding them to account. If I am elected leader, we will work together to be an effective opposition on both fronts.”
Brilliant to speak to Conservative Members of the Senedd yesterday.
— Priti Patel MP (@pritipatel) August 13, 2024
The Welsh Labour Government has been a disaster on almost every issue. Our Conservative MSs play a crucial role in holding them to account.
If I am elected leader, we will work together to be an effective… pic.twitter.com/LKgYNSL7as
Alex Hern’s TechScape newsletter this week looks at the limits of laws around social media. He writes:
It’s odd to feel sorry for an inanimate object, but I wonder if the Online Safety Act is getting sort of a rough deal, since it is barely in effect. The act, a mammoth piece of legislation with more than 200 separate clauses, passed in 2023, but the bulk of its changes will only have power once Ofcom completes a laborious process of consultation and code-of-conduct creation.
In the meantime, all the act offers are a handful of new criminal offences, including bans on cyberflashing and upskirting. Two of the new crimes have been given their first road test this week, after portions of the old malicious communications offence was replaced by the more specific threatening and false communications offences.
But what if everything had moved quicker, and Ofcom had been up and running? Would anything have changed?
Read more from Alex Hern here: Why Musk’s rabble-rousing shows the limits of social media laws
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, the latest figures show.
PA Media reports data released by Public Health Scotland shows 942 people waited longer than half a day – about 3.7% of total attendances at Scotland’s emergency departments in the week to 4 August.
Elsewhere, the proportion of patients seen within four hours remained at the same level as the previous week – 67.9%.
The SNP’s health secretary Neil Gray said: “We continue to see an improved position compared to recent weeks in A&E performance, with over two-thirds of people being seen in our emergency departments within four hours. Although we have the best performing core A&E departments in the UK, performance remains below the level we all wish to see.”
There was a word of caution, however, from Scottish Conservative health spokesperson Dr Sandesh Gulhane, who said one-third of patients waiting longer than normal has become the “dangerous and unacceptable norm”.
The government has told the families of the Nottingham attack victims it will slow down mental health care reforms in the wake of a damning report on the treatment that Valdo Calocane received in the years before the killings. Midlands correspondent Jessica Murray has more here …
Labour’s parliamentary under-secretary of state for Scotland, Kirsty McNeill, has also reacted to the economic news from the country today. In a statement the MP for Midlothian said:
Today’s figures are encouraging but there is still a lot of work to do and the UK government is going to deliver the change the country needs. Giving people support to join the workforce and the security they need to remain in fairly paid jobs is vital as we tackle poverty and grow the economy.
We’re banning exploitative zero-hours contracts, we’ve taken the first steps to make the national minimum wage a real living wage, and we’re planning JobCentre reform.
Labour market statistics have shown Scotland’s GDP grew by 0.3% in May, and 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. [See 10.23 BST]
This block initially erroneously said that Kirsty McNeill was secretary of state for Scotland. That is Ian Murray.
Updated
Rory Carroll is the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent
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.
The reinforcements, which are specially trained in public order, arrived amid a lull in rioting, with Belfast calm in recent days after torrid scenes last week.
The PSNI chief constable, Jon Boutcher, requested the deployment to relieve a force he said was “exhausted”. The Police Federation of Northern Ireland, which represents officers, said the force was at “breaking point”.
Four men appeared in court on Monday charged with riot-related offences, bringing the total who have been charged with offences to 29. Among them is an 11-year-old boy. Unlike in England and Wales there are no fast-track prosecutions.
Most of the disturbances have been in loyalist areas of Belfast and aimed at immigrants, refugees and Muslims. However on Saturday youths in a republican area of Derry targeted police with stones, fireworks and petrol bombs, injuring 10 officers.
“This was recreational rioting orchestrated probably by dissident republicans,” said Colum Eastwood, the Foyle MP and Social Democratic and Labour Party leader.
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, PA Media reports.
The SNP’s deputy first minister and economy secretary Kate Forbes said:
Today’s figures show the welcome news that payrolled employment and median monthly pay are at record highs. However, many households and businesses are still feeling the effects of harsh trading conditions and the global cost-of-living crisis.
That’s why we are prioritising action to tackle child poverty, grasp the opportunities of net zero and support growth within the restrictions of the devolution settlement.
Over the current financial year, we are investing more than £5bn to drive growth in the economy. We will continue to work with the UK government where we can, while encouraging them to support investment in Scotland’s economy and an end to spending cuts from Westminster.
The figures, published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), show that from April to June, the estimated unemployment rate in Scotland for people aged 16 and older was 4.4%. The employment rate was 73.4% and the inactivity rate was estimated to be at 23.1%.
The Scottish government says the figures represent the highest number of payrolled employees in Scotland since July 2014. The median monthly pay was estimated by HMRC to be £2,427 in July, the highest recorded yet.
Conservative leadership candidate James Cleverly has also seized on today’s economic news to suggest that things were going well for the economy under Rishi Sunak’s government, which was heavily defeated in July’s general election. Cleverly posted to social media to say:
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.
➡️ Inflation down
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) August 13, 2024
➡️ Employment up
➡️ Fastest growth in the G7
That was Labour’s real economic inheritance, but @RachelReevesMP still wants to raise your taxes. https://t.co/gKtsB3jAB5
It might be a little bit slow on the politics front, but economic news does not have a summer recess. Our economics editor Larry Elliott has an analysis piece today in which he says the jobs market uncertainty is causing a headache for Bank of England rate setters, while Julia Kollewe has the unwelcome news that grocery price inflation in Great Britain has risen for first time in 17 months.
Updated
Energy regulator Ofgem has approved a £3.4bn electricity “superhighway” between Scotland and England in the biggest single investment for electricity transmission infrastructure in Britain, PA Media reports.
The 500km (311-mile) project will stretch from Aberdeenshire to North Yorkshire and transport renewable energy.
The joint venture between Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks and National Grid is part of a push to modernise the electricity grid, and Ofgem said it will carry enough renewable electricity to power two million homes.
A lot of MPs are on holiday or working in their constituencies during summer recess, but a handful continue to be very vocal on social media, including Reform UK deputy leader Richard Tice. He has suggested this morning that the number of people crossing the Channel should constitute a “national emergency”.
Over 700 illegal chaps in one day, over 5,000 in just 5 weeks, and numerous deaths.
— Richard Tice MP 🇬🇧 (@TiceRichard) August 13, 2024
More boating over every day; it’s like a Summer Regatta…..
Some might say it’s a National emergency @UKLabour @Keir_Starmer https://t.co/BHbrEQC6fq
Tice has also repeated his demand that there should be arrests over violence involving police at Manchester airport several weeks ago. Two police officers are under criminal investigation for assault, and police officers and members of the public were injured in an incident that was widely seen on social media.
Good to hear early charge for this brutal crime, within 24 hours.
— Richard Tice MP 🇬🇧 (@TiceRichard) August 13, 2024
When will those chaps who brutally assaulted police officers at Manchester Airport be charged? It’s been 3 weeks……. https://t.co/tjRRSdvDKv
UK unemployment falls as wages growth hits lowest in two years
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.
Unemployment unexpectedly dropped to 4.2% from 4.4% in the three months to June from the previous three months, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
However, wage growth, excluding bonuses, was 5.4% year on year over the three months to June, slipping from 5.7% in the previous three months and represented the smallest increase since the period to July 2022, when it was 5.2%.
Adjusted for inflation, wages rose by 1.6%, meaning many workers will experience a continued improvement in their standard of living.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said: “Today’s figures show there is more to do in supporting people into employment because if you can work, you should work.
“This will be part of my budget later in the year where I will be making difficult decisions on spending, welfare and tax to fix the foundations of our economy so we can rebuild Britain and make every part of our country better off.”
Reeves will deliver her first budget on 30 October.
Read more here: UK unemployment falls as wages growth hits lowest in two years
You can also follow live coverage of reaction to those figures on our business live blog with my colleague Graeme Wearden:
As if to underline David Gauke’s point that the Conservative leadership candidates are yet to show their teeth in the contest, Kemi Badenoch has just merrily retweeted Mel Stride talking about today’s unemployment figures.
In his post, Stride said:
Figures out this morning show unemployment fell and employment rose in the second quarter of this year. More evidence that Labour’s claims of the ‘worst economic inheritance since the second world war’ are complete fantasy. They inherit an unemployment rate half what they left us in 2010.
Figures out this morning show unemployment fell and employment rose in the second quarter of this year. More evidence that @UKLabour’s claims of the ‘worst economic inheritance since WW2’ are complete fantasy. They inherit an unemployment rate half what they left us in 2010.
— Mel Stride (@MelJStride) August 13, 2024
Senior Tory: leadership candidates 'too frightened of party membership' to get to root cause of election defeat
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”.
In an interview on Times Radio, he told listeners “You want it to be a respectful leadership campaign. You don’t want lots of abuse. But the Conservative party suffered a massive defeat in July, its worst performance in its history, and there’s an awful lot of soul searching that needs to be done.
“And in the end, whoever wins this contest isn’t going to be able to lead on the basis of unity. You’re actually going to have to have a platform and demonstrate leadership, and hope to persuade people to fall in behind you. Appeals to unity aren’t going to cut it if you are not making progress in the opinion polls, if you are not looking like an alternative government.”
Kemi Badenoch, James Cleverly, Robert Jenrick, Priti Patel, Mel Stride and Tom Tugendhat are running to be leader.
Gauke was one of several MPs suspended from the party by then prime minister Boris Johnson in 2019 over his votes on Brexit issues. He told Times Radio he had now rejoined the party in order to have his say in the leadership contest.
He suggested that one element in the contest might be people seeking to emulate “a very successful model deployed in 2020 by Keir Starmer.”
Gauke said “[Starmer] ran as a continuity candidate. Then about a year after he won, changed strategy, demonstrated some leadership, was a ‘change’ leader trying to modernise his party, and that resulted in success.
“At the moment, you feel that all of the [Conservative leadership] candidates are too tentative to do that, that they’re too frightened of the party membership. Maybe thinking get through on the other side, and then who knows what you can do. But at the moment, by and large, they do feel as if they’re just sort of wanting to get there first and then we’ll do the modernisation afterwards.”
“The difficulty with that strategy is that you don’t have a mandate, and that people will cry betrayal, and that you might not have the authority you need to do what I think has to be a very big, very ambitious modernisation of the party.”
Welcome and opening summary …
Welcome to our rolling coverage of UK politics for Tuesday. Here are your headlines …
David Gauke has warned that Tory leadership candidates are “too frightened” of the party membership
The education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has warned of “massive” inequality in England’s education system, as students await this week’s A-level results
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
Labour MPs begin quitting X over “hate and disinformation”
Treasury pledges low-carbon investment relief to appease oil and gas industry
It is Martin Belam with you today. We are very becalmed in summer recess at the moment, so it might be quite a slow news day, although we are expecting a speech from Tom Tugendhat this afternoon. Please do email me if you spot typos, errors or omissions – martin.belam@theguardian.com.
