Early evening summary
Britain faces a “defining choice” between a patriotic Labour party promising national renewal or “division and decline” under the “snake oil merchant” Nigel Farage, Keir Starmer has said in his speech to the Labour conference. In his analysis for the Guardian, Martin Kettle says the speech was “Starmer’s most effective and certainly his most interesting conference speech since becoming Labour leader five years ago”. But he also says:
Starmer will have felt that this year’s speech went well, but he should not delude himself into thinking it will make a lot of difference.
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
Lammy retracts claim that Farage 'flirted with Hitler Youth', saying he accepts Reform UK leader's denial
David Lammy, the deputy PM, has retracted a claim he made earlier about Nigel Farage being someone who “once flirted with Hitler Youth”.
Speaking earlier today to the BBC, in response to a question about whether Farage was racist, Lammy said:
This is calling out his policies, his policies that would line people up who have a right to be in this country, who might be Indian, who might be Nigerian, and send them home. It’s not British. It doesn’t respect our values …
I’m not going to play the man. I’m playing the ball, as our leader did.
I will leave it for the public to come to their own judgments about someone who once flirted with Hitler Youth when he was younger.
As PA Media reports, Lammy seemed to be referring to an apparent reference to allegations that emerged in 2013 that Farage sang Nazi songs as a schoolboy. Farage denied the allegations at the time, which stemmed from a 1981 letter reportedly written by his teacher claiming the schoolboy and others marched through a village “shouting Hitler Youth songs”.
Later Lammy said he accepted Farage has denied this.
