Good morning.
Betrayal, treachery and drama: combined together these elements make for great reality TV. They do not work quite as well in government.
The Conservative party has entered an election year with dizzying levels of discord and infighting. This week, Rishi Sunak was shrugging off the nasty effects of new polling when former minister Simon Clarke wrote an incendiary op-ed for the Daily Telegraph. On Wednesday, Clarke wrote Sunak’s “uninspiring leadership” is “the main obstacle to our recovery”, adding, with a particularly brutal flourish, that Sunak “does not get what Britain needs. And he is not listening to what the British people want.” The article could not be more damning: Sunak needs to go, Clarke argues, or else his party faces electoral “extinction”.
Clarke’s intervention did not have the desired effect, to say the least. The reaction ranged from bewilderment to barely concealed contempt. Ex-minister David Davis said Clarke was being “silly”, while former home secretary Priti Patel jabbed that he was “engaging in facile and divisive self-indulgence” that only helped their opponents. Tory minister Andrew Bowie reportedly said Clarke should “get a fucking grip” in a Tory WhatsApp group. Even Sunak’s biggest detractors like Liz Truss criticised Clarke’s inflammatory language. So, luckily for the prime minister, it looks as though Clarke is standing on an island all alone – for now.
Even though Clarke’s political assassination attempt misfired, it is hard to ignore the growing cracks appearing. I spoke with Guardian political correspondent Eleni Courea about the divisions in the Conservative party.
But first, the headlines.
Five big stories
Middle East | Thousands of people sheltering in hospitals in Khan Younis are now trapped after the Israeli army said it had “encircled” Gaza’s second largest city after two days of heavy fighting, in what officials have described as the last large ground assault in the three-month-old war.
Prisons | A prisoner who repeatedly self-harmed spent more than 800 days in segregation, according to a damning report that reveals that jails are using isolation to manage severe mental health needs. The inmate is one of dozens with severe psychological issues who have been held for months at a time in isolation.
Russia | Russia has accused Kyiv of downing a large military transport plane carrying Ukrainian prisoners of war, after a crash in the Belgorod region that killed everyone onboard. Ukraine has neither confirmed nor denied that it hit the plane.
Housing | The government wants to give British citizens higher priority for social housing in a controversial scheme that will be badged as “British homes for British workers”. Housing experts say it is likely to be either illegal or unworkable, or both.
Post Office | Kuldeep Kaur Atwal, a former post office operator, has come forward claiming she was told British Asian women were often pushed into theft as auditors urged her to confess to stealing £30,000 – a charge of which she was later cleared.
In depth: ‘The party is divided, demoralised and tearing themselves apart’
As the Tories continue to claw at each other, it will come as no surprise that the Labour party has been watching this slow motion political car crash with glee. During prime minister’s questions yesterday, Keir Starmer said that the dramatics were like “the longest episode of EastEnders ever put to film”, while shadow minister Lucy Powell compared the saga to an episode of The Traitors. But how deep do the divisions run, and will they spell the end for Rishi Sunak?
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An attempt was made
Clarke’s attack on Sunak was not entirely surprising: a key Truss ally, Clarke was booted out of cabinet by the prime minister the first chance he got. “There is no love lost between them,” Eleni says. Though many have come out to publicly condemn Clarke’s op-ed, there were indications in the article that it is part of a coordinated attempt by a small group to undermine and replace the prime minister. Clarke cited a poll in the Telegraph last week that was presented by Tory peer David Frost and funded by the Conservative Britain Alliance, a mystery organisation seemingly made up of Conservative donors, which was also angling for a replacement of the leader.
A former special adviser of Sunak’s, who quit last November after becoming dispirited with the direction the party was heading, helped commission the poll. The adviser also said in a statement that “the Conservatives are heading for the most almighty of defeats”: all of which suggests there is a concerted effort to push the prime minister out before the next election.
Despite this, Clarke’s article has been roundly criticised by members of his own party. Eleni reports that, in a particularly embarrassing turn of events, he has even been disinvited from the launch of a new free-market Conservative faction he had worked on alongside Liz Truss. “By and large, it has been really badly received,” Eleni adds. “There are some MPs who probably agree with him and think it would be great if they had a different leader but there’s very few people who actually think there’s any realistic prospect of doing that before the election.” The chaos engendered by four leadership races in two years has made the idea of another change absurd. A new leader would also likely fare even worse than Sunak is predicted to in the upcoming election, contrary to Clarke’s suggestion.
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The other divisions
Despite crashing the economy and being forced out of office by her own party after just six weeks, former prime minister Liz Truss is reportedly setting up yet another faction. Popular Conservatism (or PopCon if we need a snappier, more fun name – and I think we do) is planning to pressure Sunak into pushing the Conservative manifesto further to the right. The group has said that they are a “new movement aiming to restore democratic accountability to Britain” and deliver “popular” Tory policies.
“It’s extraordinary that she’s not really been dissuaded by her disastrous tenure. The fact that she’s started another group is an indication that Truss believes she was right and everything she did as prime minister [failed because] she was undermined by opponents and critics,” Eleni says.
PopCon will be the sixth group inside the Tory party trying to pressure the prime minister. The others, whose membership sometimes overlaps, consists of the European Research Group, New Conservatives, No Turning Back, Common Sense Group and the Northern Research Group. “The party is remarkably divided, demoralised and they are tearing themselves apart,” Eleni adds. It’s not common for a party which once had a reputation for being unified to be so publicly in disarray. “Polls aside, it just doesn’t help their chances,” Eleni adds.
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The public’s view
This level of infighting makes governing exceedingly difficult. “The division is not just an abstract thing. As we saw in the Rwanda vote, it takes up a lot of time trying to win people over and quash rebellions,” Eleni says – time that could be spent creating legislation and new policies.
None of this has played well with the public. The Conservatives are 27 points behind Labour, and Sunak’s approval rating is currently at -49, which, according to YouGov, is closely comparable to Boris Johnson’s rating right before he resigned. “We’ve had the same kind of dramatic Tory infighting for the past couple of years and the polls show that people are sick of this,” Eleni says.
What else we’ve been reading
Why are parents failing to vaccinate their children? In a perfect storm of Covid, mistrust and fake news, Andrew Gregory gives the background to the current measles crisis in the UK. Clare Longrigg, acting head of newsletters
How do you spot a liar? Zoe Williams spoke to a former FBI agent, a psychologist and a fraud investigator about how they detect deception. Nimo
In a struggle that has already cost one life, a community founded by those who fled slavery is fighting to save its way of life. Paloma de Dinechin reports from Tiningu, Brazil on the villagers trying to defend their precious communal water source from encroaching farmers. Clare
Sky high rents and house prices often force people to move to the suburbs once their children arrive. For New York magazine, Laura Fenton spoke to the parents that decided they were not going to leave the city once they had kids, choosing instead to stick with their one bedroom flats, foregoing privacy to keep their prime locations. Nimo
Before anyone was too fussed about endangered species, what would it have been like to have your own lion, or elephant? Emma Beddington glories in the outrageous, elegant and downright dangerous pets petted by the rich and famous of yesteryear, including Josephine Baker’s cheetah and Clara Bow’s koala. Clare
Sport
Football | Manchester City have been knocked off their financial perch by Real Madrid, with the Spanish club posting the highest revenues in the 2022-23 season. There was another surprise in the annual Deloitte Football Money League as Tottenham overtook Chelsea to become the richest club in London.
Football | A second-half equaliser from Fulham wasn’t enough to secure the team a place in the Carabao Cup final, with Liverpool winning 3-2 on aggregate, setting up a date with Chelsea at Wembley.
Ice hockey | Five ice hockey players have reportedly been told to surrender to police in Canada over allegations of sexual assault. The Globe and Mail said the unnamed players have been given an undisclosed deadline to surrender to police in London, Ontario.
The front pages
The Guardian leads with an exclusive: “Anger at PM’s ‘social homes for British workers’ plan”. The Telegraph reports “PM forced to rule out Army draft as Russian threat rises”, while the Times follows the same story with “UK ‘should have citizen army to see off Russia’”.
The i says “Post Office knew second IT system had ‘faults’ but prosecuted staff anyway”. The Mail reports on an alleged shake-up of Royal Mail under the headline “First class fiasco”.
The Financial Times leads with “France urges UK to plug multibillion pound gap in nuclear power projects”. Finally the Sun has a “Strictly exclusive” under the headline “Ellie’s secret dates with Bobby”.
Today in Focus
Why the UK needs to eliminate measles … again
In 2017, the World Health Organization declared that the UK had successfully eliminated measles from its shores. But the country has since lost that status and cases of the infectious disease are rising rapidly in some areas. Nicola Davis reports.
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
The European Union pumped out 8% less carbon dioxide from the fossil fuels it burned in 2023 than it did in 2022, according to analysis from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), pushing these emissions to their lowest level in 60 years.
More than half of the drop in emissions came from the use of cleaner electricity, the report found, after the EU built record levels of solar panels and wind turbines in 2023. The drop in emissions “should be celebrated”, said an analyst from Crea.
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Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
