Truss should be banned from ever running as Tory candidate again to show ‘we get it’, says former minister – UK politics live | Politics
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- June 5, 2025
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Truss should be banned from being allowed to run as Tory candidate again to show ‘we get it’, says former minister
Conor Burns, a fomer Tory minister who lost his seat at the election, has welcomed Mel Stride’s speech this morning (see 10.19am), but urged the party to go further – and rule out Liz Truss ever again being allowed to stand as a candidate for the Conservatives.
In a post on social media, he said:
It is long overdue for the Conservative Party to draw a line under the ClusterTruss. It was a period of shame in the Party’s noble history. With a lack of any self awareness, zero contrition and deranged conspiracy theories she has made it hard for the party to rebuild.
So depleted is the party that some of her most inept advocates now linger on the front bench. The Party should go one step further than today’s comments and make it clear that Truss will never again be an endorsed Conservative candidate for elected office.
In that act the country may see, at last, that we get it.
Burns is hardly neutral about Truss. While she was PM, he was sacked as a minister over a misconduct allegation which he strongly denied and for which he was subsequently cleared. He claimed that he had been stitched up because he had spoken favourably about one of Truss’s rivals.
Key events
The full text of Mel Stride’s speech this morning is now on the Conservative party’s website.
Truss should be banned from being allowed to run as Tory candidate again to show ‘we get it’, says former minister
Conor Burns, a fomer Tory minister who lost his seat at the election, has welcomed Mel Stride’s speech this morning (see 10.19am), but urged the party to go further – and rule out Liz Truss ever again being allowed to stand as a candidate for the Conservatives.
In a post on social media, he said:
It is long overdue for the Conservative Party to draw a line under the ClusterTruss. It was a period of shame in the Party’s noble history. With a lack of any self awareness, zero contrition and deranged conspiracy theories she has made it hard for the party to rebuild.
So depleted is the party that some of her most inept advocates now linger on the front bench. The Party should go one step further than today’s comments and make it clear that Truss will never again be an endorsed Conservative candidate for elected office.
In that act the country may see, at last, that we get it.
Burns is hardly neutral about Truss. While she was PM, he was sacked as a minister over a misconduct allegation which he strongly denied and for which he was subsequently cleared. He claimed that he had been stitched up because he had spoken favourably about one of Truss’s rivals.
Reform UK row as party chair labels new MP’s call for a burqa ban ‘dumb’
A row has broken out in Reform UK after its newest MP called on the prime minister to ban the burqa, with the party’s chair, Zia Yusuf, saying it was a “dumb” question given that was not party policy, Rowena Mason reports.
New European relaunches as New World, saying Brexit was ‘just beginning’ and toxic forces behind it now global
Remainers would argue that nothing good has come from Brexit, but they might agree that there is at least one exception: the New European, a weekly paper launched soon after the 2016 referendum to speak up for pro-Europeans, which has since won awards and thrived (no easy feat for a news publication these days). It says it is the fastest-growing politics and culture title in Britain.
And today it has announced that it is relaunching with a new title, the New World. In an article explaining why, Matt Kelly, its editor-in-chief, says this is not because the Brexit era is over; quite the opposite, he argues.
The ideology that powered Brexit didn’t die on the bus – it spread. Trump, Covid, QAnon, the collapse of trust in institutions and authoritative sources, the rise of Milei, the mutation of Modi, the TikTok-ification of public life, and the creeping algorithmic authoritarianism of Big Tech.
Brexit was the beginning: act one of a story that is now truly global – and grotesquely interconnected. From Washington to Budapest, New Delhi to Nairobi, Kyiv to El Salvador, what’s happening isn’t a fluke – it’s a pattern. A dangerous one …
We’re not rebranding because Brexit’s over – we’re rebranding because Brexit was just the beginning. The same toxic forces that drove it are now global: nationalism, disinformation, democratic backsliding. The New World reflects the bigger fight we’re in. We’re certainly not backing off the topic of Brexit – we’re going in harder.
Voters go to polls in Hamilton byelection Scotland
Rachel Keenan
Rachel Keenan is a Guardian reporter.
Candidates in the Holyrood by-election contest for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse byelection have cast their votes, after a brisk campaign following the death of the sitting MSP Christina McKelvie in March.
The Scottish National party candidate, Katy Loudon, posted a video on Instagram outside a polling station where she says “the stakes couldn’t be higher” due to the rise of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, which is also contesting the seat.
Davy Russell, the Scottish Labour candidate, posted a photograph of himself coming out of a polling station with the caption:
It was an honour to vote in the village I grew up in this morning. Polls are open for the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, so make your plan to vote and let’s put this community first!
The full list of candidates is:
Collette Bradley, Scottish Socialist party
Andy Brady, Scottish Family party
Ross Lambie, Reform UK
Katy Loudon, SNP
Janice MacKay, Ukip
Ann McGuinness, Scottish Greens
Aisha Mir, Scottish Liberal Democrats
Richard Nelson, Scottish Conservatives
Davy Russell, Scottish Labour
Marc Wilkinson, independent
Government claims latest figures ‘shatter myth’ VAT on fees would lead to many pupils leaving private schools
Richard Adams
Richard Adams is the Guardian’s education editor.
The 2025 school census, published by the Department for Education this morning, has reignited claims and counter-claims about the effects of adding VAT to private school fees and whether children would be moved out by their parents to save money.
The statistics for England were collected by the DfE in January, when 20% VAT was first added to fees, and show that the number of pupils in private schools dropped by 1.9% or 11,000, compared with the same time last year.
But it came as pupil numbers fell nationally by 60,000, because of a long-term fall in the birthrate. And the number of private schools operating in England went up by 35, according to the census.
A government spokesperson was quick to claim that private school rolls hadn’t been greatly affected by the tax.
Today’s figures shatter the myth that charging VAT on private education would trigger an exodus. The data reveals pupil numbers remain firmly within historical patterns seen for over 20 years.
The 1.9% decline in private school pupil numbers reflects the broader demographic trends and changes in the state sector, with almost no change in secondaries and a 1.3% reduction in state-funded primary school pupil numbers.
This manufactured crisis has failed to materialize. Ending tax breaks for private schools will raise £1.bn a year by 2029-30 to help fund public services, including supporting the 94% of children in state schools, to help ensure excellence everywhere for every child.
The Independent Schools Council, which represents over half of the fee-paying schools in England, responded, with Julie Robinson, the council’s chief executive, saying:
These new Department for Education statistics show that the drop in independent school numbers cannot be explained by the fall in overall pupil numbers.
The government’s own figures now show that, in England alone, 8,000 more students have left independent education than politicians had estimated. This outsized exodus should concern anyone who is interested in this tax on education as a revenue raiser.
There are some nice pictures from Keir Starmer’s visit to a school in Essex this morning. The captions don’t fully explain what was going on, but at one point he seems to have engaged in a particularly lively conversation with the young girl sitting next to him, including on the topic of teeth.
Starmer describes free school meals plan as ‘downpayment’ on child poverty, implying two-child cap to be changed
Keir Starmer has described the govenment’s decision to extend free school meals for pupils in England as a “statement of intent”, implying it will be followed by changes to the two-child benefit cap.
Speaking to broadcasters on a visit to a school in Essex where he was promoting the free school meals policy, he said:
This is a statement of intent. It’s something that we’ve been wanting to do for a long time. It’s the first time it’s ever been done …
I would see it as part of a wider package, because we’ve already done work on child care, on breakfast clubs, on school uniforms. So it’s about [giving children] the best possible start, but it’s also essentially a cost of living issue for their parents.
In a further answer, he described the policy three times as a “downpayment”. Asked if his use of the word “intent” meant he intended to life the two-child benefit cap, he replied:
I would say this is a downpayment on child poverty. We’ve got a taskforce that will come out with a strategy. I want to get to the root causes of child poverty. One of the greatest things the last Labour government did was to drive down child poverty. I’m determined we will do that.
Today is a downpayment on that, but it goes with breakfast clubs already being rolled out … But yes, it’s a downpayment on what I want to do in relation to child poverty.
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte to meet Starmer in London next week, No 10 says
Keir Starmer will host Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte in London next week, Downing Street has said.
Speaking at the morning lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said:
The two leaders have spoken a number of times and this will be the second time that Mr Rutte has visited the prime minister at Downing Street.
You can expect the prime minister to raise how we can ensure all allies meet their stated pledges in support of our collective defence, to keep people safe.
It is worth recognising the UK’s track record on spending and indeed our contribution to Nato, both in terms of our spending and our capabilities.
Rutte is pushing for Nato members to commit to spending 3.5% on the military, with a further 1.5% on defence-related measures.
Stride says says ONS’s problems with data collection ‘thoroughly reprehensible’
Q: Today the ONS today has apologised for getting inflation figures wrong. How can any chancellor govern without good data.
Stride said it was “thoroughly reprehensible” that the ONS cannot deliver accurate information in, for example, its labour market data. He said the ONS has admitted that its polling approach to getting information does not deliver good detail, beccause fewer people respond, and so sample sizes are lower. He said that was unacceptable, and that he was surprised this had been allowed to continue for as long as it has.
He said if he were still chair of the Treasury select committee, he would require the ONS to explain this.
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