Good Tuesday morning. This is Annabelle Dickson in the Playbook hot seat, and Sam Blewett is on his summer tour in Plymouth.
DRIVING THE DAY
ALL ABOUT THE JOBS: Keir Starmer will today attempt to convince voters he has a plan to wean Britain off its addiction to overseas workers as the party seeks to stem the flow of blue-collar voters moving across to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. That message could well be overshadowed if the inauspicious milestone of 50,000 small boat migrant arrivals since Labour took office is officially reached today, as expected.
Working class pitch: The PM, who is working from Downing Street, will take a break from mulling weighty foreign affairs conundrums to do a round of regional newspaper interviews to make his pitch that he is investing in training the next generation of bricklayers, sparkies, carpenters and roofers to furnish Britain’s construction industry with homegrown skills.
Warming to a theme: Ministers already announced plans to establish technical excellence colleges in March — but they’re hoping to drum up local interest by announcing details of the 10 chosen locations for investment across the country today. Full list here. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson will also be speaking to regional media and LBC today. Skills Minister Jacqui Smith has the morning round for the government.
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But but but: The Conservatives are making great play this morning of Labour’s 50k Channel crossing landmark — conveniently ignoring the fact they didn’t exactly excel at stopping the boats when they were in power just over a year ago. Home Office Minister Matt Vickers is currently touring broadcast studios to keep the issue high up the agenda. He will no doubt have to field questions too about Conservative Leader Kemi Badenoch’s suggestion on Monday that migrants should be housed in “camps” away from local communities.
In numbers: The Express has helpfully calculated how long it has taken recent leaders to hit the 50k small boat migrant landmark. Starmer has reached it in 401 days, Rishi Sunak in 603 days and Boris Johnson in 1,066 days, the paper reckons.
STAT ATTACK: The health of Britain’s current labor market is also likely to be high on the news agenda this morning. The Office for National Statistics published its August Labour market statistics a moment ago. New welfare stats, including the number of Universal Credit claimants, will appear on the Department for Work and Pensions website at 9.30 a.m.
Digest with caution: The stats drop comes after the Office for National Statistics became the latest institution to come under political attack. Questions are being asked about the quality of Britain’s official labor market data, as the Bloomberg markets team noted in a blog post Monday. Quality data is pretty vital for understanding the impact of policy decisions like raising the minimum wage, increasing employer national insurance contributions and the rise in inactivity and sickness benefits, the Bloomberg team points out.
Over in Belfast: Rachel Reeves is likely to face questions about the jobs numbers when she speaks to regional media at around 10.45 a.m. this morning. The chancellor is in Northern Ireland promoting jobs in the country’s film industry. She will visit Studio Ulster this morning, before heading off on a defense visit.
Also touring this summer: Reeves’ shadow Mel Stride will visit a gin distillery on the Isle of Wight and head to the seaside town of Sandown.
WAR AND PEACE
COUNTING ON CARNEY: Starmer sought to shore up support for Ukraine from Canada in a call with PM Mark Carney, a readout from Downing Street suggested last night. The two men agreed a peace deal “must be built with Ukraine — not imposed upon it,” No. 10 added.
Just got to convince this guy: European leaders and Volodymyr Zelenskyy will get a chance to lobby Trump on Wednesday when German Chancellor Friedrich Merz holds an emergency virtual summit. The cast list includes Trump, European leaders and the Ukrainian president.
Trump’s (current) terms: In case you missed it, the U.S. president gave his latest thoughts on Monday on what might be in store at Friday’s “feel-out” Alaska summit with Vladimir Putin. Trump said he would “try to get back” some of Ukraine’s “oceanfront property” …. he claimed to “very severely” disagree with Zelenskyy’s handling of the conflict … and said the Ukrainian president will not be attending the meeting, though he will try to set up a separate trilateral summit with if he thinks a deal is possible post Putin chat.
He ain’t serious: Zelenskyy remains skeptical. He published a social media post last night citing intelligence which suggests Putin is “definitely not preparing for a ceasefire or an end to the war.” The Russians are actually “redeploying their troops and forces in ways that suggest preparations for new offensive operations.”
In agreement: Downing Street warned at Monday’s Lobby briefing Putin can’t be trusted “as far as you could throw him.”
However: The Telegraph reckons Zelenskyy told European leaders that while he would reject any settlement in which Ukraine gives up further territory, Russia could be allowed to retain some of the land it has taken.
Taking their Vance: Down in the Cotswolds anti-Vance protesters are gearing up to stage a “Vance Not Welcome” party today. They are off to the village of Charlbury to make their opposition to the U.S. VP known. “Stop Trump Coalition” spokesperson Zoe Gardner tells HuffPost her group will be “using our free speech to let him know he and his politics of hate are not welcome in the Cotswolds or any part of our country.” Villagers in Dean have started putting up protest placards along one of their lanes.
Spotted: An undeterred Vance was seen at Daylesford Farm — the high-end shop owned by the wife of Tory donor Anthony Bamford — on Monday, the Telegraph reports.
TIME TO INVESTIGATE: The killing of five journalists in a targeted airstrike in Gaza — including Anas Al Sharif, a prominent Al Jazeera reporter — gets widespread coverage in today’s papers amid international condemnation. Hundreds of mourners carried their bodies through the streets of Gaza City on Monday.
Investigate now: Starmer called for an independent investigation through his spokesman, who said the PM was “gravely concerned” about the killings. The U.N.’s human rights office reckons the strike was a breach of international law. Israel claims Sharif had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in Hamas” — something Sharif denied.
In revolt: Some EU civil servants are getting nervous about what they describe as an institutional crackdown on freedom of speech as they accuse EU institutions of “intimidation” toward officials protesting the European Commission’s Gaza policy, POLITICO’s Ben Munster reports.
A WORD FROM THE WISE: Former NATO boss George Robertson has called for a more honest conversation between national governments and voters as they prepare for massive hikes in defense spending. Robertson, who led the recent strategic defense review, told my colleagues Esther Webber and Victor Jack: “It will be painful, and it will be difficult, and it will require politicians to outline what the dangers and the risks actually are.” He warned that the British public were currently “unaware” of a lack of comprehensive air and missile defense and if they knew, “that might change opinions.”
POSTCARD FROM PLYMOUTH
A FLAG-WRAPPED CITY: Watching frigates pass through Plymouth Sound from the hilltop of Hoe Park, fluttering flags and a naval memorial standing tall behind, this looks exactly like the sort of place that might embrace a militaristic, Union Jack-waving strain of Starmerism. But it’s not quite that simple, Sam Blewett writes in. It never is, for this prime minister.
Robo subs: The deprived Devon city looks set to benefit handsomely from this Labour government — with increased defense spending and the strategic review stoking hopes that workers could return en masse to the dockyard. The ramp-up in building the submarines of the future is also expected to generate positive knock-on effects for the rest of the area. But will anybody ever thank Labour?
A military affair: You don’t have to be ex-military to be an MP in this sea of service personnel and veterans — but it helps. Plymouth Moor View, overlooking the city, was a major triumph for Labour activists in 2024: Former Marine Fred Thomas ejected Conservative former Army officer Johnny Mercer after an eventful nine years in the Commons. The MP covering the city center and the docklands, Minister for the Armed Forces Luke Pollard, hasn’t actually served himself but is a bit of a military buff, and his father was a submariner who still works as an engineer in the Devonport Dockyard.
Revival: Pollard’s seat looks a little safer from the surging Reform UK than Thomas’ constituency, but he knows Labour needs to get a move on and deliver. Pollard is away when Playbook’s mid-recess summer tour arrives, but the ever-enthusiastic minister is happy to pick up the phone to talk up his city (the museum featuring a woolly mammoth created from the same hair as Star Wars’ Chewbacca being one point of pride).
Looking up: At the last general election after years of Tory rule, Pollard claims a grand total of zero cranes could be seen over Plymouth. But he says: “By the time the next election comes round we’ll have massive construction taking place in the city center, we’ll have huge amounts of construction across the dockyards and across the industrial areas of the city so it will be the exact opposite.” All the same, Pollard is clear he and Thomas need to be deftly “articulating” what’s going on to their constituents.
Start the boats! There are plenty of ways that Britain increasing defense spending to 3.5 percent (and beyond, eventually) will benefit a military town raised on shipbuilding. Pollard is excited about the automated subs, designed in part to ward off Russia from the North Atlantic. He presents a vision, too, that is very much of the Labour right; one that sounds like Keir Starmer’s case for how his boost for the military at the expense of foreign aid should create shared prosperity.
Plymouth First: In Pollard’s mind, they need to make the case for Plymouth to get new investment “because of our role in national security, it’s not just because we’ve got high levels of deprivation … it’s because if we build the houses here in Plymouth we will have enough workers so I can get my nuclear submarines to sea and keep our country safe.”
But who’s buying it? Up at the Royal British Legion bar, no one seems that impressed. As one Falklands veteran puts it — while the barman dressed in a Union Jack shirt energetically bops between bingo customers — the massive jump in defense spending is solely “because of Trump.”
Trumped: Starmer may have signaled his die-hard support for all things military before the Republican’s reelection, but few were willing to give the PM credit for hiking defense spending. Playbook met precious few Trump supporters, and both at the Legion and elsewhere in the city people were happy to paint Starmer as behaving like a “little puppy” with the U.S. president rather than standing up to him, regardless of what that could achieve.
Attack attack attack: Among the attack lines Labour hopes will prove potent against its current right-wing nemesis are claims Nigel Farage is out of step with the West on Ukraine and is actually a Vladimir Putin sympathizer, based on decade-old, caveated comments that he “admire[s]” the Russian autocrat and more recent remarks suggesting the West provoked his assault on Kyiv.
Down in one: At Number 10 (North Road, Plymouth), Pete White holds court at the bar. The 63-year-old son of a military Labour diehard flatly calls these allegations “bullshit.” Over a crisp afternoon pint, he backs Farage as the only pol who would “shut these borders” to small boat arrivals, while praising authorized migration as “brilliant.” He then goes on to decry Starmer as having defended pedophile Jimmy Savile while chief prosecutor and breezily dismisses Labour ministers’ claims that Farage’s dislike of the Online Safety Bill makes him some sort of supporter of the dead child abuser. Both claims are well-rehearsed nonsense — but it’s Labour who last month decided to revive this grim style of attack.
Knives out for Nige: Pollard, for one, reckons taking it to Farage on Putin is the right thing to do, and wants to draw attention to the Reform chief’s desire for an insurance model for the NHS, with Pollard describing the “challenge for us to shine a light on what is hiding in plain sight.” Pollard’s hope is that, as the next election draws near, voters will start to cast a more critical eye at Reform. “People haven’t really looked at them in that way. In my view the usual rules do not apply to Reform,” Pollard says, a case clearly backed up by the man in Number 10 (not Downing Street).
A reprieve: Pollard also reckons Reform has been conspicuously absent from defense debates in the Commons and believes there’s more to probe Farage on here, though Reform officials argue they really are attracting military types into the fold and argue a “significant proportion” of their council whips are either ex-military or police. But they don’t seem that organized out west yet, because here they’ve yet to establish a base, like the one provided by strong results in local council elections elsewhere across the country.
Date for the diary: That’s another reason for the government to fear May 7 — the day Reform hopes to make major inroads in Wales — because places like Plymouth will also have a chance to elect representatives of Farage’s outfit in the local elections. Still, Pollard will hope that by the next time voters go to the polls nationally there will be enough cranes in the sky and boats in the dockyard to convince his people that it’s Labour that’s really on their side.
TODAY IN WESTMINSTER
LEAD BY EXAMPLE: Refugee charities have raised the alarm in an open letter, published in the Guardian, about what they describe as “pernicious and insidious currents” of racism around the wave of anti-migrant protests.
Warning shot to leaders: The letter issues a direct plea to political leaders who they say have a “responsibility to end the divisive politics, racist rhetoric and demonising language of the past.”
LOOKING FOR ANSWERS: Tory peer Robert Hayward will hold a virtual press huddle at 10 a.m. to set out the next steps in his battle for answers over the £9.6 million new Peers’ Entrance.
CRONYISM WATCH: Consultancy firm Public Digital, which has donated to Labour, won a £5 million contract for a project partly overseen by former Public Digital partner Emily Middleton, the Times’ Stefan Boscia reports. A donation by the firm was registered with the Electoral Commission as being equivalent to £100,000, and Middleton is now a director general at the DSIT.
LETTERS RECEIVED: The U.K.’s trade envoy to Turkey, Afzal Khan, is facing calls to resign after a visit to Northern Cyprus — a territory not officially recognized by the U.K. — to collect an honorary university doctorate, Guido Fawkes reports. Shadow Foreign Secretary Priti Patel called for Khan’s resignation, and Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Wendy Morton has written to FCDO Minister Stephen Doughty asking if he will be booted.
ANNOYING ORANGE: Reform’s Sarah Pochin put clear teal water between Reform UK and Trump by describing the American president as “possibly a bit of a chauvinist.” The Telegraph’s Amy Gibbons has a write-up. Speaking at the party’s Women for Reform presser, Nigel Farage’s only female MP said Reform was “not aligned” with Trump, though hastily declared the commander in chief “clearly does respect women.” Keep refreshing Truth Social for any bombshell blowback …
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO TALK ABOUT: A three-month-old digital tool for expectant mothers has helped over 85,000 women refer themselves to NHS maternity services online.
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT TO TALK ABOUT: Attacks on A&E nurses have increased by 91 percent over the last six years, with incidents often involving patients frustrated by wait times, according to a new report from the Royal College of Nursing. The analysis also finds nurses have been punched, spat at, pinned up against a wall, had a gun pointed at them and been threatened with acid. The story makes the Mail and Metro fronts.
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN MEETING ABOUT: Health Secretary Wes Streeting had a “positive” meeting with GMB NHS workers, GMB Public Services National Secretary Rachel Harrison told Playbook. The workers discussed issues including restorative pay, ambulance personnel retirement age and unsocial hours.
RIGHT TO ROAM: EU citizens waiting for the Home Office to rule on their pre-Brexit residency status should not be removed from the U.K. if they make a short return visit abroad, the Independent Monitoring Authority for Citizens’ Rights Agreements said. The Guardian has a write-up.
A PARTICULARLY DRY MEETING: The National Drought Group met to address the “nationally significant” water shortage across England. Five areas are officially in drought and six more are experiencing prolonged dry weather following the driest six months to July since 1976.
REPORTS OUT TODAY: School absence rates are falling and there are signs that severe absence is starting to plateau, according to Education Policy Institute analysis.
BEYOND THE M25
CHATTING TO CHINA: Talks between the U.S. and China appear to be going well. Trump announced overnight that he is extending the suspension of tariffs on China for another 90 days. It comes after the two countries set tariff levels at more than 100 percent on each other’s goods through much of April and early May. POLITICO has more.
Not so happy: More than 100 workers at the Vivergo Fuels Ltd plant near Hull, the U.K.’s largest bioethanol plant, have written directly to the prime minister, urging him to step in and save the industry and their jobs, the Yorkshire Post reports. POLITICO’s Caroline Hug visited Saltend earlier this month and reported on the political blow to Labour from the fallout.
STURGEON WATCH: Former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told ITV News that male rapists should “probably” lose the right to self-identify their gender. The former SNP leader also said she was partly to blame for the debate on gender recognition laws in Scotland losing “all sense of rationality.” The BBC has a write-up. The flurry of interviews are in anticipation of her upcoming memoir “Frankly” — but there’s a touch of confusion over whether it’s on sale yet.
MISTAKEN IDENTITY: Police are investigating online abuse faced by a group of Scouts after some Welsh villagers mistook their summer camping trip as an influx of illegal immigrants, the Telegraph reports. The incident comes just days after former Reform MP Rupert Lowe alerted the coastguard to potential Channel-crossing migrants … who turned out to be a charity rowing crew.
PREPARING THE CASE: Lawyers for French President Emmanuel Macron and wife Brigitte hired investigators to research U.S. podcaster Candace Owens as they prepared to sue her for defamation, the FT reports, leading to a docket of information which included her ties to French far-right personalities and her popularity in Russia.
IF IT WEREN’T FOR THOSE PESKY JELLYFISH: A swarm of jellyfish that entered a cooling system paralyzed four reactors at the Gravelines nuclear power plant, French firm EDF announced Monday. The company is currently carrying out diagnostics and necessary interventions to restart the plant safely, an EDF spokesperson told POLITICO.
POWER STRUGGLE: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico is trying to force out the current governor of the National Bank of Slovakia, Peter Kažimír, and install his current finance minister, Ladislav Kamenický, four people familiar with the matter told POLITICO. The struggle forms the backdrop to crucial negotiations this fall over how to reduce the second-worst budget deficit in the eurozone and avoid EU sanctions — now that’s what you call money problems.
IN MEMORIAM: Colombian senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay died in hospital two months after being shot at a campaign rally.
BIG IN EUROPE: Beijing is accused of subjecting the Uyghur ethnic group to forced labor and human rights abuses in China’s Xinjiang province. That’s why it’s eye-catching that dozens of new air cargo routes carrying thousands of tons of e-commerce and other goods from the region to Europe have opened in the past year, a new analysis of air freight data by the Washington advocacy group Uyghur Human Rights Project shared with POLITICO shows. The largest number of air freight flights arrived in the U.K.
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MEDIA ROUND
Skills Minister Jacqui Smith broadcast round: Times Radio (7.05 a.m.) … Sky News (7.15 a.m.) … LBC (7.50 a.m.) … Today (8.10 a.m.) … GMB (8.30 a.m.) … GB News (9.05 a.m.).
Shadow Crime Minister Matt Vickers broadcast round: Talk (7.20 a.m.) … Times Radio (7.45 a.m.) … GB News (8 a.m.) … Sky News (8.15 a.m.) … LBC News (8.50 a.m.).
Also on Good Morning Britain: Royal College of Nursing Chief Executive Nicola Ranger (8.15 a.m.).
Also on Times Radio Breakfast: Nuclear Industry Association CEO and former Labour MP Tom Greatrex (7.20 a.m.) … former NATO Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Richard Shirreff (8.20 a.m.) … Deputy Leader of Reform UK Richard Tice (8.30 a.m.) … Palestinian Ambassador to Denmark Manuel Hassassian (815 a.m.) … former Conservative Justice Secretary Alex Chalk and former Leader of the Scottish Labour Party Kezia Dugdale (9 a.m.).
TODAY’S FRONT PAGES
POLITICO UK: China’s new ‘Air Silk Road’ brings thousands of tons of goods from Xinjiang to Europe.
Daily Express: 50,000 migrant boat arrivals under Labour.
Daily Mail: A&E waits fuel 4,000 attacks on NHS staff a year.
Daily Mirror: None for the road.
Daily Star: Look who’s stuck in.
Financial Times: Trump opens door to Nvidia selling best AI chips to China.
The i Paper: Don’t trust Putin, Starmer warns Trump — as Zelensky cut out of crunch Ukraine summit.
Metro: 11 attacks a day on A&E nurses.
The Daily Telegraph: Kyiv ready to give up land for peace.
The Guardian: ‘The truth has died’: global fury as Israeli strike kills journalists.
The Independent: An attack on truth and freedom.
The Sun: To have & hold a grudge.
The Times: Trump: I will try to get Ukraine some land back.
LONDON CALLING
WESTMINSTER WEATHER: Hot hot hot. High 33C, low 17C.
COUGH COUGH: But be careful when enjoying the sun — City Hall has triggered a “high” air pollution alert in London, with the sunny weather is expected to create “high” ozone levels.
CHECKING THE CREDENTIALS: Former Tory MP Alexander Stafford has been using the X Grok AI tool to quantify his political leaning. He scored a right-leaning 78 out of 100.
NEW GIG: LBC’s Roxanna Wright is moving desks to produce Shelagh Fogarty’s weekday show.
COMING SOON: Political Scientist Philip Cowley‘s next book, the “The Smallest Room in the House,” a collection of 50 short essays on political oddities, is out Sept. 9.
WRITING PLAYBOOK WEDNESDAY MORNING: Andrew McDonald.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO: Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins … U.K. Ambassador to China Caroline Wilson … former Bournemouth East MP Tobias Ellwood … former Bolton West MP Chris Green … former Kilmarnock and Loudoun MP Alan Brown … former Totnes MP Anthony Mangnall … former French President François Hollande … former ITN Political Editor Michael Brunson.
PLAYBOOK COULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT: My editor Zoya Sheftalovich, diary reporter Bethany Dawson and producer Catherine Bouris.
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