More changes to Starmer’s top team expected after Lammy appointed deputy PM: Live

Nigel Farage has said he mis-spoke when he said he bought a house in Clacton before the last election.

He told Sky News: “I should have said ‘we’. All right? My partner bought it, so what?”

He said it was “her money” and “her asset”.

“I own none of it. But I just happen to spend some time there.”

He added: “I should have rephrased it. I didn’t want … to put her in the public domain.”

Members at Reform UK’s conference have passed a motion that calls for the party’s immigration policy to be widened so asylum approvals made by previous Labour and Conservative governments would be re-examined.

Lancashire county council deputy leader councillor Simon Evans proposed the motion, which would see a review of immigration decisions on potential illegal migrants, where the police national computer and counter terror checks were bypassed.

He told the party’s conference in Birmingham that it could see Britain “saved”. It was passed unanimously by activists at the NEC.

Other motions were carried, including one that would see the party call for the repeal of the 2008 Climate Change Act.

The motion put forward by Doncaster councillor Rachel Reed said current legislation meant costs for billpayers which were “daylight robbery”.

The party also passed a motion by a similar margin on gender ideology and protecting single-sex spaces. It would call for the removal of “gender ideology from public organisations”.

The Reform UK leader said last year he had bought a home in his Clacton constituency, but it was later reported that his partner had actually made the purchase.

Questions about the purchase have resurfaced after Angela Rayner resigned on Friday over underpaying stamp duty, triggering a major Cabinet reshuffle.

Separately, Mr Farage has also reportedly been using a private company to reduce how much tax he pays on his GB News media appearances and other work outside being an MP.

He has declared payments of more than £300,000 in the past year for hosting a show on the channel.

The Guardian reported that he diverts money earned from the show into his company, Thorn in the Side Ltd, meaning he paid only 25% corporation tax on profits rather than 40%.

The use of personal service companies is not illegal but has been criticised in recent years.

A spokesperson for Mr Farage told The Guardian: “Thorn in the Side Ltd has traded for 15 years and has a variety of interests. It renders the services of several contractors and is a properly functioning company.”

It is unclear whether Ms Rayner will take severance pay following her resignation, but Mr Jones said it would a “decision personally for her, as opposed to the Prime Minister”.

Labour has changed the system so that any ministers who leave office following a “serious breach” of the code will be denied a payout under rules expected to come into force next month.

From October, it will be for the Prime Minister to decide whether the rule-breaking in question meets threshold.

Speaking to Times Radio, Mr Jones said: “Just as a matter of fact, in this circumstance, that is a decision personally for Angela Rayner as opposed to for the Prime Minister, which is how that will work when our new rules become live next month.”

Lucy Connolly will appear at the Reform UK party conference in Birmingham.

The former childminder and wife of a Conservative councillor was jailed for stirring up racial hatred against asylum seekers in the aftermath of the Southport murders last year.

She will speak on the main stage of the conference in a special live recording of The Telegraph’s Planet Normal podcast with Allison Pearson and Liam Halligan, the newspaper confirmed.

The 42-year-old childminder was released from jail last month after receiving a 31 month sentence over a comment on social media following the fatal stabbing of three children in a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.

Members of the public have been temporarily banned from entering the Commons chamber after a hidden phone was found during a security sweep shortly before Prime Minister’s Questions.

Tourists and visitors will be unable to walk among the green benches “until further notice” while an investigation takes place, parliamentary authorities have said.

The ban also applies to the House of Lords chamber, but other areas of Parliament will remain open.

It comes after a mobile phone was discovered in the lower chamber, with media reports suggesting the device had been planted to play sex noises as a prank during PMQs.

Scotland Yard has launched a probe and said it believes the phone was “purposely” placed there “with the aim of causing disruption to business in the House”.

The Times reported that the phone had been hidden near the front bench to broadcast adult content in the middle of Sir Keir Starmer’s weekly showdown with Kemi Badenoch.

The shirts, which are flying off the shelves, are being sold for £40 – or particularly keen activists can buy two for £75.

For those who wanted something cheaper there were £15 caps or football terrace themed scarves to cheer on their top team.

Read the full article here:

This year’s Reform UK conference has all the hallmarks of many of the party’s other events that came before it. Bold promises, a heavily utilised bar that serves booze from 10am, expensive merchandise that members go wild for, and – of course – pyrotechnics.

But there was something different about this year’s conference. There was a palpable sense that Nigel Farage really could be Britain’s next prime minister.

Read the full analysis here from our political correspondent Millie Cooke:

Sources suggested Friday’s changes had given the Government a renewed sense of purpose, and the Prime Minister will now hope he can move on from a difficult week as he prepares for Labour’s party conference at the end of the month and the Budget in November.

Some Labour MPs have welcomed the changes, particularly praising the appointment of the “ruthless” Ms Mahmood as Home Secretary.

But several suggested to they had been rocked by Ms Rayner’s departure, saying they were “gutted” or “depressed” by the turn of events.

Sir Keir also faces the prospect of a party conference dominated by manoeuvring for the deputy leadership spot left vacant by Ms Rayner.

Few MPs were willing to discuss potential candidates for the contest late on Friday, suggesting it was too soon after the reshuffle.

But the election could prove tricky for the Prime Minister, with some already touting it as a factional battle and a referendum on his leadership.

The centrist Labour First group warned its supporters on Friday that “the left of the party will already be mobilising for this contest, seeking to reclaim influence and steer the party away from the strategy that won us a landslide victory in 2024”.