James Cleverly has topped the latest MPs’ vote in the Conservative leadership contest, in a surprise set of results that makes him the new favourite to replace Rishi Sunak. The Treasury minister James Murray has rejected calls to delay plans to add VAT to private school fees, saying the government needed to start raising funds as soon as possible in order to deliver on its educational ambitions for state schools. Twenty-five black, Asian and minority ethnic MPs have written to the home secretary telling her that the framing of Britain’s immigration legislation “cannot be uncoupled from racism and the exclusion of people of colour”. The future of Britain’s biggest road scheme, the Lower Thames Crossing, has been thrown into fresh uncertainty after ministers delayed the deadline for a decision on whether to go ahead by seven months. Greenpeace UK has welcomed the news that John Woodcock (Lord Walney) is no longer serving as the government’s independent adviser on political violence and disruption. (See 2.59pm.) In a statement the group’s co-executive director Areeba Hamid said: Lord Walney’s chief contribution as the government’s ‘anti-extremism’ adviser was to come up with a series of absurd proposals on how to criminalise peaceful protest. As our overcrowded prisons fill up with climate protesters, some facing longer terms than violent criminals, it’s clear that the last thing ministers need is more of the same advice from him. Political parties will be required to justify offering peerages under new rules being drafted by the government to overhaul the image of the House of Lords. Boris Johnson has been ridiculed for claiming that he had to embark on a controvesial, and expensive, refurbishment of the 11 Downing Street flat when he was PM because it “looked like a crack den”. His predecessor in the flat was Theresa May, and on social media various people have pointed out that she’s not the type to live like that. This is from Christian Calgie from the Express.
And this is from the Tory peer Daniel Finkelstein.
But, according to the LBC transcript, Johnson actually said: Frankly, once I pulled the carpets out of the flat in Number 11, which is where we lived, because Dylan was then in the stages of being — the whole thing was looking a bit like a crack den to be totally honest, and it needed to be refurbished. Johnson was referring to Dylan, his dog, being housetrained, and he seems to be admitting he personally made the flat a mess, by tearing out the carpets.