Markus Andrews

Brexit minister Lord Frost will declare that the “British Renaissance has begun” as the nation struggles with staffing issues linked to the departure from the European Union.He will tell the Tory party conference on Monday the “long bad dream” of EU membership is over, as he challenges Brussels to be more “ambitious” to solve separate issues over Northern Ireland.The Conservative peer’s speech will come as the UK continues to feel the effects of a fuel crisis and faces the prospect of shortages in the run up to Christmas due to a lack of HGV drivers.Boris Johnson appeared to admit that the issues are part of a “period of adjustment” after the departure from the EU.The prime minister said he would not “reach for the lever called uncontrolled immigration” to prevent a feared incineration of 120,000 pigs due to a shortage of abattoir and butchery workers.Lord Frost will use his speech in Manchester to look ahead to new opportunities presented by Brexit, such as new trade deals and a new immigration system.”All history, all experience, shows that democratic countries with free economies, which let people keep more of the money they have earned, make their own decisions, and manage their own lives, are not just richer but also happier and more admired by others,” he is expected to say.”That is where we need to take this country. The opportunities are huge. The long bad dream of our EU membership is over. The British renaissance has begun.”He will also reiterate a warning that the Northern Ireland Protocol he negotiated risks undermining the Good Friday Agreement and that the threshold for triggering Article 16 to effectively tear up parts of the deal has been met.The peer will tell Brussels to be more “ambitious” in their approach and warn that “tinkering at the edges” will not fix the fundamental problems with the post-Brexit deal on Northern Ireland.His speech will come after days of lengthy queues and petrol stations running dry.Pig farmers have also warned that up to 120,000 growing animals will have to be slaughtered and incinerated because of an acute shortage of butchery and abattoir workers.In an interview on Sunday, Mr Johnson said the “great hecatomb of pigs that you describe has not yet taken place, let’s see what happens”.He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that “what we can’t do is in all these sectors simply go back to the tired, failed, old model, reach for the lever called uncontrolled immigration, get people in, low wages”.”There will be a period of adjustment, but that is, I think, what we need to see,” he added.PA More

Tony and Cherie Blair avoided paying £312,000 in tax on the purchase of a London property by acquiring an offshore company, according to a trove of leaked documents. The former British prime minister and his wife bought the £6.45m townhouse on Harcourt Street, Marylebone, in 2017 as an office for her legal advisory firm Omnia and her foundation for women. The manner of the deal allowed the Blairs to avoid having to pay stamp duty, as the tax is not paid when the holding company of a property is acquired rather than the building directly. There is no suggestion the Blairs actively tried to avoid paying the tax and the transaction was not illegal.In a statement, the couple stressed they had purchased the property “in a normal way through reputable estate agents” and had “nothing whatever to do with the original company nor those behind it”. They said they had “never used offshore schemes either to hide transactions or avoid tax”. Details of the deal emerged as part of the Pandora Papers investigation by a consortium of some 600 journalists from dozens of global media outlets, including The Guardian and the BBC’s Panorama. The huge cache of leaked financial documents reveal the secret offshore financial affairs of 35 world leaders, more than 100 billionaires and a string of influential figures in the world of politics and business.According to the leaked documents, the four-floor building purchased by the Blairs was previously owned by an offshore company based in the British Virgin Islands. At the time of the deal the firm, named Romanstone International Limited, was partially owned by Zayed Rashid Al Zayani, Bahrain’s minister for industry, commerce and tourism. The Blairs bought the building by establishing a British company named Harcourt Ventures to acquire the shares in Romanstone, the leaked documents claim. They each held a 50 per cent individual stake in the firm which was also registered for VAT. Stamp duty is paid by anyone purchasing a commercial or residential property valued above £150,000 and £125,000 respectively. Ms Blair said the sellers had insisted the property was sold in this fashion. “It is not unusual for a commercial office building to be held in a corporate vehicle or for vendors of such property not to want to dispose of the property separately,” she added.The couple said that “the acquisition of a company comes with different tax consequences” and they “will of course be liable for capital gains tax on resale”. Both the Blairs and the al-Zayanis said they did not initially know about each other’s involvement in the deal. Mr Blair has previously been critical of tax loopholes. In his campaign for the Labour leadership in 1994, he said: “We must tackle abuse of the tax system. For those who can employ the right accountants, the tax system is a haven of scams, perks, City deals and profits.”The Blairs have amassed a multimillion-pound portfolio of properties since leaving Downing Street in 2007. They had already spent over £30m on 38 residential properties prior to buying the office on Harcourt Street, according to the Daily Mail. Robert Palmer, of Tax Justice UK, told the BBC’s Panorama programme of the deal: “It partly doesn’t look great because most people cannot do the same thing… even if what the Blairs did was perfectly legal, perfectly legitimate in the business world, it feels instinctively really unfair because they got access to an advantage, a potential advantage that the rest of us don’t have.”A number of other world leaders were also named in the Pandora Papers. Czech prime minister Andrej Babis was revealed to have injected €19m into several shell companies to buy a large property, known as Chateau Bigaud, in a hilltop village in Mougins, France. According to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), who were involved in the Pandora Papers investigation, Mr Babis did not disclose the shell companies and the chateau in the asset declarations he is obligated to file as a public official. He did not respond to requests for comment.The leaked documents also claim that the King of Jordan secretly spent more than £70m on a property empire in the UK and US. Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein is alleged to have used a network of secretly-owned firms in the British Virgin Islands to purchase 15 homes since coming to power in 1999, including properties in California and London. Lawyers for King Abdullah denied any wrongdoing and told the BBC that he had used his personal wealth to buy the properties. They added that it was common practice for wealthy individuals to purchase properties via offshore companies for security reasons. The documents behind the Pandora Papers investigation are drawn from financial services companies including the British Virgin Islands, Panama, Belize, Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates. More

Menopausal women treated with hormone replacement therapy would not have to pay for their prescriptions under a proposed law. HRT is available on prescription in England for £9.35 a time but Labour MP Carolyn Harris is hoping to abolish the charges, The Sunday Times reported. Ms Harris said that she had enough support for a private member’s bill to change legislation. The bill will receive its second reading this month. NHS prescriptions for HRT are already free in Scotland and Wales and the therapy is used to top up levels of womens’ oestrogen and progesterone hormones during menopause.Many of the 3.4m women aged between 50 and 64 in the UK will experience symptoms of the menopause, with side effects including heart palpitations, hot flushes, anxiety and depression. The average age for a woman to reach the menopause is 51, according to the NHS. Many women are prescribed hormone replacement therapy for five years or longer, and treatments can often add up to thousands of pounds, The Independent’has previously reported. Carolyn Harris MP said that she was “extremely confident” MPs would back her bill, adding: “We have the numbers. I have so much support from across the House of Commons and I am very confident we will get this bill passed.“Is this government really prepared to let women in England suffer if they can’t afford to treat the symptoms of their menopause, while women in Wales and Scotland get access to their medications for free? Talk about doing English women a disservice.”She told The Sunday Times: “There are so many people out there who are not prepared for this and they don’t imagine it’s going to be as awful as it is.”The bill will go before MPs on 29 October/A Department of Health source said: “If we make HRT free for everyone who wants it, where does that stop, especially given that a large number of women on HRT get free prescriptions anyway. “We think the problem is more complex – for example, doctors not recognising the impact on women during the perimenopause.”A spokesperson for the Department of Health said: “The menopause affects half our population and is a huge concern to women across the country. The impact can be very difficult to live with and it’s crucial this is taken seriously and women get the support they need. “We’re deeply committed to ensuring those who want access to HRT get it and are taking immediate steps to drive women’s health to the top of the agenda through the first government-led women’s health strategy for England.” More

Boris Johnson has told business leaders that avoiding Christmas food shortages is their responsibility, claiming it is not the government’s job to “fix” supply problems.As the Conservative party conference opened, the prime minister admitted to having known for months that the haulage industry was in trouble – and, strikingly, admitted that the problems may continue into the festive season.But, when asked if more emergency visas would be issued in order to mitigate the situation, he turned the tables on the industries involved, arguing it was “fundamentally up to them to work out the way ahead”.“In the end, those businesses, those industries, are the best solvers of their own supply-chain issues – government can’t step in and fix every bit of the supply chain,” Mr Johnson told broadcasters.Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, underlined the message, claiming that the prime minister should escape blame even if people are unable to buy what they want at Christmas.“I don’t believe in a command-and-control economy, so I don’t believe the prime minister is responsible for what’s in the shops,” she insisted.Although Mr Johnson did not fully rule out further help – after the weekend U-turn that saw visas for HGV drivers extended – the prime minister’s stance is a blow to business groups, whose leaders are pleading for the government to step in.The British Chambers of Commerce said it was the government’s role to plug labour shortages, calling for visas to bring in EU workers to fill gaps in the care, hospitality, manufacturing and construction sectors.Calling for “clarity and a plan”, its director-general Shevaun Haviland said: “Let’s sit down now together and look at the other sectors where we know there are issues coming down the line.“Let’s try to get a plan in place for those, so we don’t get to another crisis point,” she told BBC Radio 4.Labour accused the prime minister of “taking the British people for fools” and said that shortages were not a price worth paying to secure the high-wage, high-skill economy everyone wants.“We won’t get there by keeping shelves empty and forecourts dry – and what we urgently need now are more HGV drivers,” said Bridget Phillipson, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury.“The shortfall of skilled workers we’re facing is a direct result of the Conservatives’ lack of planning and incompetence.”Alison Williams, a member of the Commons cross-party UK Trade and Business Commission and global head of data at DunnHumby, accused ministers of trying to “wash their hands” of the problems.“Countless businesses have told us about the problems caused by the government’s threadbare Brexit deal. It is an undeniable factor in the current supply crisis,” she said. Mr Johnson also sparked a row over the future of more than 100,000 pigs at risk of being slaughtered because a dearth of butchers has created a back-up on farms.“I hate to break it to you, but I am afraid our food-processing industry does involve the killing of a lot of animals,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, downplaying the problem.Nick Allen, chief executive of the British Meat Processors Association, described the potential cull as “heartbreaking”, adding: “It is an incredibly distressing situation to find yourself in.”The clashes came as ministers shifted their position, having initially denied any link between Brexit and the staff and supply shortages.Speaking in Manchester, Mr Johnson switched tack, calling the problems a “period of adjustment” that will deliver the higher wages that Leave voters wanted when they backed Britain’s exit from the EU.Mr Johnson was asked by Mr Marr whether he meant that “we, as a country, have to go through some bumps, some shortages, some queues on the way – and that, folks, is what you voted for”. The prime minister replied: “When people voted for change in 2016, and when people voted for change again in 2019, as they did, they voted for the end of a broken model of the UK economy that relied on low wages, and low skill, and chronic low productivity – and we’re moving away from that.”Mr Johnson was also accused of misrepresenting official data when claiming that “wages are finally going up for the low-paid”.It was pointed out that the Office for National Statistics had found that “wages are not keeping pace with inflation”, so that “in real terms, over the last three months, wages have gone down, not up”.Meanwhile, the Petrol Retailers Association warned that, while supply is now “plentiful” in the north, there are still major shortages in London and the southeast. More

Boris Johnson refuses to rule out future tax risesBoris Johnson has refused to rule out raising taxes again following a controversial increase in National Insurance to pay for changes to social care.At the Conservative Party conference in Manchester, the prime minister dodged a question on whether his party would rise again. He said that there was “no fiercer and more zealous opponent of unnecessary tax rises” than him, but stopped short at pledging not to break his 2019 manifesto promise not to raise taxes again as the UK recovers from the pandemic. Meanwhile, Conservative Party chairman Oliver Dowden criticised what he termed the “woke aggression” of the Labour Party, which he claimed had led to many voters switching to the Tories.Mr Dowden said that Labour had “woke running through it like a stick of Brighton rock”.“Previous generations of Labour leaders, activists and voters would look in dismay at what Labour has become,” he said.Mr Dowden added: “If you want to know why Labour lost the last general election so badly, it’s because so many of the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of people like [my grandfather] in communities up and down the country believe that Labour has turned its back on them.”Show latest update

1633285701Thank you for following The Independent’s live UK politics coverage. Joanna Taylor3 October 2021 19:281633285423Sarah Everard: All police officers should be ‘re-vetted’ says former Met chief superintendentA former senior Metropolitan Police official has called for the urgent re-vetting of all serving police officers across the country in order to rebuild public trust and confidence in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder.The remarks come after serving police officer Wayne Couzens – described as a “monster” by the home secretary Priti Patel – was handed a whole life sentence earlier this week for the kidnap, rape and murder of 33-year-old Ms Everard.Parm Sandhu, ex-chief superintendent at the Met, said she had “real, serious concerns” about the vetting procedures and suggested there were other individuals with “questionable backgrounds” who should be looked at.The former official at the Met said “everybody” who now works in policing should be re-vetted. “Those people who got through the vetting procedure 20 years ago, 30 years ago, all of them,” she told Sky News.Read more: Joanna Taylor3 October 2021 19:231633284170Boris Johnson tells business leaders it is their responsibility to prevent Christmas food shortagesBoris Johnson has told business leaders that avoiding Christmas food shortages is their responsibility, claiming it is not the government’s job to “fix” supply problems.As the Conservative party conference opened, the prime minister admitted to having known for months that the haulage industry was in trouble – and, strikingly, admitted that may continue into the festive season.But, asked if more emergency visas will be issued to step up supplies, he turned the tables on industry, arguing it is “fundamentally up to them to work out the way ahead”.“In the end, those businesses, those industries, are the best solvers of their own supply chain issues – government can’t step in and fix every bit of the supply chain,” Mr Johnson told broadcasters.Read more: Joanna Taylor3 October 2021 19:021633283533Tories promise to ‘Build Back Safer’ after pandemic The Conservative party has promised to “Build Back Safer” from the pandemic by tackling violence against women and girls. “The tragic cases of Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman touched us all,” the party said in a statement after their annual conference. “As we Build Back Safer from the pandemic, tackling violence against women and girls is our priority.” The party pointed to its safer street fund for which £25 million has been allocated as evidence they are trying to tackle violence which is “increasingly … taking place in public spaces”. Police forces across England and Wales are among those who will receive a share of the fund. Joanna Taylor3 October 2021 18:521633282645Conservatives are ‘open and decent’, chairman says The Conservative party is “fundamentally decent”, its chairman has said. Oliver Dowden said that Tories are “moderate, pragmatic and open” after his first speech as party chairman. The former Culture Secretary assumed the role after September’s reshuffle which made him a minister without portfolio. During his speech, Mr Dowden strongly criticised the Labour party and accused them of what he called “woke aggression”. Joanna Taylor3 October 2021 18:371633281427Boris Johnson refuses public inquiry into Everard casePrime minister Boris Johnson has dodged calls for a public inquiry into the policing of violence against women in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard.Mr Johnson said he would “stop at nothing” to drive up the rate of successful prosecutions for rape.But he refused to promise to restore the 25 per cent cut from Ministry of Justice budgets under Conservative-led governments.Instead, he blamed the Crown Prosecution Service and police for failing to work well enough together on preparing cases for court.Read more: Joanna Taylor3 October 2021 18:171633281069Keir Starmer under fire for writing for The Sun Labour leader Keir Starmer has come under fire for writing an article in The Sun newspaper after he promised not to give interviews to the publication while campaigning in January last year. Sir Keir told a hustings in Liverpool that he “certainly won’t be giving any interviews to The Sun” which he said had “hurt” the city, in reference to its coverage of the Hillsborough Disaster. Labour MPs across Merseyside have criticised their leader for writing for the publication. Paula Barker, Labour MP for Liverpool Wavertree, said on Twitter: “I do not subscribe to the view that we need to have a relationship with the rag in order to win an election – this is 2021 not 1997. He does not do this in my name.” Steve Rotheram, Mayor of Liverpool City Region said: “The piece published today has unsurprisingly upset a lot of people across my region. The S*n is not and never will be welcome here.“I have been in touch with Keir to reiterate my position and express the disappointment that I and many others feel.”Joanna Taylor3 October 2021 18:111633278608Johnson pledges more ‘Safer Street Zones’ Boris Johnson has said that the Conservative party will invest in 300 ‘Safer Street Zones’ across the UK. This entails putting more police on the streets and investing in education and youth clubs like the HideOut Centre, which the prime minister visited during his trip to Manchester for the Tory party conference, he says. Joanna Taylor3 October 2021 17:301633277447Tories pledge six-month prison sentences for climate activists blocking roadsBoris Johnson’s government is set to crack down on climate change protests by bringing in six-month prison sentences for activists who block Britain’s motorways.Home secretary Priti Patel will use her Tory Party conference speech to warn that those who use “guerrilla tactics” to block highways could face unlimited fines as well as up to six months in jail.The move follows days of protests by the Insulate Britain group, which has staged sit-down demonstrations on a series of key arteries around London, including on the M25, M1 and M4.Read more: Joanna Taylor3 October 2021 17:101633276243Collapsing Northern Ireland Protocol would be ‘bizarre’, Alliance MP says Triggering Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which allows either the UK or the EU to radically intervene if “economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist” arise because of it, would be “bizarre”, an Alliance Party MP has said. Stephen Farry said: “Its triggering is not the magic bullet that its advocates think it is. It doesn’t scrap or remove the Protocol. Only after a period of further structured negotiations can any element of the Protocol even be suspended.”His comments come as the government warns the EU that it will not shy away from triggering Article 16 as grace periods come to a close.Learn more about Article 16: Joanna Taylor3 October 2021 16:50 More

The UK government is not responsible for making sure there are no shortages in shops at Christmas, a top cabinet minister has said.Speaking on the first day of Tory conference in Manchester Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, said the UK was a “free enterprise economy” and suggested the government was not in control.It comes after Labour leader Keir Starmer claimed the shortages hitting the UK were a “crisis made in Downing Street” which had been “created by this Prime Minister’s incompetence”.Economists blame the prime minister’s decision to leave the EU single market and end free movement for economic disruption hitting the UK.A shortage of lorry drivers has has caused knock-on supply problems for goods on the shelves and notably for fuel, which needs to be delivered by tanker.And there are concerns that shortages of some goods could become worse as Christmas looms.But Ms Truss, a staunch free-marketer, told an event on the fringes of the conference: “I don’t believe in a command and control economy, so I don’t believe the Prime Minister is responsible for what’s in the shops.”This is why we have a free enterprise economy, I’m sure that the goods will be delivered into our shops.”Labour Party chair Anneliese Dodds said the government had been “in power for over a decade”, adding :”Liz Truss would be better off accepting that Tory incompetence has fuelled this chaos and urging her colleagues to sort it out, rather than trying to disavow her own government’s ability to run the economy.”And Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooker said: “Businesses, drivers and trade bodies have been warning Boris Johnson for months this crisis would happen if urgent action was not taken. Instead of listening and acting, he put his fingers in his ears and hoped the problem would magically go away. “Liz Truss is fooling nobody with these comments. We should have had a new visa scheme in place weeks ago and readied the army much sooner. Boris Johnson owes the British people an apology. With the county literally running on vapours, basic competence is in short supply.”Ms Truss claimed the economy had “under-invested in capital” because there was “a supply of relatively affordable workers to do jobs in this country”.She added: “People said free movement of people wasn’t depressing wages. That clearly isn’t true and we’ve seen the results.”The foreign secretary who was recently promoted from her previous job as international trade secretary, also appeared to downplay hopes of a trade deal with the US – previously her primary objective.She said an agreement with Joe Biden’s administration was not the “be all and end all” and suggested the UK could focus on other countries. “I don’t agree with you that that’s the be all and end all of trade,” she told the same event on Sunday in Manchester, at the start of the Tories four-day conference. “My message to the Americans is ‘we’re ready when you are ready’ but there’s a whole world out there, there are lots of fast-growing parts of the world who want to do business with Britain and there’s a full pipeline of trade deals we are negotiating.” The previous US president, Donald Trump, was understood to be more positive about a trade deal with the UK than his successor Mr Biden. In her main conference speech to the floor of conference, Ms Truss suggested wealthy and eco-friendly countries are less likely to harbour terrorists.”The freer a country is, the wealthier it is, the more secure it is, the greener it is,” she said”It is less likely to harbour terrorists and radical fundamentalists, it is less likely to have huge migration outflows, and less likely to go to war.” More

Boris Johnson’s government is set to crack down on climate change protests by bringing in six-month prison sentences for activists who block Britain’s motorways.Home secretary Priti Patel will use her Tory Party conference speech to warn that those who use “guerrilla tactics” to block highways could face unlimited fines as well as up to six months in jail.The move follows days of protests by the Insulate Britain group, which has staged sit-down demonstrations on a series of key arteries around London, including on the M25, M1 and M4.The activist group responded to the “threat” of tougher powers by saying they were not scared of going to prison – vowing to continue their disruptive protests on the roads.“Unfortunately the fear of losing British society as we know it is much greater than the punishments being threatened by our government,” an Insulate Britain spokesperson told The Independent.“We have a responsibility to the next generation to keep going until we get a meaningful statement from the government that we can trust,” the spokesperson added – urging Mr Johnson to “get on” with a plan for decarbonisation of the economy.Civil liberties campaigners condemned the idea of tougher action against protesters. “Protest is not a gift from the state – it is a fundamental right,” Grey Collier, advocacy director at Liberty, told The Independent.Collier added: “The policing bill is an attack on the rights of everyone who has a cause they believe in, from climate activists to grieving families looking for answers and justice. The government should be supporting such a core pillar of our democracy, not shutting it down.”On Saturday the government obtained a fresh injunction banning the group from obstructing traffic and access to motorways and major A roads in and around the capital.The new tougher powers set to be announced by Patel next week are expected to be included in the Police, Crime, Courts and Sentencing Bill currently going through parliament.Police are also to be given the powers to stop and search activists for “lock-on” equipment used to prevent them from being moved.Ministers argue that the current offence of obstructing the highway, which carries a maximum fine of £1,000, does not reflect the seriousness of the disruption such actions cause.Ahead of her conference speech, Ms Patel said: “The right to protest is a fundamental principle of our democracy but we will not tolerate guerrilla tactics that obstruct people going about their day-to-day business.”Mr Johnson said: “This government will always stand on the side of the law-abiding majority and ensure the toughest penalties possible for criminals who deliberately bring major roads to a standstill.”The prime minister added: “We will give the police the powers they need to stop their reckless and selfish behaviour. The right to protest is sacrosanct – but there is no right to inflict chaos and misery on people trying to go about their lives.”Extinction Rebellion activists blocked entrances to a private airport in Hampshire in protest against emissions from private jets on Saturday.A stretch limousine was parked at the gates to Farnborough Airport as part of the direct action. “Extinction Rebellion is also demanding the government stops private flights now,” said a spokesperson.A spokeswoman for Farnborough Airport said it remained fully operational despite the protest. More

Andy Burnham has given Keir Starmer his backing and denied he was laying the groundwork for a leadership bid after reports suggested allies of the Greater Manchester mayor had given the Labour leader 12 months to turn his party’s electoral fortunes around. Mr Burnham has faced criticism from figures within the party amid accusations that he has been “on manoeuvres” in case a leadership race should emerge.But asked on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show whether he supported the statement “Keir Starmer is doing a good job and I, under no circumstances, am going after his job”, Mr Burnham replied: “I will agree with that.”The former health secretary also denied reports in a Sunday newspaper that his team had started the clock on a leadership bid, with Sir Keir apparently given a year to prove he can beat the Tories at the next general election.The Mail on Sunday claimed Sir Keir was under pressure to go “three or four points” ahead of Boris Johnson by this time next year.Responding to those claims, Mr Burnham said: “Anyone who calls themselves an ally of mine and is saying that isn’t an ally of mine because that is patently untrue.“I have never said that to anybody, in fact I have committed to serve a full second term as mayor of Greater Manchester. “And actually, if you look back at what I said in Brighton last week, I made very strongly supportive statements about Keir. “I think Keir’s speech gave us a real alternative to the prime minister.”Mr Burnham has previously insisted that he was committed to serving a full, second term as mayor until May 2024 before any return to Westminster.Labour has been stubbornly trailing the Conservatives in recent opinion polls, and notably failed to secure a bounce following the party’s conference.An Opinium poll for The Observer carried outfrom 29 September to 1 October put the Conservatives on 39 per cent, with Labour on 35 per cent and the Lib Dems on 8 per cent.Last week Mr Burnham took a swipe at Sir Keir for focusing on internal battles rather than taking the fight to the Conservatives, saying he was “impatient” to hear a “convincing vision” from Labour about how it would improve the lives of people in the north. More