Swinney demands apology as he accuses Tories of lying about Scottish government's supposed Remembrance Sunday snub

As the National reports, John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, has hit back at the shadow Scottish secretary Harriet Cross after she accused the Scottish government of ignoring Remembrance Sunday on its social media account. (See 10.11am.)

Swinney’s official X account as first minister carried a post about Remembrance Sunday, that was reposted by the Scottish government’s account, and Swinney also featured it on his personal X account. Other Scottish government social media accounts featured posts about Remembrance Sunday.

Addressing Cross, Swinney said:

It is not credible to believe that you missed all of this. You are knowingly perpetrating a falsehood.

Frankly, I find it disgusting that you have sought to politicise an occasion where the whole country rightly comes together to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in defence of our freedoms.

You should withdraw this false claim now and apologise – not to me, but to the many veterans and their families.

The UK Sustainable Investment and Finance Association, which represents people in the finance sector committed to sustainable investment, has said that it will be “highly disappointing” if the government does water down its electric vehicle (EV) targets.

Commenting on our story today (see 9.26am), James Alexander, its CEO, said:

Rumours that the government is set to substantially slash the ZEV [zero emission vehicle] mandate will be highly disappointing to investors backing the rapid electrification of the UK’s road transport system.

The mandate has underpinned this flow of capital, as it has offered a clear sense of the size and trajectory of the future EV market.

But a third change to the framework in just three years could severely dent its credibility and put future allocation decisions at risk.

Burnham criticised for using consulting firm to help with 10-year plan

Andy Burnham has been criticised for hiring a controversial consultancy firm to help No 10 with work on his 10-year plan.

As the Sunday Times reported yesterday, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), one of the world’s biggest consultancy firms, has been asked to contribute. James Purnell, Burnham’s chief of staff, worked for BCG briefly after standing down as an MP in 2010.

No 10 says the support it is getting from BCG is “limited, short-term and focused on specific specialist advice”, and it has been reported that just one consultant is involved.

But the appointment is controversial because consultants from the company worked on plans being drawn up by the Trump administration for the post-conflict reconstruction of Gaza. BCG said that that work was unauthorised, and that the two partners involved in the project – dismissed by critics as a blueprint for ethnic cleansing – were later “exited from the firm”.

Commenting on the story, Neil O’Brien, the Conservative’s policy renewal spokesperson, said:

Amazing that Burnham is so lacking in vision that he has to ask management consultants what his own vision is

Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, said in a statement:

Aside from an obvious point that you don’t appoint companies like the Boston Consulting Group if you have any actual intention of ending 40 years of neoliberalism, Trump’s ‘Gaza Riviera’ blueprint is clear ethnic cleansing and the idea that Andy Burnham has invited these people into the heart of Downing Street shows contempt for the victims of the genocide.

Burnham says bravery of Russell Brand's victims should hasten improvements in way rape and sexual assault cases dealt with

Andy Burnham has said that the bravery shown by Russell Brand’s accusers should hasten efforts to improve the support that rape and sexual assault victims get from the criminal justice system.

Acknowledging that more needed to be done, Burnham said:

I’ll be honest and say I don’t think you ever can do enough to get the right support in place for victims to give them the confidence to come forward, because we know that still isn’t there in the way that it should be.

But I have already taken a decision to make sure there are rape and serious sexual offence teams in every police force by the end of next year. It was going to be 2029, I brought it forward, and I lean back on my work as mayor of Greater Manchester in this regard. There is so much that needs to be done. We have to bring it forward.

Obviously today, everybody will be thinking about the women who had the courage to come forward. Their bravery will, I believe, change the system more broadly, and we will be relentless in making whatever improvements we can.

But there’s no complacency here. There’s a lot more that needs to change.

Burnham describes reports that EV targets to be watered down as 'speculation'

Andy Burnham has described reports that the government will water down its electric vehicle (EV) targets as “speculation”.

Asked about the story on a visit to a hospital in Watford, Burnham said:

The consultation on the mandate for zero emission vehicles concluded only a fortnight ago, so obviously that is being looked at now. The range of responses to the consultation … so these reports are just that: they’re reports, they’re speculation and no decision has been made at this point.

(In Westminster, when stories get described as “speculation”, that normally means that they are true – but that people just aren’t ready to say so yet.)

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Downing Street has insisted that the government remains committed to the principle of the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate – while not denying today’s Guardian report saying interim targets to achieve it are set to be watered down. (See 9.26am.)

Asked about the story at the daily lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson said:

The government is fully behind the zero emission vehicle mandate, and no decisions have been taken yet.

We’re sticking to our commitment, phasing out new cars that run only on petrol or diesel by 2030, every new car and van will be zero emission by 2035, and our legally binding net zero targets. None of that is changing.

The consultation is about getting the details right, so the switch works for drivers, for car makers and for the thousands of workers whose jobs depend on it.

As the Guardian reports, a key meeting on the ZEV mandate is scheduled to take place on Wednesday. But it has been reported that the decision may not be announced this week. Asked if the announcement might be delayed to avoid embarrassing Andy Burnham when he attends the Cop climate conference this week, the spokesperson just repeated the point about how no decisions have yet been taken.

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Even Lib Dem and Green voters view Burnham as best PM, says poll showing he's ahead of all other party leader on this measure

Andy Burnham has a commanding lead over all the other main UK party leaders on polling on who would be the best PM, according to new figures from YouGov. In head to head polling, Burnham has a 12-point lead over Kemi Badenoch, and much bigger leads over Nigel Farage, Ed Davey and Zack Polanski.

Badenoch is ahead of all the other leaders apart from Burnham on this measure. Davey only beats Farage and Polanski. Polanski loses to all four other leaders featured in this polling, and Farage only beats one of them, Polanski, but only by a one-point margin.

As Dylan Difford reports in his write-up for YouGov, even Lib Dem and Green supporters think Burnham would be a better PM than Davey and Polanski respectively, by a significant margin. This was not the case when Keir Starmer was Labour leader and PM. Difford says:

Such is the scale of Burnham’s advantage over his fellow progressive leaders that those who backed the Greens in 2024 are divided 43% to 35% in his favour over whether he or Polanski would make the better PM, while 2024 Lib Dem voters actually back the Labour leader over Davey by a decisive margin of 58% to 17%.

In May, by contrast, Lib Dem voters favoured Davey over Starmer on this question by a 30 point margin (with Labour voters only favouring Starmer by 24 points), while Polanski’s lead among Green voters was 51 points.

This chart illustrates how polling on this measure has changed over the past year.

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How Restore Britain's Rupert Lowe is getting more views on X than most world leaders with support from Elon Musk

Last week Rupert Lowe, who leads Restore Britain, a small, far-right party that is even more hardline than Reform UK (the party Lowe represented when he became an MP in 2024), issued a statement saying the party would not accept any “foreign influence” in its affairs.

Lowe was referring in particular to engagement with lobbyists. But today the Financial Times is running a story pointing out that, in another respect, Lowe is the beneficiary of foreign influence to a very significant degree.

That is because his comments are getting a remarkable amount of attention on X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, who is a strong supporter of Lowe and his extremist, anti-migrant politics. In their story, Jim Pickard and Amy Borrett say that “only three world leaders have amassed more views on X than [Lowe] in the first 10 months of this year: Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, US president Donald Trump and Sanae Takaichi, the Japanese premier.”

While Lowe may be tempted to believe that his success on the platform is down to the wit and wisdom of his tweets, Pickard and Borrett point out that there is a simple explanation as to why his posts do so well. They report:

Some 43 per cent of Lowe’s 1.7bn views on X in the first 10 months of the year were from posts that were reposted or commented on by Musk.

Posts by Lowe that were quoted by Musk had almost 100 times the number of views of those where the X owner did not interact. Musk has 241m followers on X.

Being amplified to this extent by Musk does not just provide Restore Britain with useful publicity; as Michael Savage reported in a story over the summer, Lowe has also earned substantial sums from the platform because it pays people for content that goes viral.

Related: Rupert Lowe set to be paid as much for divisive posts on Elon Musk’s X as for being MP

Tories welcome reports that EV targets to be watered down

In an interview with Sky News, Julia Lopez, who is serving as interim shadow business secretary while Claire Coutinho is on maternity leave, said that the Conservatives would like to get rid of the ZEV [zero emission vehicle] mandate entirely. She said that she did not think there was enough consumer demand for electric vehicles, and that there were not enough charging points.

But she still welcomed reports that Labour will weaken the EV targets. “If Labour wants to be pragmatic and change some of those targets, that’s good,” she said.

Karin Smyth, a health minister, was doing a media round for the government this morning. Asked about reports that EV targets are going to be cut, she just stressed that “on this particular issue, no decisions have been made”.

But the Green party is not minded to wait before speaking out. In addition to comments on social media from Zack Polanski and Caroline Lucas, the party has now issued a statement from the Green MP Siân Berry saying:

The switch to EVs has the potential to create greater emissions savings than any other energy transition policy, while providing drivers with vehicles that can be significantly cheaper to run.

Yet again, this Labour government is heading in the wrong direction. Instead of pandering to corporate lobbying and stalling on the phase out of petrol and diesel vehicles, they should be boosting EV uptake through vehicle scrappage schemes and cheaper, more abundant and more reliable public charging infrastructure.

Burnham urged to think twice about Norwegian options as outcome for EU reset - by Norwegian PM

Andy Burnham says he wants the UK to move to a closer relationship with the EU after the next election and one option would be to join the single market. This would significantly boost trade with the EU, but it would involve Britain accepting free movement rules. Norway is in this position – not in the EU, but in the single market.

At one point before the 2016 Brexit referendum, even Nigel Farage would sometimes say that the Norway option would be a good choice for the UK.

But today Burnham is being advised to think twice before copying Norway – by the Norwegian PM.

In an interview with Tim Ross from Politico, Jonas Gahr Støre pointed out that being in the single market but not in the EU means accepting regulations decided by others. He said:

After Brexit, British friends called me and said, tell us about the Norwegian way of doing it. And I said, if you left the EU because there was too much Brussels, don’t take the Norwegian version. Because here, you know, basically we are taking most of their decisions, we implement them.

The Tories have criticised the Scottish government for posting a message on its X social media account about a Sikh festival at 11am yesterday – as the nation was observing the two-minute silence for Remembrance Sunday. Harriet Cross, the shadow Scottish secretary, said:

It is hard to see their decision to post about a Sikh festival at precisely 11am, at the very moment that people across the country were observing a two-minute silence to honour our war dead, as a coincidence.

There is no reason why they couldn’t have recognised both - not least out of respect to the 83,000 Sikhs killed fighting in both World Wars.

This failure to mark Remembrance Sunday shows a total disregard for the sacrifice our soldiers made and continue to make in defence of our country.

At 11am yesterday John Swinney, the Scottish first minister, was with other leaders in Edinburgh laying a wreath at a remembrance ceremony.

Government promises stronger modern slavery protections for goods sold in UK

Businesses which trade goods made with slave labour will have to withdraw them from sale, the government has said, revealing it will change the law to enforce the new ban. The Press Association reports:

Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, said he plans to introduce new legislation to introduce mandatory human rights due diligence for companies, which will require them to remove products made with forced labour and modern slavery.

He outlined the move in a letter to the Commons business committee, which has been calling for new business safeguards against modern slavery for nearly two years.

The new duty will apply to British businesses with a global turnover of more than £350m, and non-UK businesses with a UK-generated turnover of more than £350m.

Those who do not comply with the new duty may be forced to withdraw products from sale which have come from forced labour or modern slavery, Reynolds said.

The commitee has been calling for modern slavery protections to be strengthened since it heard evidence from Chinese-owned clothing company Shein in January 2025.

In that session, the firm repeatedly declined to confirm whether its products contained cotton sourced from China, including Xinjiang, where it is believed that the Uyghur minority are subject to forced labour.

Fiona Harvey and Jasper Jolly on impact of cutting EV targets

Here is an article by Fiona Harvey and Jasper Jolly published last month on what the consequences would be if the government were to relax its EV targets, as the Guardian today reports now seems inevitable. (See 9.26am.)

Related: U-turn on EV policy could stall UK’s take-up of EVs | Fiona Harvey and Jasper Jolly

And here is an extract.

The end goal of 2035 is likely to remain, but under a consultation that ended on Friday, the 2030 targets could be weakened to 70% or even as low as 50% of new cars. Taken with previous watering down of the policy to allow more sales of hybrid cars – which use both electric and combustion engines – that change would lead to emissions greater than burning all the gas in the Jackdaw field, according to the ECIU [Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit].

If the mandate were cut more drastically to require only 50% of sales to be EVs by 2030, this could mean an additional 147 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, which would equate to about 58% of the likely emissions from burning the oil produced by the Rosebank field.

Jess Ralston, an analyst at the ECIU, said weakening the target would not solve the problems for manufacturers, who are already facing intensified competition from China as increasing numbers of people opt for EVs. It would also not benefit the public because EVs can be £1,750 a year cheaper to run, and potentially more with oil prices rising.

Polanski says Labour has ‘shocking record’ on climate issues as ministers expected to cut EV targets for car industry

Good morning. Monday is often the busiest day of the week at Westminster but, with the Commons still enjoying a mini November recess, today is looking a bit quiet. Andy Burnham is on a visit to a hospital this morning and he wants to talk about a £40m programme in England to try to keep vulnerable patients out of hospital. The Department of Health and Social Care has the details here, and Andrew Gregory explains it all here.

Related: GPs to offer 300,000 patients extra support to ease winter strain on NHS

But Burnham may find he ends up taking more questions from the media on another Guardian story, Kiran Stacey’s scoop about the government being on course to water down electric vehicle (EV) targets.

Related: Labour expected to cut EV targets for UK’s car industry despite MPs’ protests

With Burnham attending the Cop climate crisis summit later this week, the revelations won’t boost Burnham’s credentials with environmentalists.

The final EV decision has not yet been taken, but the Greens are already outraged. These are from Zack Polanski, the Green party leader.

This week leaders meet for the UN climate summit.

The context? A summer of heat deaths. Scientists saying 2026 will be the hottest year ever.

Our Government’s contribution?

To bend over backwards to the car industry, and scrap plans for rapid electrification.

This Government is building up a shocking record of backsliding and bad decisions on climate issues.

At a time when we desperately need leadership, they bend to the will of polluters by slashing key rules and pushing ahead with fossil fuel extraction.

And this is from the former Green leader Caroline Lucas.

A truly terrible decision at a truly terrible time. The shift to electric vehicles is government’s single biggest decarbonisation policy. Cutting EV targets would send a message on eve of #COP31 that UK is no longer serious about #climate action.

Here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Andy Burnham is visiting a hospital in Hertfordshire.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

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