Burnham has clear lead over other party leaders on who would make best PM, poll suggests – UK politics live

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Andy Burnham, right, visits the Alstom factory in Derby on Tuesday

Burnham has clear lead over all other main party leaders on who would make best PM, poll suggests

Yesterday More in Common published an opinion poll showing Labour four points ahead of Reform UK. YouGov later published a poll showing Labour and Reform UK both on 22%, and the Tories on 21%.

Some further YouGov polling published today may be a bit more significant. It is hard to win a UK election without a popular leader and the new figures show Andy Burnham well ahead of all the other main UK party leaders on the ‘who would be the best PM?’ measure. Keir Starmer did not do badly on this measure, but Burnham has eclipsed him easily.

Polling on which party leader would make best PM

The figures also suggest that support for Nigel Farage is falling. Earlier in the year he was ahead of Kemi Badenoch on this measure, but now she beats him by more than two to one. Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, and Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, have both seen their ratings fall since the start of this year, but in a head to head contest they both beat Farage, who is the most disliked of all the main party leaders.

In his write-up for YouGov, Dylan Difford has more detail on how the anti-Farage effect works. He says:

While just over half of Lib Dem and Green voters (52-53%) think Burnham would be a more capable PM than Badenoch (with 21% of Lib Dems instead backing Badenoch), this rises as much as 25 points (71-77%) when Burnham’s opponent is Farage.

Likewise, while Reform UK voters feel Badenoch would make a better PM than Burnham by a decisive margin of 52% to 6%, just 38% of Conservative voters see Farage as potentially being a better PM than Burnham, with 24% instead feeling the former Manchester mayor is more up to the job.

Additionally, when the scenario includes two leaders from the same bloc, significant proportions of voters are willing to ‘cross the floor’ to back the more centrist contender. For example, 61% of 2024 Lib Dems, alongside 44-45% of Labour and Green voters, back Badenoch over Farage, while Conservative and Reform UK voters prefer Burnham to Polanski by 41-44% to 2-3%.

Key events

Philp accuses French navy of firing pistol to intimidate him - as expert says shots were probably just routine training

Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has accused the French navy of firing live ammunition to stop him investigating what they are doing about small boats.

He also said he would be complaining about the incident to the French ambassador.

He issued a statement as a follow-up to a claim he first made on social media. (See 12.12pm.) He was on a boat filming an interview with a BBC journalist about three miles from the French coast when they heard 17 gunshots being fired from a French naval ship about 300m away. A French officer on the boat could be seen pointing a pistol towards the sea, but not in the direction of Philp’s boat.

The BBC report of the incident is here.

In his statement, Philp said:

It is extraordinary that the French navy will fire live rounds to defend their waters against a visiting British politician but cannot bear to do anything about stopping illegal Channel crossings.

If France showed people smugglers half the seriousness they showed me, the boats would stop. Instead, the French wave them through and pass them off to the British coastguard so it’s our problem.

I will be raising this incident with the French ambassador.

The French authorities have been contacted for a comment.

But, in an interview on Radio 4’s the World at One, Kevin Rowlands, a retired Royal Navy captain who is now journal editor at the RUSI thinktank, said that he thought it was unlikely that the French were deliberately trying to intimidate Philp.

He said that, if a naval vessel was doing an exercise with its main guns, it would have to do a notice to other seafarers. But that was not the case with “routine, small arms firing”, he said. That could just be sailors “catching up on their training”, and that was the sort of thing that happened “pretty regularly”.

Rowlands said, from the pictures he had seen, the handgun was aimed “in a safe direction”. And if it was in a safe direction, that would just be “pretty routine business”.

Rowlands said it might have been better if the French had left a larger distance between the vessels. But, if it had been intended as a warning, it should have started with a warning call, he said.

He went on:

And so, on the face of it, I don’t think this appears to be an incident where the French are actively trying to intimidate a British politician or or the BBC. That seems a little bit much, from what I’ve seen.

Chris Philp near a French naval ship from where shots were fired.

Last week charities complained that the world’s most vulnerable people would be put at risk by Andy Burnham’s decision to use the aid budget to pay for cheaper bus fares in England.

Now 100 NGO leaders have signed an open letter to Burnham setting out their case in more detail. They say:

Prime Minister, you have an opportunity to tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality and promote solidarity across marginalised communities both here in the UK and internationally. Your emphasis on reshaping our economic and political systems, and bringing greater power at local level to better address the needs of ordinary people, promises to take us in this direction. We welcome this.

However, your decision to reallocate £400m of the UK’s international climate finance to help fund a cap on bus fares in the UK risks pitting the needs of marginalised people in lower-income and climate vulnerable countries against those in the UK. Diverting resources away from quality grant funding for those who need it most leaves countries already trapped in unfair debt cycles with few choices but to borrow more, to address a climate crisis not of their making.

Rachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, has welcomed Andy Burnham’s plan for more localised, vocational education. She said:

I wholeheartedly agree with the direction of travel of these reforms. Local leaders should have a greater role in making sure young people have a line of sight to employment. I look forward to hearing more and working with the government to ensure we deliver an education system that works for every child, in every postcode. That means long-overdue attention paid to vocational routes alongside making sure every child, no matter their background, can choose quality academic paths.

Comments are not open here. But they are open on our Q&A with Polly Toynbee, who will be responding to questions from readers about Andy Burnham’s first week in power from 2pm.

You can read or join in here.

Michael Marra to stand in Scottish Labour leadership election

Scottish Labour MSP Michael Marra has announced he will run for the party’s leadership following the resignation of Anas Sarwar, the Press Association reports. It comes as the Scottish Labour party confirmed a new leader will be elected by 19 September. PA says:

Marra, the party’s finance spokesman, said the party had to change following successive election defeats.

He said he had the “skills, the experience and the character” to lead the party on the “road to recovery”.

He is the second person to announce their intention to run in the leadership contest.

Monica Lennon, who lost her seat at the May election, launched her leadership bid last week. She will be offered Sarwar’s Glasgow list seat after he stood down to take up a seat in the House of Lords and become a UK minister.

Marra, an MSP for the North East region, said the contest would be a “moment of renewal” for Scottish Labour.

He told the Daily Record: “The promise of our Scottish Labour party is that we build a better, more equal nation, and we leave it as a legacy for our children.

“That is a moral purpose. But too often it can become clouded in the day to day of our politics.

“In this moment of renewal for our party, we must restate that purpose. But we also have to listen. We have to learn. And we have to change.”

Nominations will officially open for two weeks from Monday 3 August, with party members and supporters being balloted from 28 August to 17 September before a leader is announced on 19 September.

Burnham has clear lead over all other main party leaders on who would make best PM, poll suggests

In his write-up for YouGov, Dylan Difford has more detail on how the anti-Farage effect works. He says:

As mentioned earlier, the government included almost 20 endorsements in its news release about its plan for more localised, vocational education. (See 9.16am.)

Someone at No 10 has been busy because the press office has now sent out quotes from 14 leading UK businesses backing the idea. The firms are: Barclays, Tesco, Amazon, the National Grid, JLR, Sainsbury’s, Babcock International, Lloyds Banking Group, Rolls-Royce, PwC UK, Siemens, Google, HSBC and the Royal Mail.

There is nothing more boring than a list of 14 business figures all saying much the same thing, but it is unusual to get so many CEO quotes backing a government initiative. As an example, this is what Sarah Armstrong, chief people officer at Rolls-Royce, said:

A strong pipeline of engaged and enthusiastic talent is vital to ensure that companies like Rolls-Royce can keep the UK at the forefront of technological development and advanced manufacturing. We welcome any effort to bring young people closer to industry and prepare them for the world of work, and support the ambitions of the government to work with industry and local leaders to help more young people leave school ready for a career.

The Green party is broadly positive about Andy Burnham’s plan for more localised, vocational education- but sceptical about whether he will really be able to get people to respect technical qualifications as much as university degrees. This is from the Green MP Hannah Spencer, who was a plumber before she was elected to parliament.

There is huge potential to create so many well paid, highly skilled and very rewarding jobs through the transition to a Green economy, with workers at the heart of it. We need people, of all ages, to train in sectors like renewable energy, home insulation and sustainable transport.

But for those of us with experience in the trades, we know it’s not what the qualifications are called that stop people training. It’s the fact that once we’re qualified we’re still looked down on and undervalued or seen as ‘less than’ because we didn’t go to university. Time will tell over whether Andy Burnham is seriously committed to tackling this.

Chris Philp accuses French warship of firing 'warning shots' near him as he was monitoring small boat crossings in Channel

It is not just the Russians firing on Brits in the English Channel; Chris Philp, the shadow home secretary, has accused a French warship of firing “warning shots” near him while he was on a boat in the Channel monitoring small boat crossings.

In a post on social media, he says:

On the channel today monitoring illegal migrant crossings … as I was being interviewed by the BBC just now a French warship approached close and fired 17 live rounds behind us. There was no notice or training exercise in place. Felt like warning shots or attempted intimidation

Badenoch apologises for Tories' failure to build enough prison places when in government

Aletha Adu

Aletha Adu is a Guardian political correspondent.

Back to the Kemi Badenoch press conference, and the Conservative leader made an uncharacteristic statement when speaking to journalists this morning; she apologised for the record of the last government.

It was quite fleeting, but it was definitely an apology. She said:

On the crisis in prison places, this has been a long time coming. We did some things, as I said [see 10.11am], it wasn’t enough, and I’m sorry about that.

But I can’t fix the past, but what I can do is come up with solutions for now, and for tomorrow.

The government says it needs to release prisoners early because otherwise it will run out of space in jails in England and Wales before the end of the year. Asked how she would address this problem, Badenoch mentioned three ideas.

First, she proposed renting prison places overseas.

This was something which we were doing in government. We had plans to rent prison places, just like Sweden has done with Estonia, so that we didn’t have to just release these sorts of violent criminals early. We could have put them in other countries.

She also called for more foreign prisoners to be deported, as well as saying the government needed “to build new prison places more quickly and cheaply”.

Badenoch also urged the public to support the building of new prisons.

If everybody says ‘no prison near me’, we won’t get these [prison places] built, so this is something the public can help with … We cannot say ‘no’ to every potential site for a prison.

In September around 6,000 offenders were set to be released from prison after serving a third of their sentence, rather than half, to ease overcrowding in prisons.

The changes were due to be phased in starting with prisoners serving sentences of less tan 575 days before slowly going up to prisoners who had been jailed for 12 years or more being eligible for early release next June.

Andy Burnham has paused this process (see 9.51am) but not yet said how he will change the plans.

Kemi Badenoch speaking at her press conference this morning.

Reform UK's Suella Braverman says Burnham right to want more focus on technical learning - but she doubts it will happen

Reform UK has issued its response to Andy Burnham’s proposal for more localised, vocational education. It is in the form of a statement from Suella Braverman, the former Tory home secretary who is now Reform’s education spokesperson. She is a bit more positive about it than her old party. (See 9.16am.) She says:

Reform UK has long argued that Britain needs a technical and vocational renaissance alongside a genuine skills revolution.

For too long, the philosopher has been valued more than the plumber. We welcome any effort to rebalance the scales, but we’ve been here before. Successive prime ministers have promised parity of esteem and failed to deliver.

It’s time to end the great university scam and ensure every child, regardless of their background, has the opportunity to thrive.

For his warm words, we do not expect the prime minister to deliver.

Braverman is right to say successive governments have promised to ensure that technical education gets parity of esteem with university education. Andrew McDonald and Megan McElroy have a good summary in their London Playbook briefing for Politico. They say:

Spot the difference: “A new ‘T-level’ system, which overhauls how technical education is taught and administered, aims to put the courses on an equal footing with academic work,” announced in Philip Hammond’s 2017 budget … “We need finally to do what we always promise we will — to elevate practical and technical qualifications, so that we recognize their immense value to society and to the individual,” Boris Johnson, 2019 … “Technical education is not given the respect it deserves but today, I am changing all of that, pulling one of the biggest levers we have to change the direction of our country,” Rishi Sunak in 2023 as he announced plans for a British baccalaureate … “While you will never hear me denigrate the aspiration to go to university, I don’t think the way we currently measure success in education — that ambition to get 50 per cent of kids to uni — I don’t think that’s right for our times,” Keir Starmer, 2025 … “That’s why today we’re putting technical education back where it belongs — not as a second thought, but as a first choice,” Andy Burnham, 2026.

In fact, this trend goes back way, way further. The first political speech I covered as a reporter, in 1990 (when I was on the South Wales Echo), was by Peter Walker, the then Welsh secretary. He was talking about the need for better technical education and he quoted from a select committee report saying Britain should copy what the Germans were doing in this area; it was a report written in the 19th century.

Burnham says 45% fall in small boat arrivals compared to this point last year suggests 'plan is working'

Andy Burnham has been criticised by Reform UK, and some figures at GB News, for not mentioning small boats during his first week in power. In his pooled TV clip this morning the interviewer, who has to ask questions on behalf of all UK broadcasters, posed the GB News question, asking Burnham about the almost 900 people who arrived on small boats in the past week.

Burnham said:

The home secretary [Shabana Mahmood] has brought forward a very rigorous plan in relation to this, and let’s remember, the numbers can fluctuate but overall boat crossings are down, down quite significantly year on year. So that does suggest that the plan is working.

Burnham also said he discussed small boats “repeatedly” during the Makerfield byelection campaign.

The public wants to see control being exerted, and while we’ve made progress, there is more to do, and I recognise that completely.

But the trend is down, and the number of people being removed is up, so the figures are pointing in a better direction. But there is much more to do.

According to recent Home Office figures, 13,007 arrivals have been recorded this year, the Press Association reports. This is 45% lower than the number recorded by this time last year and down 18% on the same period in 2024.

Burnham says he is committed to reducing number of Neet young people

Alan Milburn, the former Labour cabinet minister, is carrying out a government review intended to address the crisis of the growing number of Neets – young people not in education, employment or training. His first report, analysing the causes of the problem, was published in May to wide acclaim. He is due to publish a final report with recommendations in the autumn.

The plan announced by Andy Burnham today for more localised, technical education is not just a response to the Neets problem. But it overlaps with what Milburn is recommending, and in a statement Milburn said:

The changes the PM is announcing today are very welcome. They are a big step in the right direction and consistent with the findings of my review. A whole system reset is needed across health, welfare and labour market policy as well as in education and skills. I know the PM recognises this and my final report will outline the further changes that are needed.

Milburn was with Burnham on a visit to promote the plan in Derby this morning.

Speaking to the media this morning, Burnham said he was committed to getting Neet numbers down. He said:

Obviously, the trend is rising at the moment, so first thing I’ve got to do is to stop that rise.

It’s hard to say and put a firm date on it at the moment when you can say there are fewer than now, but certainly I am completely on a mission with relation to this. I cannot accept the situation where we have so many young people in their 20s on benefits. It’s just not right for them.

Burnham also said young people were not to blame for the fact they could not find work.

It would be wrong to blame the young people when we have an education system that doesn’t set them up properly, where some struggle to find opportunities at 16, where work experience and work placements aren’t there for them. We’ve got to put those building blocks in place, and then, in time, that number will come down.

And I will commit, in my time in office, to get the number of young people who are not in education, employment, and training down. I will commit to that. When precisely I can get there is a hard thing to say right now.

Education secretary Lucy Powell (right), PM Andy Burnham (second right) and Alan Milburn (third right) speaking with a former apprentice during a visit to Alstom Transport in Derby.

Badenoch urges Burnham to revoke Sentencing Act commencement order

At her press conference, Kemi Badenoch blamed Covid for the fact that the last Conservative government left the country short of prison places.

She said:

We know that the situation with prisons is challenging. When we were in government, we saw the challenge. We created 14,000 new prison places – it was nowhere near enough.

We had a prison-building target in our manifesto. Covid derailed that programme.

We’d sold some prisons to get the money to build new ones but the programme, as I said, was derailed.

Badenoch conceded that the Tories also had an early release scheme. But she said theirs was not like Labour’s.

We also had early release but not like this. We never had this category of prisoners being released. We never had killers, rapists, paedophiles on early release. That is what I want to stop.

She also said that Burnham could act “today” to stop the releases. She explained:

If Andy Burnham wants to prove that he is serious about this, he needs to revoke the commencement order [the regulation saying the Sentencing Act measures will come into force on 2 September]. That is a simple action that I’m asking for today.

It’s quite clear that the prime minister sees that this is a problem, but I don’t think he knows what to do about it.

We have done the work. We know that we need to revoke the commencement order immediately – he could do that today. That would show that he is really pausing it.

And then he needs to bring in emergency legislation by 2 September.

This can be done – we heard the government talk about bringing in emergency legislation for a bank holiday if we won the World Cup. They can do this and we will be here to help them facilitate that.

Kemi Badenoch speaking at her press conference.

Kemi Badenoch is holding her press conference now. She is speaking alongside women who are victims of rape and sexual assault and who are speaking about the trauma they are experiencing knowing that their attackers will be released early in the autumn.

Badenoch said that Andy Burnham’s announcement of a “pause” in the process was pointless, given that offenders were not due to be released until Septembe anyway.

She said the government should already have a plan to address the problem. This should not be a party political issue, she said.

Kayleigh Corbin, Jade Belgrove, Kemi Badenoch, Kieran Mullan, Sarah Wilson, Carol Higgins and Vicki Crawford at a press conference about the Sentencing Act.

Burnham says pause in early prisoner release scheme 'a real process' and he will do 'anything I can' to minimise risk

Andy Burnham has recorded a pooled TV interview this morning.

Asked about the Sentencing Act, and whether he was considering amending the legislation before it came into effect, Burnham just insisted that the pause in the process he announced last week was “real” and that further statements would be made in due course.

He said:

The pause is real, and it was one of the first things I did coming into office last week. So the September releases [are] on hold.

And … the review that I have instigated is also a real process. We are taking a very serious look at the situation.

Of course, this goes back a number of years when the previous government failed to put in place the prison places needed, so it is a challenging situation, and we shouldn’t actually be in this position as a country.

But we have to deal with the reality of where we are. But I will do anything I can to minimise risk to the public. And that is why I am looking again …

We’ll make further statements on this in due course.

Badenoch calls for emergency legislation to stop serious offenders being included in prisoner early release scheme

Kemi Badenoch is about to hold a press conference where she will be urging Andy Burnham to pass emergency legislation to stop serious offenders being included in the prisoner early release scheme due to start in the autumn. This is what the party said about the announcement in a news release overnight.

The Conservatives have been campaigning against the early release of violent and sexual offenders since Labour decided to do this in 2024 and we welcome the prime minister’s U-turn. But the prime minister’s review, or as he is now calling it a “brief pause”, has changed nothing in law – without legislation violent and sexual offenders will be released on 2 September. Given parliament is only scheduled to return on 1 September, Conservatives will back fast-tracked emergency legislation.

Sex offenders, including rapists and the evil rape gang perpetrators, should remain behind bars where they belong, but Labour want to let them back on the street. To make matters worse, many victims have not been properly informed about the release of their abusers.

The Conservatives warned this would happen when we opposed Labour’s Sentencing Act … We tabled amendments to the original Sentencing bill when it was in Parliament to exempt rapists, paedophiles, and other serious offenders from automatic early release. These Conservative amendments were blocked by Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Of course, Labour says it had to pass the Sentencing Act because, during the 14 years when the Tories were in power, they regularly passed laws imposing longer while at the same time refusing to build the extra prisons needed to house a growing jail population. As a result, when Rishi Sunak called the general election in 2024, the overcrowding crisis was so serious that the system was days away from collapse.

Burnham’s plan for more localised, technical education directly contradicts Labour’s Schools Act, Tories claim

Good morning. In his last speech to Labour’s annual conference as party leader, Keir Starmer called for a fundamental shift in the way education in England operates. While saying he would never “denigrate the aspiration to go to university”, he said that aiming to get 50% of pupils into university was wrong and that it was finally time to show equivalent respect to apprenticeships and technical education. “So, today I can announce we will scrap that [50%] target and replace it with a new ambition, that two-thirds of our children should go either to university or take a gold standard apprenticeship,” Starmer said, to loud applause.

So heaven knows what Starmer is thinking this morning as he hears his successor, Andy Burnham, announce his own plan for “a fundamental change to the education system” that sounds – well, very similar.

Here is our overnight story by Peter Walker and Josh Halliday.

Here is an extract from an article Burnham has written for the Times explaining his thinking. He says:

For too long, we’ve built an education system around the idea that there’s only one route to success: university, a degree, a desk. That opened doors for millions of people, and rightly so. But somewhere along the way, we sent another message too: that if your ambition was to do something that required more technical skills, somehow you were aiming lower.

I think that was one of the biggest mistakes this country has made. In the age of AI, practical and technical skills haven’t become less valuable — they’ve become more valuable than ever. Britain will need brilliant engineers, electricians and cybersecurity experts more than ever before.

Our job — our national task — is to rebuild those ladders of opportunity, rung by rung, step by step, together.

That’s why today we’re putting technical education back where it belongs — not as a second thought, but as a first choice. From the age of 14, we will be giving kids a new option in school: keeping core maths, English and science, but combining them with a real, hands-on technical education. This will include gaining work experience and creating connections with local employers.

And here is the No 10 news release, running to almost 4,000 words.

Life is not fair, and Starmerites will be wondering why Burnham deserves credit for a “change” story that overlaps quite a lot with a headline announcement from his predecessor. Partly it is because, by last autumn, the public had turned against Starmer; Burnham, by contrast, is getting a hearing. But there is also a key difference in what is being proposed. Burnham is linking the need for better vocational education in schools with his belief in localism, his core political philosophy. In his Times article he says:

These new [technical education] routes won’t be designed by Westminster. They’ll be shaped by the people and places they serve. Working with mayors, local leaders, employers and schools, we’ll identify the industries driving growth in local areas and make sure that local kids have a clear route into them.

It is a devolution policy as much as an education policy.

The government news release on this is so long in part because it contains almost 20 endorsements for the policy, from mayors, business groups, union leaders and others. But one organisation not backing it is the Conservative party. It is saying that Burnham’s plans contradict Labour’s Schools Act, which only became law in April.

Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, said:

We all want to see better opportunities for young people and a boost to technical education, but this announcement is all over the place. Labour have literally just legislated to strip schools of their freedom to choose what’s best for the pupils they’re teaching, yet now they imply it should be locally tailored. It’s not clear whether or not Labour intends to replace GCSEs, which would be a disaster. The focus should be on the knowledge rich curriculum that has helped the most deprived children.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.30am: Kemi Badenoch holds a press conference, where she will challenge Burnham to introduce emergency legislation to stop serious offenders being included in the prisoner early release scheme due to start in the autumn.

Morning: Burnham is on a visit in Derbyshire, where he is due to speak to the media.

Noon: Labour’s national executive committee meets, with Bridget Phillipson, appointed last night as the new party chair, attending.

2pm: Lucy Powell, the education secretary, is interviewed by Matt Chorley on Radio 5 Live.

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