We are going to leave this blog here for today; here’s a recap of what has been happening:

• Football fan Sir Keir Starmer has promised to improve access to football in schools and local clubs as he marked the legacy of both the men’s and women’s England squads.
• In its announcement today, the Government said it wanted to further expand access to sport in schools, including through an upcoming review of the curriculum, and to tackle barriers to children participating in sport in schools, such as costly PE kits.
• Downing Street declined to be drawn on whether Gareth Southgate deserved a knighthood after leading England to the final of Euro 2024.
• Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy promised that the Labour Government would be “far more Gareth Southgate, and far less Michael Gove“, saying: “At times, with the politics we’ve had, it’s felt very difficult for people to feel part of our national story. It’s firmly my intention that this Government will be different.”
• Lord Houchen, the Tory Mayor of Tees Valley, said the party should not “navel gaze for too long” before finding a new leader, suggesting it would “turn off the public even more”.
• The Health Secretary has warned he is “treading cautiously” in his decision to restrict puberty blockers amid “lots of fear and anxiety”.
• The new European Union relations minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds, was in Brussels to stress the Labour Government’s commitment to “resetting the relationship” with the bloc.
• Labour received more than twice the amount of donations than the Conservatives in the final week of the general election campaign, new figures from the Electoral Commission have shown.
• The population of England and Wales experienced the biggest annual increase in 75 years because of growth driven by immigration, new estimates suggest.

There is a phenomenon in electricity generation called “Black Start”. That is the, as yet thankfully, theoretical process by which the electricity grid can be refired following a total blackout.

It requires a generating site powerful enough to kickstart the grid and independent enough not to depend, for its own operating status, on grid power. In Scotland, the giant coal station at Longannet was once designated with this task. Nowadays we would rely on the massive pump storage hydro station at Cruachan to restore the light.

This is exactly what the UK economy needs at the moment. The ability to “Black Start”, to take the economy from the slough of despond and austerity into the sunlit uplands of renewed growth. On the basis of Rachel Reeves’s first speech as Chancellor last week, that is unlikely to happen any time soon.

Having pored over the books with these cheerful chaps from His Majesty’s Treasury, the new Chancellor delivered a sorrowful shake of her head and confided in us all that the country’s finances haven’t been so bad since just after Captain Mainwaring had the Walmington-on-Sea Home Guard on parade.

Keep reading here.

It may not last but, Britain, dismissed only yesterday as an irrelevancy after its isolationist vote to break links with 27 European countries eight years ago, now seems an oasis of stability. Meanwhile, a perplexed, argumentative European Union is not quite sure what it should do or even what it should be.

Academics and commentators have been declaring for a decade that the left in Europe was being replaced by an unstoppable rising tide of rightist populists full of hate against immigrants and Muslims but full of praise for Vladimir Putin.

The democratic left in Europe has had a bad 21st century so far. Yes, there are examples of left governments – usually shaky coalitions as in Germany, or arrangements with secessionist regional politicians as in Spain – but the glory days of 25 years ago when the left held power in 12 out of 15 EU member states are gone. The time when Bill Clinton joined Tony Blair, France’s Lionel Jospin, Germany’s Gerhard Schröder, Italy’s Massimo D’Alema to discuss “progressive governance” in a Florence palazzo seems from another era.

Yet a British politician – Sir Keir Starmer – who was unknown a decade ago, is now the star of the European left. Moreover, the United Kingdom, which became a global joke under its Brexit-era prime ministers, such as Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, now seems a haven of common-sense politics compared to the rest of Europe.

Starmer should thank Marine Le Pen and Liz Truss for being able to begin his premiership as a major leader in Europe.

Read more here.

The Conservatives received £50,000 in the dying days of the election campaign from a company linked to a billionaire who has been jailed for exploiting his domestic staff, Electoral Commission figures show.

Figures published on Monday show Westminster Development Services, a consortium responsible for redeveloping the Old War Office on Whitehall into a Raffles hotel, made the donation to the Tories on 1 July.

According to Companies House, Westminster Development Services is up to 50 per cent owned by AMC Project Services, which itself lists Prakash Hinduja, the chairman of the Hinduja Group and one of Britain’s richest men, as its owner.

Some 10 days earlier, on 21 June, Hinduja and three members of his family had been jailed by a Swiss court after being convicted of exploiting domestic workers at their mansion in Geneva.

Hinduja and his wife Kamal received sentences of four years and six months, while their son Ajay and his wife Namrata were jailed for four years.

The court said the four were guilty of exploiting workers and providing unauthorised employment, but dismissed more serious charges of human trafficking. The Hindujas’ lawyers said the defendants planned to appeal against the decision.

The Conservative Party has been approached for comment.

Jeremy Corbyn and a group of fellow Independent MPs have demanded the Government drop any legal challenge to the International Criminal Court’s application for an arrest warrant against Israel’s premier Benjamin Netanyahu.

The five MPs have written to Foreign Secretary David Lammy with a series of demands over Gaza.

These also include suspending all provision of weapons to Israel; restoring UK funding to the Palestinian relief works agency Unrwa; advocating for an immediate ceasefire and hostage release deal; imposing sanctions on individuals and entities “inciting genocide against Palestinians”; and immediately recognising the state of Palestine.

Yvette Cooper will chair a meeting of the Government taskforce on defending democracy next week, after an “alarming rise” in harassment, intimidation and abuse towards candidates and campaigners.

The Home Secretary said: “Political violence, intimidation and harassment have no place in our democracy.

“The recent general election campaign demonstrated some of the great strengths of our democratic traditions, including a smooth and peaceful transition of power from one party to another but, during this campaign, we also saw an alarming rise in intimidation, harassment and abuse towards candidates, campaigners and volunteers from all parties, which simply cannot be tolerated. Some of those incidents are now being investigated by the police.

“In our democracy, we must be able to passionately debate and disagree on issues without ever resorting to intimidating tactics designed to silence voices, suppress votes or prevent free and full participation in our democratic processes.

“The disgraceful scenes we saw in some areas during this election campaign must not be repeated. That’s why I am convening and chairing a meeting of the Defending Democracy Taskforce next week to make sure public safety, security and standards in our democracy can be upheld.

“In the coming weeks, I will also be speaking and meeting with MPs and candidates from across political parties who faced intimidation, harassment and abuse during the election campaign to hear about their experiences.”

The population of England and Wales experienced the biggest annual increase in 75 years because of growth driven by immigration, new estimates suggest.

In the year to mid-2023, the population grew by almost 610,000 to 60.9 million, according to the estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) published on Monday.

This growth was primarily made up by the 1,084,000 people who were estimated to have migrated to England and Wales from outside the UK during that period.

An estimated 462,000 people emigrated from England and Wales, meaning net migration – the difference between the number of people legally arriving in the UK and leaving – totalled 622,000.

By comparison, the “natural change” in the population – the difference between births and deaths – was only 400 in the year to mid-2023 – the lowest figure since the year to mid-1978.

There were an estimated 598,000 deaths in England and Wales in the year to mid-2023, an increase of 24,000 compared with mid-2022. The number of births in the year to mid-2023 was 598,400, a decrease of 21,900 compared with the year to mid-2022.

Deaths outnumbered births in the period in 58 per cent of local authorities across England and Wales, the figures indicate. Ten years ago, in the year to mid-2013, just 26 per cent of local authorities found themselves in the same position.

Areas with the highest rates of population growth from mid-2022 to mid-2023 were City of London (17.5 per cent), Cardiff (3.4 per cent), and Preston (3.0 per cent).

Middlesbrough had the highest number of international immigrants as a proportion of its population in the year to mid-2023 (4.6 per cent), as well as Coventry (4.4 per cent), Newham (4.0 per cent) and Leicester (3.6 per cent).

Labour received more than twice the amount of donations than the Conservatives in the final week of the general election campaign, new figures from the Electoral Commission have shown.

The party raised £465,600 in private donations in the last week before polling day, bringing its total raised for the whole election to £9.5 million.

The Conservatives raised just £225,587 in private donations over the same period, bringing their total for the whole election to £1.8 million.

Figures released on Monday showed former professional poker player Derek Webb donated £250,000 to Labour, while trade unions GMB and the Fire Brigades Union each gave £100,000.

The largest donation to the Conservatives was £50,000 from Westminster Development Services, a property company set up by a consortium led by the Hinduja family.

Have you heard? The war is over. Not the ones in Ukraine or Gaza, unfortunately. The figurative war. The conflict of ideas. The culture wars.

At least that’s what Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has said this week. “For too long, for too many people, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves as a nation has not reflected them, their communities or their lives,” she said in her first address to her department.

“This is how polarisation, division and isolation thrives. In recent years, we’ve found multiple ways to divide ourselves from one another. And lost that sense of a self-confident, outward-looking country which values its own people in every part of the UK.

“Changing that is the mission of this department. The era of culture wars is over.”

She’s right for the most part, of course. We – some sections of the media, politicians and some public figures – have needlessly fixated on fanning the flames of moral panic over divisive issues. Or issues that, thanks to that exploitation, have been framed as divisive when, in reality, they’re simply reflections of the fact that we do not live in a homogenous, socially static society.

It’s been a useful tool for those threatened by the onward march of social progress, who erroneously see the advancement of civil rights as a threat to their interests. It has also been, as we’ve seen with sinister distraction tactics from politicians who will stop at nothing to avoid culpability for failing to serve the public, a very effective elixir.

But is the potency of that particular potion beginning to diminish? Are the culture wars really “dead”?

Read more here.

Former conservative MP Mike Freer, whose decision not to stand at the 4 July general election was taken partly as a result of concerns over his personal safety, has said that “the whole divide and polarisation we now see in political debate is becoming common across the world”.

He told Times Radio: “The debate seems to be about more security around elected officials and politicians, and I think that misses the point.

“Just more and more rings of steel, I think, is not the answer, because it’s not actually addressing the issue of why people feel emboldened to attack officials and politicians.

“I genuinely am worried about the tone of the debate, especially [about] women MPs, [who] get it far worse than men. The tone of debate is getting worse, and you can talk about security, but some of the issues around the role of social media in emboldening people to attack public figures, and in feeding the views of those people that want to have a go at politicians, is something that needs to be addressed.

“Why do people feel that politicians are fair game?

“People need to be taught that you get a point of view, you check that point of view. If you go onto social media and start going down a particular route, the algorithms for that social media then feed that view.

“That’s part of the equation that no one’s really addressing.”

Two key green industry deals will collapse this summer unless the new Labour Government makes decisions on investment, the Tory Mayor for Tees Valley Lord Houchen has claimed.

In an interview with i, Mr Houchen said that he “enjoyed” meeting Sir Keir Starmer for the first time at an event with all 12 of England’s mayors in Downing Street last week, when the Prime Minister stressed the need to work together to deliver economic growth.

Lord Houchen was the only Conservative mayor at the table and was critical of the Prime Minister ahead of the general election, repeatedly referring to him on social media as “Slippery Starmer”.

But he has now pledged to put aside politics and work with the new Government in order to “get stuff done”.

“I said to [Keir Starmer], I’ve no interest in becoming the Andy Burnham of the Conservative Party, to which he laughed,” Mr Houchen told i.

“I don’t want to sit there and complain for complaining’s sake; if you want to work with me I’ll be straight and I will tell you exactly what I think. He was very open and very magnanimous.

“If he does what he says he’s going to do, then I’m looking forward to working with him, because I want to get stuff done.”

Read more here.

Ahead of the King’s Speech on Wednesday, the Government said it will put economic growth at the heart of its legislative agenda.

Here is a summary of the expected legislation.

• Fiscal discipline

The Government has promised legislation to toughen spending rules which it said will “ensure economic growth” and prevent a repeat of the chaos caused during Liz Truss’s stint as prime minister.

A new bill is expected to strengthen the role of the economic watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility, to guarantee that major fiscal decisions are properly scrutinised.

• Further devolution

The Government plans to “empower regions” by devolving further powers to local and regional leaders “who know what is best for their areas”. Mayors and councils are expected to be handed more control over skills, energy, planning and transport, including bus routes and fares.

• National wealth fund

The Government has said the King’s Speech will include legislation to enact announcements made last week. These include the launch of the national wealth fund, which is designed to attract billions in private sector investment to support UK growth.

• Clean energy boost

The Government has also referenced the new “mission control centre” which is intended to drive the plan to provide Britain with cheaper and clean power by 2030.

In terms of legislation, the Government will likely look to begin the process of establishing the state-owned GB Energy, which will oversee investment in big projects facilitating the decarbonisation of the electricity grid.

• Planning and infrastructure

The Government is exploring reform of the national planning policy framework, including restoring mandatory housebuilding targets for local authorities, as part of the drive to build 1.5 million homes over five years.

Housebuilding targets will mean allowing building on some land currently designated as green belt. There may also be measures aimed at speeding up approvals for major infrastructure projects.

• Revitalising rail

Rail reform is a key priority, with the Government planning to renationalise nearly all passenger rail services within five years.

• Skills push to focus on big business

The Government is planning a skills bill, according to The Times. This will replace the apprenticeship levy paid by big businesses with a “growth and skills” levy, the newspaper said. The bill will also reportedly convert further education colleges into specialist technical colleges.

• Border security

The Government is preparing early legislation to introduce new counter terror-style powers and measures to tackle organised immigration crime.

This will be a key element of the new UK Border Security Command, which will draw together work across the National Crime Agency, intelligence agencies, police, Immigration Enforcement and Border Force.

• Reform for renters

Labour is set to introduce a strengthened version of the Renters Reform Bill, which fell after Rishi Sunak called the general election. The revised bill is set to retain a ban on no-fault evictions. The measure was included in the last government’s legislation, but implementation was set to be a delayed.

Other measures to boost renters’ rights, including the scope for challenging high rents and poor standards, are likely.

• Crime and policing

An expected crime and policing bill will reportedly include a ban on zombie-style knives. Other measures could include a new type of antisocial behaviour order and stronger penalties for shoplifting.

Labour has also said it will introduce a “neighbourhood policing guarantee” which will establish a named officer responsible for tackling antisocial behaviour in each community.

• Workers’ rights

Labour’s landmark bill to boost workers’ rights, referred to as a “new deal for working people”, is expected to be confirmed on Wednesday. Measures are set to include a ban on zero-hour contracts, giving workers’ rights immediately on starting a job and a crackdown on the practice of fire and rehire.

• Help for mental health

Labour has promised to reform the Mental Health Act, with the Prime Minister looking to overhaul current arrangements which have left some 120,000 children waiting six months or more for treatment following a referral.

• Eradicating smoking

Labour is expected to resurrect the previous government’s proposed ban on anyone born after 2009 buying tobacco. The bill had cross-party support, but ran out of time at the end of the last parliament.

• Martyn’s Law

Labour has promised to bring forward Martyn’s Law, which is focused on improving security at public venues and named after Manchester Arena bombing victim, Martyn Hett.

• Constitutional reform

Reports suggest Labour will introduce legislation on a manifesto commitment to reform the House of Lords, including compulsory retirement of peers at 80 and the removal of hereditary peers.

Other potential moves could include an extension of the right to vote to 16-year-olds and proposals to reorganise parliamentary constituencies based on population, rather than registered voters.

• Football governance

Labour’s manifesto promised to establish an independent regulator of football in England, which was a policy position of the previous government but not enacted.

• Acting on AI

The Government is expected to introduce a bill to create binding rules to govern the development of artificial intelligence, according to the Financial Times.

The legislation will enhance legal safeguards, with a focus on general purpose technology that underlines AI products such as ChatGPT, the newspaper said.

The Government should replace any nature destroyed in its housing push by putting “wild belt” areas for plants and wildlife within new developments, according to the head of the Wildlife Trusts.

Craig Bennett said existing nature should be protected as far as possible as the Government embarks on a campaign to build 1.5 million new homes in England during this Parliament – a mammoth project that Chancellor Rachel Reeves said last week will involve “reviews of green belt boundaries” up and down the country.

This will see the creation of what Labour has called a “grey belt”, a new category of apparently second-rate green belt land loosely identified as “car parks, scrubland and former tips”.

But wildlife campaigners argue that much of this land – particularly scrubland – can be highly beneficial for wildlife such as birds and insects.

As such, Mr Bennett wants Labour to make sure it scientifically evaluates every single area of grey belt land to determine the environmental impact before any decision is taken on whether to build on it. And he is calling for nature to be put at the heart of any development that is given the go ahead.

“We recognise we need to be building new houses. But we could and should be building them in a way where we restore nature in the process,” Mr Bennett told i.

Read the full story here.

Lord Houchen, the Tory Mayor of Tees Valley, has said that predictions as to the date by which the Conservatives should have found a new leader are “coalescing” around October.

He told BBC Politics Live that he does not think the search for a new Conservative leader should “take particularly long”, and that a “natural timeline should probably be at some point in October, with the conference playing a significant role in a hustings or in that leadership debate”.

“There are some within the Conservative Party that are talking about taking it out potentially to December. Now, the problem I have with that is one: you can be accused of navel-gazing for too long as a Conservative Party, instead of speaking to the country, and secondly: the vast majority if not all of the leadership contenders, […] we know who they are. They are well-known.

“We all know roughly where they stand on the political spectrum of the Conservative Party.

“If you go too long you also get to a point where […] you can have too much bloodletting and too much dirty laundry aired out in public.”

Asked if he would be against an interim or caretaker leader, he said: “We need a leader of the Conservative Party. I’m not sure whether Rishi Sunak has decided what he is doing […] but in the meantime the other reason we can’t wait too long to have a new leader of the Conservative Party is we do have to have an Opposition in Parliament.

“The best form of policy is one that survives scrutiny, so the Conservative Party has an important democratic function to fulfill.

“An interim leader can do it in part, but an interim leader is just basically the shepherd going through the leadership contest.”

Inflation is set to stay at the Bank of England’s target level of 2 per cent for another month, economists have said, with an interest rate cut in August still on the cards.

The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure of inflation fell to 2 per cent in the year to May, and experts say it is likely to have remained there – or even fallen slightly – in June.

However, experts warn that it is likely to shoot back upwards later in 2024, with a rise to 2.8 per cent possible by November.

“After another upside surprise to services inflation in May, we expect inflation data to paint a slightly more encouraging picture in June. We see headline inflation staying put at 2 per cent,” said Sanjay Raja of Deutsche Bank Research.

The Bank of England has also forecast a 2 per cent rate in June, while Pantheon Macroeconomics expects a fall to 1.9 per cent.

Read the full story here.

Downing Street declined to be drawn on whether Gareth Southgate deserved a knighthood after leading England to the final of Euro 2024.

Asked whether Sir Keir Starmer had spoken to Southgate, the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “I don’t know if he had a word with the England manager, but as he said in his letter to the team yesterday, the whole country is proud of what the team have delivered and getting to a second consecutive European Championship final is quite a feat.

“Gareth and the team have brought us some great moments to remember over the last few weeks.”

Asked if the Prime Minister thought Southgate deserved a knighthood, the spokesman added: “He has provided great leadership, he has done the country proud, but I wouldn’t get into commentary around honours.”

Labour MP Mike Tapp has said that he was “quite lucky” during his election campaign, in that it “wasn’t particularly toxic and we felt quite safe”, when asked how he feels about his security now that he is a Member of Parliament,

However, he told BBC Politics Live: “I’ve spoken to colleagues who are newly elected, and also existing MPs who have felt scared, and that’s absolutely unacceptable, whether it’s harassment, threats, intimidation, or even antisocial behaviour that we’re seeing on the streets.

“We’re taking this very seriously,” he said, adding that Home Office ministers are speaking with MPs to get a “full picture” of the situation.

The Tory mayor of Tees Valley, Lord Houchen, said that he has had several death threats, and “I’ve had the police turn up at my door at nine, 10 o’clock at night saying that there is a credible, immediate threat against my person.

“I’ve got a wife, I’ve got a young child. That is not something that we should allow in our discourse. The problem is […] where is that line? And what constitutes that threat?”

He said that social media acts as a “reinforcing mechanism” that “drives more extreme behaviour”.

It’s a transfer of power to match Sir Keir Starmer’s arrival in Downing Street.

Lachlan Murdoch personally directed The Sun’s endorsement of Labour, insiders say, seizing the kingmaker role played for decades by his father, Rupert.

Once politicians paid court to the 93-year-old billionaire in the belief that Rupert’s backing would pave the way for electoral victory.

Now they seek an audience with the media mogul’s eldest son, Lachlan, 52, who was confirmed as Rupert’s successor last year, taking over as chairman of the $16bn News Corp and Fox businesses.

While the semi-retired Rupert honeymooned with fifth wife Elena Zhukova, Lachlan took control of a dilemma the company’s UK papers had grappled with for months – whether to switch support from the Tories to Starmer’s Labour.

“Lachlan met Starmer and the Labour team before the election,” a company source said. “He wanted to hear from Starmer directly that Labour had moved to the centre ground. He got that reassurance. Now the new Government has to demonstrate that in office.”

Read the full story here.

David Lammy met families of hostages murdered or held in Gaza by Hamas as he continued his visit to the Middle East.

The Foreign Secretary used his trip to call for an immediate ceasefire, including the release of all hostages and a rapid increase of aid into Gaza.

In Israel, he “spoke with families whose loved ones were murdered and taken hostage by Hamas”, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Monday.

Photos shared on social media showed him embracing and shaking hands with those affected.

In meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mohammad Mustafa, Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, on Sunday, Mr Lammy also made the case for working towards a two-state solution to the conflict.

He announced that the UK will provide another £5.5m this year to UK-Med to fund its work in Gaza. The medical aid charity sends experienced humanitarian medics, including those working in the NHS, to crisis-hit regions. The funding will be used to support the ongoing work of its field hospitals and the emergency department at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital.

Mr Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, said: “The death and destruction in Gaza is intolerable. This war must end now, with an immediate ceasefire, complied with by both sides.

“The fighting has got to stop, the hostages still cruelly detained by Hamas terrorists need to be released immediately, and aid must be allowed in to reach the people of Gaza without restrictions.

“I am meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders to stress the UK’s ambition and commitment to play its full diplomatic role in securing a ceasefire deal and creating the space for a credible and irreversible pathway towards a two-state solution.”

Mr Lammy’s visit comes after Israel’s latest strike on Gaza, which killed at least 90 people in the south of the besieged enclave.

The Israelis say the attack was targeting Hamas’s military commander, Mohammed Deif, but it was not known whether he was among the dead.

Labour’s economic policies will likely be limited by the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) forecasts, the director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), Paul Johnson, has said.

He told Times Radio that the most recent economic figures are “reasonably encouraging” and “growth over the first few months of this year has been pretty positive” and “inflation is back down at around 2 per cent”.

“It’s worth saying that there are – as ever – some issues. Inflation may be down at 2 [per cent] but we’ve had quite a lot of comment and speeches from people at the Bank of England saying ‘that’s true but core inflation […] is still well above that, so it may be some time before interest rates come down at all significantly’.

“I think the new Government has made a decent start with some of the announcements it’s made, particularly on planning changes. We’ll see what else it has in the King’s Speech on Wednesday.

“But the big question for the Government is going to be: how is the Office for Budget Responsibility going to respond, what’s it going to say in the autumn alongside Rachel Reeves’ first Budget?

“My sense, from what Rachel Reeves has said up until now, is that this won’t make a great deal of difference in practice. She’ll simply constrain herself to do what I think she would have done anyway, which is to consult the OBR before she announces a Budget.”

He added: “The very odd thing is that the current Government has tied itself to exactly the same fiscal constraints as the last government, and that means what space it has for manoeuvre depends on what the OBR thinks is going to be happening in five years’ time.”