Dan Bloom

A leaked budget shows British politics is still living hand-to-mouth Embattled Chancellor Rachel Reeves wants to finally end the economic doom loop — but it could still swallow her whole.

🧰 🧰 🧰 My budget piece

How today shows that — despite Rachel Reeves' best efforts — British politics is still living hand-to-mouth, year-to-year.

What will next year bring? Who knows!

How Britain’s routed Tories learned to stop worrying and fight dirty The Conservative Party is reeling from its worst ever election defeat — and there could be worse to come. But Leader Kemi Badenoch has finally found attack mode.

NEW: How the Tories learned to stop worrying and fight dirty

Inside the "attack cell" in CCHQ that fuelled the Angela Rayner story before her resignation

Plus, the changes in Kemi Badenoch's office line-up that have finally helped her find attack mode

Turning the air Blue Labour again Presented by SSE By SAM BLEWETT with BETHANY DAWSON PRESENTED BY Send tips here | Subscribe for free | Listen to Playbook and view in your browser Good Thursday morning. This is Sam Blewett. DRIVIN…

EXC: Keir Starmer is polling even worse than ex-prince Andrew, Wales’ Labour finance minister has said

Two people tell me Mark Drakeford made the hair-raising comparison at an event on Sunday

The former first minister's team say he was talking in a personal capacity re. publicly available polling

🚨 Home Office will offer families "financial support to enable them to return to their home country. Should they refuse that support, we will escalate to an enforced return. We will launch a consultation on the process for enforcing the removal of families, including children.”

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"We will also take action to recover support costs in scenarios where any assets are not convertible into cash or declared at the point that asylum support is initially provided but become convertible or are discovered at a later date.”

Restoring Order and Control: A statement on the government’s asylum and returns policy

This looks like the "jewellery" clause in the Home Office's asylum reforms:

“We will require individuals to contribute towards the cost of their asylum support where they have some assets or income, but not enough to support themselves independently.

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Final decision on fate of crumbling UK parliament delayed to 2030s It’s a fire-hazard that’s prone to tumbling masonry — but fear of a public backlash is again delaying repairs to the world famous building.

🚨🚨🚨 EXCLUSIVE by @estwebber.bsky.social and me

Final decision on restoration of parliament is set to be postponed **beyond the next general election**

MPs were due to vote this year on 4 options

Plan is now: pick 2 options, and start "preparatory work"

Final option may only emerge in early 2030s

Inside No. 10: The creaky house that runs Britain After a wild week in No.10 Downing Street, host Patrick Baker takes listeners on a podcast tour of the famous building to find out how the hell a cobbled-together Georgian townhouse is me…

My colleague Patrick Baker has also done this on the fab Westminster Insider pod

BUT ... a PM who is good enough can conquer the building.

As ex-Blair aide John McTernan put it: “The problem with any government is, if you don’t know what you want to do, how are you going to know how to do it?

“And then you blame your tools. The house is a tool."

No. 10 gravitates toward small groups and "silo thinking."

The 8.45 a.m. has Starmer and just over half a dozen key aides including McSweeney, his two deputies, Allan and Cabinet enforcers Darren Jones and Jonathan Reynolds.

Previous PMs tried to change the way the building works to little avail

We have stories of Liz Truss’s sweaty aides queuing for a single shower after joining her morning run … Donald Trump dripping orange from his face in an overheated room … the Scooby Doo-style slapstick of finding Boris Johnson ...

Keir Starmer and Morgan McSweeney have both struggled — like previous occupants — with the building

The embattled PM (usually an open plan kinda guy) regularly escapes the "hustle and bustle of the ground floor" to his first floor study. He's been known to complain about the noise 😬

Inside 10 Downing Street, the creaky old house that runs Britain Mice, “nan’s bathrooms,” carpets duct-taped together — and terrible phone signal. Is there a worse place to run a country from than 10 Downing Street?

🏠 "Keir hates it"

We have a big piece on the trials of running a G7 country from Downing Street — a poky rabbit warren in three Georgian townhouses knocked together

Tiny offices, mice, "nan's bathrooms," duct-taped carpets, dodgy heating, no phone signal, hardly any showers ... and a prawn

The pay-off line:

Keir Starmer, climate leader (when the Treasury lets him) The U.K. prime minister is heading to the COP30 climate summit in Brazil to show climate still matters Britain, even in the age of Trump. But back at home, Starmer blows hot and cold on all things …

Brilliant piece from my colleague Charlie Cooper on the mixed politics of Keir Starmer's trip to the COP30 summit

The PM is said to be instinctively supportive of climate action — but not so much that he has "his own ideas about things," argues one Labour MP

Serious point here is it seems like Tice might be giving up on full DOGE audits of internal council data (which were the original aim back in the summer), amid legal hurdles

He told me a data-sharing agreement isn't “the biggest thing” and “there’s other ways we can get data"

Reform UK’s DOGE chief takes aim at ‘pathetic’ questions on council savings drive Richard Tice advised POLITICO to “grow up” when asked if he had given up on seeking a data-sharing agreement with Kent County Council

“It’s pathetic nailing on one point. It’s just pathetic. Grow up. Seriously, seriously ... Why are you guys obsessing about one little piece?"

— Reform UK's Richard Tice to me when I asked about ... a data-sharing agreement between his DOGE unit and Kent County Council 🤔

Farage’s decision seems to be a long way off, but the fact he is even able to consider this so openly shows how much capital Reform seems to have right now.

Tice told me: “Everything’s up for review, because nothing’s affordable if we keep spending more than we’re earning.”

It’s part of a deep dive by me on the million-dollar question: what will happen if Reform UK promises to scrap the state pension triple lock?

Would Labour and the Tories ditch it too, or (… more likely) start a virulent attack campaign?

Tice wouldn’t be drawn yet on what might replace defined benefit pensions — saying it can’t be answered in a week or a month

But this could be a big fight with Whitehall. These (typically more generous) schemes covered 82 percent of public sector workers in 2021

EXCL: Reform UK is eyeing up sweeping changes to public sector pensions, Richard Tice has indicated. Nigel Farage’s deputy told me “how long can we carry on offering defined benefit pensions to all public sector workers?” is a massive Q “not properly discussed in Westminster”

Why Europe needs Britain’s under-fire security chief Jonathan Powell Amid a row over a collapsed China spying trial, it’s not just Keir Starmer who relies on veteran Northern Ireland peace negotiator Jonathan Powell.

🔴 Big week for the collapsed China spy case next week

We took a swing at why Keir Starmer is fighting so hard to keep Jonathan Powell — breaking down just how tied he is into every aspect of foreign policy

5 reasons Starmer’s new election disaster should spook Europe’s centrists Britain’s ruling Labour Party has had a dismal by-election in its Welsh heartland. As left-wing and populist parties go mainstream, can the center hold?

Some Caerphilly takeaways that go beyond Wales

— "Non-voters" slipping under the radar
— Tactical voting is key. Does it help Labour elsewhere?
— Incumbency sucks
— Messaging doesn't land
— Nothing sticks to Reform (yet)
— But can we now see the ceiling?

There is also a strategy to pin the failings on Tories and Farage

But there is tension over how nuanced this messaging should be.

Slagging off Brexit is Labour's old comfort zone but says one official: "You can’t just go around blaming Brexit. It’s saying voters are wrong"

Why Labour got fighty again on Brexit After years of staying quiet, Britain’s ruling party is preparing to blame its economic woes on leaving the EU. But some argue the strategy goes deeper — and is fraught with danger.

NEW: Labour is getting fighty again on Brexit

Ministers are now deliberately talking about Brexit harms to pitch-roll for the budget, where the OBR will say the impact of leaving is worse than thought

But there are overlapping strategies and huge danger

Britain’s Keir Starmer, under friendly fire, tries to hoist his flag The U.K. prime minister will use his annual party conference to promise “patriotic renewal.” Some of his own party wants to renew him.

“Phase IV” is in fact the name of a 1970s cult horror film in which humanity is subjugated by a colony of hyper-intelligent ants

One Labour adviser: “I’m actually looking forward to that bit. I won’t have to think about all of this"

🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜🐜

We’re in “Phase 2.” To some it’s already Phase 3, post the Mandelson/Rayner scandals.

So what next?

Well....

But backers of the PM say similar, in less strident terms

MPs have been extremely vocal to whips and No. 10 in private

One Labour adviser: “Everyone’s accepted May is the season finale … They are both that angry and that stupid.”

😬 Ultimately though — for many people — it comes back to the question about the overall project

Neal Lawson of the new Mainstream group (who is definitely no friend of Starmer!) puts it thus: “The underlying foundations of this project are so weak that it endangers the future of the Labour Party.”