While the Labour and Conservative leaders will be delighted with their showing, Nigel Farage, Ed Davey and Zack Polanski have less reason for cheer

Andy Burnham

The former marketing executive is expected to play a big role in promoting the UK and could be the most influential spouse in No 10 in years

Sarah Brown called Gordon her hero, Samantha Cameron insisted David was “incredibly funny”, while Akshata Murty said Rishi was her best friend. When Marie-France van Heel spoke about her husband, Andy Burnham, in a rare public interview a decade ago, she joked that she had noticed his “good looks … and monobrow”.

The spousal humanising of a party leader is a well-worn political tool, but van Heel is likely to be a very different prime ministerial partner. The former senior marketing executive is poised to play a more significant role in promoting Britain than any other spouse in the last two decades, stepping up her political engagements after stepping back from her own corporate career.

Under new workers’ rights, employers will have to ‘properly consider’ proposed shift changes and explain decisions

Company bosses will have to sit down with workers who request flexible working and justify their reasons for any refusals under new rights announced by Louise Haigh on Tuesday.

The first secretary of state told the TUC conference that employers would have to “properly consider” requests for flexibility and offer a face-to-face meeting under new rights for workers.

Exclusive: Calls from Labour grow as 105 MPs write to PM urging ‘obvious’ step to alleviate cost of living crisis

Andy Burnham is coming under increasing pressure from his own MPs to commit to improving paternity leave in the UK in the next budget, with more than a quarter of Labour MPs writing to the prime minister to urge him to take action.

Ahead of the chancellor’s first budget next month, 105 MPs have written to Burnham calling on him to increase statutory paternity leave to help alleviate the cost of living crisis and arguing that lowest-paid fathers are the hardest hit by meagre paternity leave provision.

Conservative hopeful says Sadiq Khan has ‘lost passion for the job’ and Andy Burnham is ‘very anti-London’

James Cleverly has pledged to run a “classically Conservative” campaign to become the mayor of London, insisting that his victory in the capital would be a stepping stone for Kemi Badenoch to become prime minister.

The former home and foreign secretary denied he had resigned from the shadow cabinet to run for mayor following a shift to the right under Badenoch’s leadership.

PM says anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, will be excluded from the scheme

PC Andrew Harper’s killers will remain behind bars after Andy Burnham announced changes to the early release scheme aimed at easing prison overcrowding, saying he understood “how strongly people feel about this issue”.

The prime minister said anyone convicted of unlawful killing, including all forms of manslaughter, would be excluded from the scheme, which would have made two of the officer’s killers eligible for early release. It comes after Burnham previously ordered a review of plans for the early release of thousands of killers, rapists and sex offenders from prison in September.

The Reform UK leader forced a vote that failed to make financial questions disappear, only the man himself

• Clacton byelection – UK politics live

Dawn had long broken in the Essex town of Clacton-on-Sea when the results for the byelection came in. After a gruelling count, an atmosphere of deep exhaustion had settled over the room. Even the man with a dustbin on his head looked weary.

As it was declared that Nigel Farage had won, as expected, there was no cheering in the room, which had been boycotted by the Reform UK leader and his supporters; instead there was only an overwhelming sense of futility.

Longest ballot in UK voting history features likes of Count Binface and Howling Laud Hope alongside Reform leader

Polls have closed in Clacton, where thousands of residents in the Essex seat voted in a ballot featuring Nigel Farage and a range of novelty and fringe candidates led by Count Binface.

The Reform UK leader resigned as the MP for Clacton at the start of July and forced a byelection in an attempt to address complaints over a deepening scandal about gifts he received.

Exclusive: Pay increases to two weeks in England and Wales after Guardian revealed officers ‘mocked’ for taking time off

Paid paternity leave for police in England and Wales is to double, after the Guardian revealed last year that officers were “mocked and ostracised” for taking time off to spend with their babies.

The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has increased the amount of paid parental and adoption leave for officers from one week to two across all forces, with fathers’ leave upped to be in line with mothers’.

Measure to cost more than £500m, with money allocated to allow devolved nations to do the same

Single bus fares across England will be capped at £2 from January, Andy Burnham has announced, as he continues a cost of living blitz in his first week as prime minister.

The nationwide cap is currently set at £3 until the end of March 2027, although some areas – including London and Greater Manchester, where Burnham set a £2 limit as mayor – have lower top rates for single tickets.

Exclusive: victims commissioner and domestic abuse commissioner call for pause on planned releases

A failure to put in place safeguards in advance of a change to the law that will result in offenders being released early will put abuse victims at risk, ministers have been told.

In a rare coordinated intervention, the victims commissioner and the domestic abuse commissioner have written separately to ministers urging them immediately to pause planned early releases of offenders convicted of crimes against women and girls in England and Wales.

Deputy Labour leader says No 10 must become more meritocratic as party’s female MPs press Burnham on gender balance

Andy Burnham will change a “boys club” culture of factional briefings at No 10 which silenced critics, according to the deputy leader of the Labour party.

Lucy Powell said she had experienced “unpleasant” briefings in Downing Street, which left people afraid to speak out or challenge Downing Street’s position.

Socialists marginalised under current PM are anxious about whether his replacement will again disappoint them

On 10 September 2024, Jon Trickett, a veteran leftwing MP, was preparing to vote against one of his own government’s most incendiary plans: to remove the winter fuel allowance from some retired people, a benefit long seen by many UK households as essential. Senior figures told Trickett he would be the only Labour member of parliament to do so. He said this week: “I said: ‘I don’t give a fuck. I’m going to do what I believe is the right thing.’ And I was right.”

That has since seen as a policy misstep from which Keir Starmer’s government never recovered. Trickett could, perhaps, be forgiven for indulging in a little schadenfreude after Starmer’s resignation this week, just two years after he won a landslide general election victory.

Where did it go wrong for the outgoing PM? And how much – if at all – did it threaten to go right?

Keir Starmer pitched himself as a leader for “stability and moderation” who would rebuild Britain, after Labour’s landslide victory in the 2024 general election.

But after two years which have seen unforced errors, economic headwinds, scandals and, most recently, a disastrous set of devolved, mayoral and local election results the UK is set to have its sixth prime minister in seven years.

Labour’s Greater Manchester mayor predicted to beat Reform but Keir Starmer is unlikely to easily step aside

• Makerfield byelection – latest updates

Polls have closed in Makerfield, Aberdeen South, and Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, with the result in the north-west of England constituency byelection poised to decide the future of UK politics.

The population of Makerfield, a constituency sitting just outside Wigan, has found itself at the centre of the British political world in recent weeks after Andy Burnham quit as mayor of Greater Manchester to contest the seat that he hoped would lead him not only to Westminster, but to the front door of 10 Downing Street.

Call for ‘clear and truthful account’ comes amid questions about the Reform leader’s property spending

The Labour party has written to Nigel Farage urging him to stop “evading reasonable scrutiny” over the £5m personal gift he received from the Thailand-based crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne.

The letter coincides with approval of a planning application that reveals the Reform leader’s plans to transform a dilapidated Kent property into a luxury beachfront residence.

Deputy PM says he spoke to US vice-president about post that blamed ‘mass invasion of migrants’ for teenager’s death

David Lammy has said he told the US vice-president, JD Vance, he was wrong to blame the murder of the British teenager Henry Nowak on mass migration.

The deputy prime minister said he spoke to Vance by phone on Saturday to tell him “our democratic process is working well” and that he was wrong in his commentary about the murder.

Documents released by government also show late queen was ‘very keen’ for her son to have prominent role

• UK politics live – latest updates

Formal security vetting and due diligence appears not to have been carried out before the appointment of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor as a trade envoy, the government has said, as it emerged that the late queen was “very keen” for her son to take up a prominent role in promoting Britain’s interests.

The first batch of documents relating to the appointment of the former prince as trade envoy by Tony Blair in 2001 includes a memo dated 25 February 2000 and addressed to Robin Cook, then the foreign secretary, in which the then chief executive of British Trade International, David Wright, said Queen Elizabeth II’s “wish” had been for Mountbatten-Windsor, then the Duke of York, to take on the role.

MP says current system is unfair and his idea would result in a ‘wealth tax that works’

• UK politics live – latest updates

The former health secretary Wes Streeting has set out plans for a “wealth tax that works”, by equalising tax on assets and income.

Streeting said the current system – in which capital gains tax is generally much lower than income tax – was not fair and penalised work.

Keir Starmer set out bills to abolish NHS England, overhaul Send provision, limit jury trials and forge ties with EU

Keir Starmer has laid out long-promised changes to education, health and the courts in the king’s speech, which maps out the government’s agenda for the next year.

The speech delivered by King Charles cited bills to abolish NHS England, overhaul the provision of special educational needs teaching, limit trials by jury, introduce digital ID and end the leasehold system in England and Wales. It also included vehicles for closer alignment with the EU, and measures to boost the economy through the nationalisation of British Steel and pilot schemes to boost innovation in areas such as defence technology and AI-controlled ships.