Badenoch confirms she did criticise Sunak"s handling of election at shadow cabinet Kemi Badenoch has released a statement about the Times story saying that she criticised Rishi Sunak over the way he handled the election at a meeting of the shadow cabinet this week. (See 9.30am.) There are three points about what she is saying worth noting. 1) Badenoch does not deny anything said in the report, which amounts to an implicit confirmation that it is accurate. She claims to be disappointed that her remarks leaked. But this is unlikely to impress those in the party who will assume she, or her allies, had a role in the story ending up in the Times. 2) She says the party should pay more attention to the views of activists and members. This is an argument likely to impress the people who will have the final say in a leadership contest – activists and members. 3) She says that Tories should be less deferential to their leaders, and that they should argue more in private. The cliche about Badenoch is that she could start a fight in an empty room. Her pitch now seems to be that, if she is elected leader, she will have a lot more arguments in rooms that are full (the shadow cabinet) – but not in public. It’s a shame our discussions in Shadow Cabinet were leaked yesterday. If there is no private space to discuss our Party’s challenges, we will never fully address what the electorate told us last week. The views of those outside these meetings matter too. Not just backbench MPs, but our party activists, members and friends who lost seats after giving everything to the campaign. In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it. That culture needs to change. We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards. Afternoon summary Almost half of Conservative grassroots members are in favour of a merger with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, according to a poll, with Kemi Badenoch the favourite to be the next party leader. Suella Braverman, the former home secretary, has challenged Badenoch to say whether she really did tell a shadow cabinet meeting she thought Braverman was having a public nervous breakdown. She also criticised Badenoch for being willing to criticise Rishi Sunak’s leadership now when she did not do so before the election. (See 3.47pm and 5.16pm.) Keir Starmer is at the Nato summit in Washingon where he has met President Biden. Later today they are due to have a proper bilateral at the White House. There is further coverage of the Nato summit on our summit live blog. Suella Braverman has also criticised Kemi Badenoch for not criticising Rishi Sunak in public ahead of the election. As Charles Hymas reports in the Telegraph, in another response to what Badenoch said about her at shadow cabinet (see 5.16pm), Braverman critcised Badenoch for not speaking about where Sunak was taking the party in the way that Braverman herself did after she was sacked as home secretary. Braverman said: What Kemi says about me says something about her too. I don’t think she’s going to see what that is any time soon, though … The people who enabled [Sunak] before, by saying nothing, are on great form now. You’re going to get tired of how beautifully that barn door is closed now. Here is video of Keir Starmer meeting the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in Washington. After the meeting Starmer told reporters: I’ve just had a very good meeting with President Zelenskiy, where I made it absolutely clear that as far as the UK is concerned, the change of government makes no difference to the support that we will provide. We’d been united on this when we were in opposition, and it was really important to me to be able to affirm that face-to face at the meeting. Rishi Sunak has arrived at a post-election meeting of the 1922 Committee, PA Media reports. The Conservative leader was welcomed with the customary banging upon tables from Tory MPs within the parliamentary committee room. He was accompanied by Richard Fuller, the interim chairman of the Conservative party, as he entered. Keir Starmer will give Joe Biden an Arsenal football shirt with the name “Biden” and the number 46 on the back – a reference to his status as the 46th US president – on Wednesday. The new UK prime minister, a proud fan of the North London premier league club, will gift the shirt to the US president when they meet for their first bilateral talks at the White House. “It’s his team and thought it would make a personal gift,” a senior Downing Street official said. However, there is unlikely to be a photo of Biden with the shirt in the Oval Office as it will be handed over through the usual diplomatic channels. Starmer, who is a season ticket holder at Arsenal, spent much of the election campaign visiting lower league and non league football clubs across the country. The prime minister had previously given Emmanuel Macron, the French president, an Arsenal top, when he was in opposition. Starmer also gave Biden a framed copy of the original Atlantic charter, that led to the formation of Nato, with then Labour prime minister Clement Attlee’s amendments. Braverman challenges Badenoch to say whether she really did disparage her at shadow cabinet, as leak claims According to the leak to the Times, which Kemi Badenoch has implied is accurate (see 3.47pm), Badenoch told the shadow cabinet earlier this week that she thought Suella Braverman seemed to be having a “very public” nervous breakdown. That was a reference to some provocative interventions from Braverman since the Tories lost the election, including a speech in the US where she described flying the Progress Pride flag as “monstrous” and an interview where she refused to rule out joining Reform UK. Now Braverman has challenged Badenoch to say if that is what she really thinks. I’d be interested in knowing whether Kemi thinks I’m having a “very public nervous breakdown”. #honesty #unity #wedontleak UK support for Ukraine still robust, Starmer tells Zelenskiy, saying "change of government but no change of approach" Keir Starmer has met Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy in the margins of the Nato summit in Washington, PA Media reports. PA says: They greeted each other with a hug and a handshake. Starmer told Zelenskiy that there has been “a change of government but no change in position” with regards to the UK’s support for Ukraine. John Healey, the defence secretary, and David Lammy, the foreign secretrary, joined the prime minister with officials around a table. Starmer said: “As you know from the get go – there’s a change of government but no change of approach.” He said the Russian attack on a hospital in Kyiv was “just shocking”. Zelenskiy thanked Sir Keir for his words and for Britain’s support. “Thank you again that you are with us from the very beginning of the war,” he said. UPDATE: This is from Alex Wickham from Bloomberg. Lili Bayer has more coverage of the Nato summit on a separate live blog. German chancellor Olaf Scholz has welcomed Starmer"s commitment to resetting relations with EU, No 10 says Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, told Keir Starmer when they met in Washington that he welcomed Labour’s commitment to a reset in relations with the EU, Downing Street says. In its readout of the Scholz/Starmer conversation, No 10 said: The chancellor welcomed the prime minister’s commitment to resetting the UK’s European partnerships, noting how important our friendships with like-minded countries will be in a challenging international environment. They discussed the importance of having the widest possible cooperation across all aspects of the relationship. The two leaders moved on to discuss the need for enhanced defence cooperation in Europe to act as a deterrent for aggression by hostile actors. They agreed that the Nato summit was an opportunity to strengthen our support for Ukraine. The two leaders agreed a firm commitment to deepen in particular UK-Germany defence ties, working at pace to deliver those objectives. Scholz and Starmer also agreed to continue their discussions at the European Political Community summit that Starmer is hosting at Blenheim Palace next week, No 10 said. Keir Starmer and other leaders attending the Nato summit have been meeting US senators ahead of the formal opening of the meeting. Here he is talking to Chuck Schumer, the Democrat and Senate majority leader, as the posed for a photograph. The government plans to overhaul the Office for Students, the higher education regulator for England, according to a Whitehall source who said that universities will “no longer be used as a political battleground”. The Department for Education announced yesterday that the former Conservative MP James Wharton had stepped down as chair of the Office for Students (OfS), where he was appointed after having led Johnson’s campaign for the Conservative party leadership in 2019. The OfS was established as an independent regulator in 2018 but has been dogged by controversy over its priorities and political leanings, including the government’s attempt to appoint the Conservative journalist Toby Young as a founding board member. The Whitehall source said: Labour will now embark on reform of the OfS, to deliver the change we promised to the British people, and to continue to support the aspiration of every person who meets the necessary requirements to go to university. We are determined that our world-leading universities will no longer be treated as a political battleground, but as a public good, and will once again be supported to deliver for students, the local communities they serve and for our economy. In due course we will be laying out further plans to bring greater stability to our world class universities after the chaos of the last 14 years under the Conservatives. Under our plans for reform, the OfS will play an important role in creating a secure future for higher education and the opportunities it creates across the country. Wharton had been the Conservative MP for Stockton South from 2010 until 2017, when he was defeated in the election called by Theresa May. Johnson later rewarded Wharton with a peerage in 2020, as Lord Wharton of Yarm. Badenoch confirms she did criticise Sunak"s handling of election at shadow cabinet Kemi Badenoch has released a statement about the Times story saying that she criticised Rishi Sunak over the way he handled the election at a meeting of the shadow cabinet this week. (See 9.30am.) There are three points about what she is saying worth noting. 1) Badenoch does not deny anything said in the report, which amounts to an implicit confirmation that it is accurate. She claims to be disappointed that her remarks leaked. But this is unlikely to impress those in the party who will assume she, or her allies, had a role in the story ending up in the Times. 2) She says the party should pay more attention to the views of activists and members. This is an argument likely to impress the people who will have the final say in a leadership contest – activists and members. 3) She says that Tories should be less deferential to their leaders, and that they should argue more in private. The cliche about Badenoch is that she could start a fight in an empty room. Her pitch now seems to be that, if she is elected leader, she will have a lot more arguments in rooms that are full (the shadow cabinet) – but not in public. It’s a shame our discussions in Shadow Cabinet were leaked yesterday. If there is no private space to discuss our Party’s challenges, we will never fully address what the electorate told us last week. The views of those outside these meetings matter too. Not just backbench MPs, but our party activists, members and friends who lost seats after giving everything to the campaign. In government, we had too much nodding along in the room and arguments outside it. That culture needs to change. We need to be honest with one another in private, and united in the direction we take afterwards. Parliament has released this photograph of all new members of the Commons.