UK politics live: Johnson denies eating cake at Partygate as he claims Netherlands vaccines raid considered

The 2024 Conservative Party Conference will be a drastically different affair from last year’s gathering in Manchester, when Rishi Sunak’s government was in its dying days.

Back then, ministers announced a slew of eye-catching policies that would reshape the future of the country in a desperate last few roles of the dice – Alex Chalk promising to offshore prisoners, Jeremy Hunt planning to slash the number of civil servants and Rishi Sunak scrapping HS2.

This year, Mr Sunak is a lame duck Tory leader and all eyes will be far from the diminished former prime minister. Instead it will be a four-day battle for the future leadership of the party, with the four remaining contenders thrashing it out to try to win over Tory members.

James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch, Robert Jenrick and Tom Tugendhat will be put to the test in a series of hustings and speeches, as well as taking part in intense lobbying and networking behind the scenes in Birmingham with MPs and the party rank and file.

On offer elsewhere will be former Tory MPs, ousted by the public in July’s general election, setting out where they think the party went wrong and what it needs to do next.

High profile names expected to appear are ex-PM Liz Truss, former business secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg and incoming Spectator Editor Michael Gove.

The Independent will be bringing the latest updates and analysis from the conference.

Some have said that these were the nation’s worst years since the Napoleonic wars, and there is one politician who has blazed a meteoric trail across almost every page of this teeming history: Boris Johnson. But only now is he telling his story, for no less than a reported half a million pounds and counting.

At that price, never mind setting the record straight, he’ll have to deliver. But what is in the offing from such a maverick pen? As he might put it, a macédoine of regret, maybe mortification, and dismay? As the first parts of Unleashed are serialised, we finally get a hint of what might be to come.

Read the full review here:

Boris Johnson has denied eating cake at the “feeblest event in the history of human festivity” held on his 56th birthday.

The former prime minister said he did not see or eat any cake at an event on 19 June 2020, according to an extract from his memoir published in the Daily Mail.

Of the occasion, he wrote: “Here is what actually happened that day. I stood briefly at my place in the Cabinet Room, where I have meetings throughout the day, while the Chancellor and assorted members of staff said happy birthday.

“I saw no cake. I ate no blooming cake. If this was a party, it was the feeblest event in the history of human festivity.

“I had only just got over Covid. I did not sing. I did not dance.”

Downing Street previously admitted staff “gathered briefly” in the Cabinet Room for what was reportedly a surprise get-together for Mr Johnson organised by his now-wife Carrie.

An ally of the former prime minister, Conor Burns, said Mr Johnson was “ambushed with a cake” at the event.

Boris Johnson has written of the moment he was confronted with the partygate story dismissing it initially as “old cobblers”.

Writing in Unleashed which isbeing serialised in the Mail +

“[Former Downing Street Director of Communications] Jack explained that the Daily Mirror had a story about a breach of ­lockdown rules in No 10 during the pandemic. They were accusing the press department of having a party on December 18, 2020 – almost exactly a year previously.

“Jack said the story was nonsense, because it was traditional for the press department to have a glass of wine at their desks on a Friday evening. I looked at him blankly. ‘So no rules were broken?’

“‘No, PM,’ he said firmly, ‘no rules were broken.’

“‘Fine,’ I said, and carried on.

“It sounded like a load of old cobblers – probably some desperate nonsense being peddled by embittered former advisers – and I forgot about it. I was most surprised when it was raised at PMQs the next day – as Labour’s main line of attack.”

Labour called on both the PM and then chancellor Rishi Sunak to go, saying they were “unfit to govern”.

Boris Johnson has claimed his Brexit deal allowed a faster rollout of the Covid vaccine saving lives.

Writing in Unleashed, serialised in Mail +, he said: “Under my deal, we came out. We took back control. That meant that when it came to the approval of vaccines, we no longer had to go at the pace of the rest of the European Union.

“We had our own agency – the ­Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – and we could do our own thing.

“It meant, bluntly, that we were able to immunise huge numbers of elderly and vulnerable people who – if they had been living in an EU country, or in pre-Brexit ­Britain – would unquestionably have been forced to wait for EMA approval for their drugs, and who might therefore have died of Covid.

“It wasn’t long before some ­graffiti appeared on the wall in Portobello Road, West London.

“‘Brexit saves lives,’ it said.

“It wasn’t the sort of writing you expect on the wall in the largely Remain-backing Kensington and Chelsea, and I know that some of you will still find it a pretty indigestible assertion. But painful as it may be for some people, it’s true.”

Kemi Badenoch has doubled down on her claim that she “became working class” when she got a job at McDonald’s.

The Tory leadership hopeful said she came to the UK “with no money, no friends, no parents”.

She told LBC at that point in her life she was working class as she “had to work to eat”.

“I grew up in a middle class family but coming here I became working class – my dad gave me his last £100, he said ‘you know this is all we have’ because all our money was gone and this is one of the things that people don’t understand,” Ms Badenoch said.

Watch her original comments below:

Pension credit claims have hit almost 75,000 amid Government efforts to boost benefits take-up.

Department for Work and Pensions figures released on Friday showed the Government received around 74,400 pension credit claims in the eight weeks since 29 July, when Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced means testing for the winter fuel payment.

This is up from 29,500 claims in the eight weeks before the announcement.

But in the seven days beginning on 16 September, the department received 11,800 claims, down from 13,400 the week before.

The vast majority (92 per cent) of claims made in the week beginning 16 September were made online.

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has previously urged pensioners to check if they are eligible for the benefit, which would unlock winter fuel payments of up to £300.