Lammy to be new deputy PM with Cooper as foreign secretary and Mahmood at Home Office – UK politics live

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Yusuf was also asked by Gove, who was worse, Robinson or the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Yusuf replied: “Absolutely the worst is Jeremy Corbyn.”

Commenting on the appointment of David Lammy as justice secretary, Katie Kempen, chief executive of Victim Support, said: “We would like to congratulate David Lammy on his appointment as Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice. He takes on this role at a critical moment for victims, who are navigating a broken justice system at a time when vital support services face devastating funding cuts.

“We look forward to working with him to build a justice system that truly delivers for victims, and to seize this opportunity to commit to long-term, sustainable funding for services, so that every victim receives the support and respect they need and deserve.”

Reacting to Shabana Mahmood’s appointment as home secretary, Refugee Council chief executive Enver Solomon said Mahmood still faces significant challenges despite “important progress” made by her predecessor Yvette Cooper.

Solomon said: “It is vital she quickly gets to grips with a long to-do list that includes rapidly ending the use of asylum hotels, speeding up decision making for asylum applications and expanding safe and legal pathways for refugees fleeing conflict to reach the UK safely.”

The departing foreign secretary David Lammy recently confided that the sense of imposter syndrome that dogged him in all his previous jobs had left him as soon as he became foreign secretary.

He finally felt at home in diplomacy, and repeatedly said his intention was to remain foreign secretary for the full term, building the personal contacts critical to influence and providing the stability the foreign office has badly lacked as the Conservatives went through foreign secretaries like hot butter.

Sadly for Lammy, representing a middle rank power in the midst of the collapse of the multilateral order requires more than 426 days in office. It is probably not enough to leave a manifest legacy, or to turn the Foreign Office into the power house he felt his hero Ernest Bevin managed to do. Progressive realism, his watchword as foreign secretary, was a work in progress.

He brought the UK back closer to Europe, without overseeing any structural changes. He reversed Tory policy and banned most UK arms sales to Israel, but seemed reluctant to go much further as Israel used ever more destructive methods and killed more than 60,000 Palestinians. By the end of his time in office some settlers and two extremist members of the Israeli cabinet had been sanctioned by Lammy. The architecture of the trade relationship with Israel was left untouched, whilst France was seen to take the lead on the recognition of Palestine.

In Ukraine he hoped his curiously warm relationship with the cerebral and religious US vice president J D Vance gave the UK some leverage, but the bulk of the leadership on Ukraine came from the defence ministry, Number 10, an increasingly influential national security adviser Jonathan Powell, or the UK ambassador to Washington. The appointment of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to Washington, a decision Lammy championed, underscored Number 10’s determination to find a way to influence the Trump administration without advertising differences. It meant Lammy holding his tongue, and possibly not playing to his rhetorical strengths. .

His critics will point to his meek acceptance of a large cut in the overseas aid budget, so aid spending fell from 0.5% to 0.3% of Gross Income (GNI). In Sudan, one of the issues that stirred his conscience and on which the UK was the penholder at the security council, he was unable to end the proxy battles between the UAE and Egypt that make peace so elusive. Sudanese refugees are on the brink of another catastrophe

Nor did his efforts to bring home British detainees held overseas bear much fruit., In the jails of Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and India the same familiar faces remain behind bars. A promise to appoint a special envoy for overseas detainees, something that he surely could drive through, was continually delayed.

Nor did he make progress on his plans to make the fight against corruption, one of his promises in opposition. He appointed a special envoy and promised a conference in London, but the overseas territories have seemingly with impunity ignored his calls to come into line.

Doubtless no one will be more frustrated than him at leaving so much work unfinished, or half begun. Diplomacy is inherently a slow burn, and to leave a mark on the pages of history Lammy needed more time. But above all it is the requirement to pretend that Donald Trump is a serious person that leaves those that have to keep up this pretense so damaged.

Deputy Reform leader Richard Tice has told the Countryside Alliance reception at the annual conference that he would scrap inheritance tax.

He told the room, to applause, that Reform would “scrap the family farm tax” which refers to Labour introducing a new inheritance tax on farmland in last year’s budget.

Warming to the theme he said the party in power would “scrap all inheritance tax.”

Asked by the Guardian if he just meant agricultural property relief and business property relief he said: “I would scrap all inheritance tax no one would pay it again”.

Asked how would he fund it, he said “it’s a day one priority we will fund it.”

Angela Rayner’s departure on Friday has precipitated a wide-ranging reshuffle that means some of the government’s biggest names will be moving jobs. Here are the most significant changes.

Douglas Alexander’s appointment as the new Scotland secretary suggests strongly that Keir Starmer believes Labour needs a more cerebral and effective political operator in the post, with Scottish Labour struggling to overturn a steep slump in the polls.

A former aide to Gordon Brown, Alexander is Labour’s most experienced Scottish MP, and one of the most experienced at UK level.

A former international development secretary, transport secretary and briefly Scotland secretary under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, he is intimately familiar with the corridors of Whitehall and known for his deep understanding of political strategy.

Starmer’s decision to sack Murray shocked many in Scottish Labour – he was the party’s sole Scottish MP for eight years, building an unassailable electoral coalition in his seat of Edinburgh South.

But some sources suggest Murray did not have sufficient weight and presence at the cabinet table, and lacked the heft to extract big policy wins for Scotland in some parts of Whitehall. Despite Murray’s track record and popularity in Scottish Labour, Starmer was ruthless in his reshuffle.

With the polls suggesting Starmer faces a humiliating defeat in next May’s Holyrood elections at the hands of the Scottish party, with Scottish Labour a distant second behind the SNP and in some polls level with Reform UK, the prime minister decided to act.

“We can’t afford to be romantic about it,” said one party source.

Darren Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister and now the chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, has arrived at Downing Street.

He smiled and nodded after a reporter asked him: “Can you make this work?”

Three hecklers have been removed from Nigel Farage’s closing speech including one woman carried out in a heavy handed way and left lying on the ground outside the conference centre.

Security also tried to prevent journalists from filming and taking pictures of their handling of the episode.

One of the protesters had shouted at Farage that he was not a man of the people. As the woman was carried out, the Reform leader said: “Go easy, she’s clearly got some anger management issues.”

The Guardian’s political editor Pippa Crerar wrote on X: “Anybody else not mentioned eg Reeves at Treasury, Healey at defence, Miliband at energy, Wes Streeting at health, Bridget Phillipson at education, Alexander at transport and Lisa Nandy at culture etc remain in post.”

Here is the full list of the new-look cabinet.

David Lammy will be justice secretary and deputy prime minister

Yvette Cooper will be foreign secretary

Shabana Mahmood will be home secretary

Darren Jones will be chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, and retains his new role as chief secretary to the prime minister

Steve Reed will be housing secretary

Peter Kyle will be business secretary

Liz Kendall will be science secretary

Emma Reynolds will be environment secretary

Douglas Alexander will be Scotland secretary

Jonathan Reynolds will be chief whip

Alan Campbell will be leader of the House of Commons.

New science, environment and Scotland secretaries announced

Downing Street has also announced Liz Kendall will be the new science secretary.

Emma Reynolds will be the new environment secretary and Douglas Alexander will be the new Scotland secretary.

Jonathan Reynolds named as new chief whip

Downing Street has announced Jonathan Reynolds will be the new government chief whip.

Reynolds was previously the business secretary.