Starmer, smokes and snake oil

Good Thursday morning. This is Dan Bloom.
CITY BREAK: He nixed his summer holiday, but Keir Starmer is getting the next best thing — a morning in Paris meeting Paralympic athletes. It’s warm, he’s sent the press pack home and it’s the last quiet spell before MPs return on Monday. Well … if only it were that simple. Today’s meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron highlights growing questions about the prime minister’s Brexit “reset,” while back home his budget doom-mongering and new revelations of a crackdown on smokers will keep the media on a rolling boil.
The fun bit: Starmer will meet British Paralympic athletes, coaches and staff this morning after a grin-and-grip from Macron and a cagoule-free opening ceremony last night. He’ll also record an on-camera interview, details of which were TBC when Playbook hit send.
The serious bit: Starmer will then sit down with Macron late morning … though Downing Street is not exactly eager to dress this up as a big deal. Unlike his Wednesday meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, there’s no treaty to announce, no overnight trail, no traveling Lobby pack, no press conference and no plans for a pool clip afterward.
And no wonder: Macron is somewhat focused on domestic woes after talks to find a prime minister in recent days produced no breakthrough. This morning’s Playbook Paris leads on the president meeting *checks notes* the heads of regional and mayors’ associations, and mentions Starmer only as a brief footnote. But it runs deeper too; Macron has long been vocal about his own vision for a post-Brexit Europe and is “more cautious” than Germany about welcoming the U.K. to closer ties, as Sébastien Maillard of Chatham House put it to my colleague Sam Blewett.
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MACARONS WITH MACRON: The two centrists, each governing a fractured electorate, are expected to discuss business, trade, irregular migration, Ukraine and the Israel/Gaza conflict. Presumably, Starmer will resist the temptation to humblebrag about his 172-seat majority.
Here’s something to bond over: France has the far-right National Rally, Germany has the AfD, and Sam is told there are fears in Downing Street that Reform UK — or even the Tories, depending on whom they pick as leader — could pose a similar threat in the U.K. Starmer himself told traveling hacks it was up to progressives to take on the “snake oil” of populism and nationalism with “delivery and honesty.” Write-up here.
FREER WITH KEIR: In policy, meanwhile, Macron’s aides may read with interest a wave of British write-ups about a “youth mobility scheme” letting some citizens work in the U.K. (or “backpackers and baristas,” as the Mail calls it). Starmer didn’t explicitly rule it out in Germany, saying only he had “no plans” for one, and “EU sources” tell the i that the U.K. will have to give ground if it wants closer terms with the bloc. Wednesday’s action splashes the Mirror and Independent, too.
Read my lips: A No. 10 spokesperson told Playbook of an EU-wide youth mobility scheme: “We are not considering it, there are no plans for this, or any work being done on it.” Having “no plans” is of course not the same as ruling out ever doing something in the future, as we’ve all been reminded thanks to Labour’s lines on tax rises during the election campaign.
Worth noting: Starmer did tout more vague “education” and “cultural exchange” schemes, which may be closer to the landing ground. But the question of what trade-offs, exactly, a reset would entail will not go away — especially when a review of the U.K.’s post-Brexit trade deal begins next year.
Just don’t call them trade-offs: It’s also worth noting that, unlike the days when Tory Brexiteers set the political weather, there are noises off urging Starmer to go further and be open to more movement between Britain and the EU. UK in a Changing Europe chief Anand Menon writes in the Mirror that Starmer’s proposals are “tinkering round the edges” and will make “very little difference to our economy overall.”
Intriguing: Diplomatic sources tell the Times’ Bruno Waterfield that Scholz pressed other EU leaders to be open to concessions on single market access with Starmer … only to be rebuffed by Italy and France.
Does this count as mobility? The government has posted a £15 million “contract opportunity” to accelerate the return of migrants to 11 countries including Iraq, Ethiopia and Vietnam, reports the FT’s Anna Gross.
BOO TO NANNY: Now, moving to domestic matters … Starmer had best avoid the achingly cool Parisien café terraces on his way home, given the scoop by Jack Elsom that splashes today’s Sun. Elsom got hold of Starmer-backed Whitehall proposals to ban smoking outdoors in beer gardens, restaurant terraces, pavements next to nightclubs, children’s parks and, erm, shisha bars (!), as part of the return of the Tobacco and Vapes Bill. A consultation is due to follow.
Wasting no time: LOTO hopefuls Robert Jenrick and Priti Patel jumped on it, obvs, saying it’ll shutter pubs. A government spokesperson said they “don’t comment on leaks” but added they want to protect people from second-hand smoke and are “considering a range of measures.” Which isn’t exactly a denial.
BUT CHEER UP! Starmer promised the traveling pack that things would get better by the end of the parliament. “This is actually a project of hope,” he said. “But it’s got to start with the hard yards of doing the difficult stuff, of clearing out the rot first.”
Er, yeah, about that: The PM refused in his huddle to rule out raising fuel duty, which splashes the Mail and the Telegraph. It bears mentioning that this is, of course, a tax on working people. Starmer indicated to journalists that his election promise not to tax “working people” was “in relation to income tax, VAT and national insurance.” Right-o.
Comme ci, comme ça: Starmer didn’t rule out increasing thresholds for pension credit so that more people can keep their winter fuel payments — but didn’t commit either way (quotes via the Mirror). Energy minister Miatta Fahnbulleh said last night (via PA) that “we are committed to putting in place winter support this October. We will be hashing out the details over the next month.” Sounds like one to watch.
Merde! The FT devotes a page 1 story to what one analyst calls a “frenzy” of business owners trying to act ahead of a capital gains tax rise. Some people are even “losing their common sense” and considering speeding up the sale of assets they wanted for another decade. All that smoked salmon, and for what?
Je ne sais quoi: The Treasury has told several departments to find more than £1 billion in savings, report the Times’ Aubrey Allegretti and Chris Smyth — including education and health. One government source tells the pair: “We’re all being asked to really scrape the bone … it is properly grim.”
THAT OTHER DOMESTIC STORY: More No. 10 job news, meanwhile, comes via the Times’ Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund. The plugged-in pair hear some in Downing Street are uneasy about chief of staff Sue Gray’s pick to be Starmer’s principal private secretary — Daniel Gieve, who worked for lobbying firm Finsbury before running the government’s Office for Investment.
Silver lining: At least Tory ex-SpAd Henry Newman, who has been beating the drum about cronyism claims, won’t be railing against this one. He wrote in July that Gieve was “brilliant — cool as cucumber in a crisis; full of sage advice; good at building a team.”
NO. 10 JOB SCOOP: Downing Street has, meanwhile, bucked the recent controversial trend by hiring a former civil servant as a SpAd, not the other way around. Laura Hickey, a former Foreign Office official who worked as deputy consul general in New York, has joined No. 10 as a special adviser working on foreign policy, Playbook hears.
And not far away … Two people tell Playbook that John Bew, who was a foreign policy adviser to three Tory prime ministers, is still working in Downing Street despite not continuing in his previous brief (as my colleague Stefan Boscia reported in July). Your author is told he currently has a civil service role working on a series of defense-related issues. Reassuring to know it’s not just Labour SpAds who make the leap to officialdom.
AT LAST: A summer of schmoozing and discreet phone calls is coming to a close as Tory MPs start whittling six leadership candidates to four next week. Priti Patel, James Cleverly, Kemi Badenoch and Tom Tugendhat are all due to launch their campaigns between Friday and Tuesday, after Robert Jenrick did so back in July. (Poor old Mel Stride is widely tipped to be knocked out.)
First out the blocks … sorta: Tugendhat has a 2 p.m. speech and Q&A in Westminster, where he will put the focus on what he calls Labour’s union appeasement, dishonesty about the public finances and “ideological vandalism” in a desire for a bigger state. Aides say it is about showing he is not just the foreign affairs guy — and appealing to both wings of the Conservative Party, rather than just his One Nation pigeonhole.
When is a launch not a launch? Today is Tugendhat’s second big press event, just, erm, don’t call it his launch event. Playbook reckons his team is gearing up to do that next Tuesday.
Right on brand: Along with turning his guns on Starmer, the former Territorial Army intelligence officer will hail the “little platoons” of normal people who “know better than the man in Whitehall.” Not quite “quiet bat people,” but a good effort.
SHE’S BACK! Kemi Badenoch has returned from her long holiday and will launch her campaign with the slogan “truth — responsibility — country,” according to the Spectator’s Katy Balls.
THE KEY QUESTION … If Stride gets knocked out, who will be left in fifth place? Balls writes today that it’s largely thought to be between “unity” candidates Priti Patel and James Cleverly, both of whom are pushing hard. Cleverly hosted hacks in his office last night (spotted list below), while former Chief Whip Wendy Morton (more of whom below too) announced she was backing Patel in the Telegraph.
But but but … Well over half the parliamentary party is undeclared (see Christian Calgie’s tracker here) and it’s so small, even tiny changes of allegiance could throw the cleverest predictions out of whack. Add to that the fact that many MPs just want to back a winner, and you have an even more volatile electorate than usual.
The real issue in all this: Jenrick’s use of Ozempic splits the public pretty much down the middle, it turns out. A Savanta poll shared with Playbook says 32 percent support and 33 percent oppose people using the weight-loss jab generally. Though it’s 37 percent opposed when it comes to Tory voters.
Meanwhile, out in the world: Such is the lack of public interest that Playbook hears Tories are struggling to get a hearing in morning broadcast rounds. Take Wednesday, for example: Shadow Commons Leader Chris Philp was featured by just five outlets, only three of which were live.
PARLIAMENT: Buying new pencilcases and such.
SCOOP — RAILROADED: The government’s new rail minister got an engineer sacked from his job for raising safety concerns about overcrowding at Euston station, my colleague Jon Stone reveals today. Jon has got hold of a letter from Peter Hendy in his former role as chair of Network Rail, where he threatened to withhold public contracts from the engineer’s employer — saying the criticism “reflects adversely on your likelihood of doing business with us or our supply chain.” Full story here.
IT NEVER RAINS, IT POURS: More evidence that the Home Office is the hospital pass of government via a blistering Institute for Fiscal Studies report. It says asylum, border, visa and passport spending went from a budgeted £110 million to a whopping £2.6 billion per year, part of a “bad habit of submitting initial budgets … that it knows to be insufficient.” It splashes the Guardian where, as you’d expect, Labour is using this to argue things are much worse under the bonnet than we all thought. Shadow Home Secretary James Cleverly said: “Border control has never been free.”
“Change” latest: The Home Office is also soldiering on with a legal fight to keep protest laws introduced under the last government. The human rights group Liberty accused ministers of a “disregard for the rule of law” after government lawyers confirmed they would try to overturn a decision by the High Court, which ruled some restrictions that were made by secondary legislation were unlawful. The Home Office declined to explain its rationale.
EVERYTHING IS FINE! Some prisoners will be freed (on curfew with tags) after just 20 percent of their sentence under the government’s early release scheme, the Telegraph’s Charles Hymas writes … while Chief Inspector of Probation Martin Jones has warned ministers are “rolling the dice” and it’s “inevitable that things will go wrong.” That interview splashes the Times.
OOFT: Household incomes are set to grow by 3 percent in real terms this year — but then by just 2 percent over five years in total, according to the Resolution Foundation. Full numbers in the think tank’s annual report here, which suggests Chancellor Rachel Reeves should ax benefit restrictions including the two-child limit. Good luck, as they say, with that.
CHELSEA BUN-GLE: The home of the Chelsea Pensioners was told it would lose a £13 million MOD grant due to defense spending restraint … only for officials to U-turn and say it never had ministerial approval, reports the Mail.
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTS TO TALK ABOUT: Some details about a “new homes accelerator” group Rachel Reeves announced in July. Playbook is told 15 (that’ll do it!) top planning officials from MHCLG and Homes England will meet councils and house-builders to resolve stumbling blocks in applications. The press release claims “200 large sites” have plans “ready to go.” But it won’t override the planning system, just work within it. Housing Minister Matthew Pennycook has a visit later.
WHAT LABOUR GEEKS WANT TO TALK ABOUT: Elections to the party’s ruling NEC, which is already close to saturation of Starmer loyalists. They run until Sept. 17 and LabourList has a rundown.
TAPPING (UP) THE MIKE: Labour MP Mike Tapp has the endorsement of Tory grandee David Davis in his bid to become chair of the justice committee, Playbook’s Stefan Boscia texts from his holiday to say. Tapp is one of several newbie Labour MPs trying to become chair of a Commons committee — much to the chagrin of more senior colleagues.
TETCHY RISHI: Rishi Sunak’s aggressive election debate style against Keir Starmer was “brilliant,” the dude who advised him to do it tells my colleague Anne McElvoy on POLITICO’s Power Play podcast. Brett O’Donnell, debate coach to Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush and the ex-PM, said it was “as well as we’ve ever had a client execute any debate strategy” — even if Sunak, er, lost the election. “The debates may have helped save a few seats here and there,” he says.
STATS DUMP: Data will be released at 9.30 a.m. on GP appointments … NHS sickness absences … armed forces personnel … the boiler upgrade scheme … the DWP work and health program … and Windrush compensation.
SW1 EVENTS: Policy Exchange is hosting an online Q&A with former U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien from 3 p.m. (details here).
49 DAYS OF MAYHEM: Veteran biographer Anthony Seldon’s book on Liz Truss’ brief time in office is out today — shedding more light on what was already Lobby hacks’ richest seam of material for years. Parts of “Truss at 10” are already serialized (here, here and here), but Playbook found it gripping. We trawled through some of the most eye-catching other lines …
Inauspicious start: The first call of Truss’ campaign, from a runway in Indonesia, went to Isaac Levido — whom she asked to be her campaign manager, says the book. He rejected the offer, citing his contract with CCHQ … and was then ditched in Truss’ fourth week in office. Ouch. 
Moves in her own way: On the day she won the leadership contest, a meeting was arranged to iron out the creases in her energy support package. “Out of the blue,” Truss announced she would set the price cap for a typical home at £2,500, not £3,000, “a £10 billion-plus decision taken on her own in less than 30 seconds,” said an anonymous attendee.
Royally difficult: A few days later, Truss and her team were crammed around boxes and sparse furniture in the Downing Street flat when Simon Case’s phone rang. While the news that Queen Elizabeth II had died was, by that point, expected, a gasp filled the room when the Cabinet secretary ended the call with the words “God save the king.” The room remained silent for five to 10 minutes afterward.
On cuts: After Truss unveiled her mini-budget, an adviser was apparently told she and Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng were “looking at stopping cancer treatment on the NHS” to “sort out the black hole.” Kwarteng joined Truss in flat-out denying this on GB News last night.
A woman of few words: Was Truss’ call to Jeremy Hunt to appoint him chancellor the swiftest of its kind ever? After the pleasantries, Seldon writes, Hunt asked how he could help. She replied with one word: “Chancellor.” When he asked to think it through for half an hour, she replied: “Fine.” Then the line went dead.
Savage Saj: The book hits a frenetic pace as Truss enters her final week. Seldon recalls Sajid Javid’s ultimatum to the PM after he was briefed against by No. 10 aide Jason Stein. Javid is said to have told her: “I’m not certain you will last the week — and certainly not if you don’t fire him because I will make your life hell.”
He was so close: After Suella Braverman resigned, Truss is said to have had a backup plan if Grant Shapps refused to become home secretary — she would shift Foreign Secretary James Cleverly to the Home Office, and give Shapps the coveted FCDO job instead. Luckily, Shapps took the bait … but poor old Cleverly was pushed to the Home Office anyway under Rishi Sunak.
Whipping around: So chaotic was Truss’ final night — when Chief Whip Wendy Morton resigned then un-resigned — that the PM’s Principal Private Secretary Nick Catsaras called Buckingham Palace to ask the king to approve a new chief whip, Greg Hands. The king did so an hour later — only for Morton to stay in the job after all.
In conclusion: While Seldon says Truss was “undoubtedly clever” and had “an economic policy consistency about her,” he argues she broke all 10 cardinal rules for succeeding as a PM — including having a “realistic plan for government.” He also rides to the blob’s rescue, saying “there was no coordinated ‘deep state’ attempt to unseat her and defeat her project” — even if “a state apparatus weakened by the Tories certainly did not perform at its peak.” Sorry to disappoint.
TROUBLES MEETING: Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn met Troubles victims and survivors in Belfast Wednesday as part of the process to repeal and replace the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act. Write-up from the Irish News here.
APP ARREST: French authorities on Wednesday indicted Telegram CEO Pavel Durov with six charges related to illicit activity by users of the app, including child sexual abuse images. He was released on a €5 million bail. Nikolai Durov, Pavel’s brother and a Telegram co-founder, is also wanted by French authorities, as our POLITICO team in Paris and Brussels revealed. The FT splashes on Brussels investigating whether the app breached EU rules by failing to provide accurate user numbers.
WON’T BE EASY: CIA Deputy Director David Cohen said Russian President Vladimir Putin will try to regain territory captured by Ukraine in the Kursk region, but Russian forces will encounter “a difficult fight” and there will be a knock-on effect on morale back home, Reuters reports.
GAZA LATEST: The U.N. World Food Program has stopped all staff movements in the Gaza Strip “until further notice” after an aid convoy came under fire despite “receiving multiple clearances by Israel,” the BBC reports. It came as at least 10 Palestinians were killed in an attack that Israeli forces describe as a “counterterrorism operation” in the north of the West Bank.
YIKES: Former Nevada county politician Robert Telles was found guilty of murdering journalist Jeff German, who wrote critical stories about Telles’ time as a public administrator. Story via the BBC here.
DONALD LUCK: My colleagues Hannah Brenton and Eleanor Myers have a fun piece on how — if you ask them very quietly — City financiers wouldn’t mind having Donald Trump back as U.S. president. They argue his laissez-faire stance on finance might outweigh his protectionism and market backlash from his foreign policy.
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No government or opposition broadcast rounds.
BBC Breakfast: Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey (7.30 a.m.).
Nick Ferrari at Breakfast: UK Hospitality CEO Kate Nicholls (8.05 a.m.) … Private Education Policy Forum co-founder Jess Staufenberg (8.35 a.m.).
Today: German Ambassador to the U.K. Miguel Berger (7.30 a.m.).
Times Radio Breakfast: Former Parole Board Chair Nick Hardwick (7 a.m.) … Regius Chair of Medicine at the University of Oxford John Bell (7.20 a.m.) … Israeli special envoy Fleur Hassan-Nahoum (7.30 a.m.) … former Cabinet Secretary Gus O’Donnell (7.50 a.m.) … Office for Place Chair Nicholas Boys Smith (8 a.m.) … former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi (8.15 a.m.). 
LBC News: Children’s Society CEO Mark Russell (7.45 a.m.) … Liberal Democrat MP Helen Morgan (8.20 a.m.).
POLITICO UK: Britain’s bankers are quietly hoping for another Trump term.
Daily Express: Farage — Not a word from our PM on boats crisis! 
Daily Mail: Motorists face fuel hike under Starmer’s squeeze.
Daily Mirror: Brexit reset.
Daily Star: You can’t park there, mate!
Financial Times: Brussels probe into breach of digital rules adds to pressure on Telegram.
i: Starmer must give way on youth migration to get softer Brexit, EU sources claim.
Metro: 3 pints and you’re out.
The Daily Telegraph: Fuel duty could be next in tax grab.
The Guardian: Tories ‘woefully’ understated the cost of asylum, claims thinktank.
The Independent: Starmer takes step closer to EU — but won’t reverse Brexit.
The Sun: No cigarettes and alcohol.
The Times: Mass release of inmates ‘rolls the dice’ on crime.
New Statesman: Trump in turmoil. 
The Spectator: Alt reich.
WESTMINSTER WEATHER: Warm and sunny, which is nice. High 25C, low 12C.
SPOTTED … enjoying Franco Manca truffle pizza and wine with Tory leadership candidate James Cleverly’s team in “JCHQ” — the start-up style office near King’s Cross, with screens showing a slideshow of Cleverly’s achievements and favorability polls: Cleverly and his wife Susie Cleverly … his campaign aides Emma Pryor, Callum Price, Joe Tetlow, Rupert Cunningham, James Davies, Alice Hopkin, Peter Smallwood, Brandon Hattiloney and Kayli Free … Former parliamentary candidate Johnny Luk … ConHome editor and former Cleverly SpAd Giles Dilnot … Pol eds Harry Cole, Kate Ferguson, Pippa Crerar, Christopher Hope, Adam Payne, Natasha Clark and David Maddox … and fellow Lobby journalists Dan Hodges, Charles Hymas, Max Young, Harry Farley, Michael Knowles, James Heale, Jack Elsom and Camilla Turner.
ON HOLD: The publication of the final instalment of Tim Shipman’s Brexit quartet, “Out,” has been delayed. The book that is “so big it needs double binding” is now due out on Nov. 21. 
WAKE ME UP WHEN SEPTEMBER ENDS: The Despatch Box coffee bar in Portcullis House is now being extended to cut those mammoth queues (as Playbook PM revealed would happen way back in May). But there’s a sting in the tail — the work won’t be finished until October. Until then, MPs and staff must make do with a pop-up by the escalators … with no iced coffees. Good luck. It’s tough out there.
OUT NOW: Former Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi’s autobiography, “The Boy from Baghdad,” has hit bookshelves. 
NEW GIG: Caitlin Doherty has joined PA as its deputy political editor, having previously been a political correspondent at PolHome. 
BE CAREFUL: The UKHSA has warned the new school term could bring a surge in measles cases if children are not vaccinated.
NEWBIE ON THE BLOCK: A campaign called Blue Collar Parliament (no relation to Blue Collar Conservatives) hopes to increase the number of working-class political candidates across all parties after a decline since the 1960s. It’s run by David Littlefair, who is also running for Labour’s ruling NEC.
IN MEMORIAM: Former CWU Deputy General Secretary Andy Kerr has died following a serious illness. 
NOW READ: Lisa Haseldine, in the Spectator cover story, travels to Saxony and Thuringia to understand the AfD voters enjoying the far-right party’s advance … and the free beers handed out at the back of the room. My Berlin-based colleague Matt Karnitschnig writes that east Germany is the site of Putin’s next coup.
WRITING PLAYBOOK PM: Andrew McDonald.
WRITING PLAYBOOK FRIDAY MORNING: Dan Bloom.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO: Nottingham East MP Nadia Whittome … Commentator and former MEP Patrick O’Flynn … Times Literary Supplement Editor Martin Ivens … Google spinner Rosie Johnston-Luff … The Economist’s China Editor Roger McShane.
PLAYBOOK COULDN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT: My editors Zoya Sheftalovich and Alex Spence, diary reporter Bethany Dawson and producer Catherine Bouris.
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