UK election latest: Starmer embarks on 'reset' tour - as Tory leadership hopefuls 'coming to the fore' (2024)

Labour MP Jess Phillips is back with Beth and Ruth to unpick the election results.

On this episode they discuss how Jess was heckled when she narrowly held her seat of Birmingham Yardley.

They also look at the wider Labour results and talk through Rishi Sunak's resignation speech, as well as discussing why Reform and the Liberal Democrats took seats from the two main parties.

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Email Beth, Ruth, and Jess at electoraldysfunction@sky.uk, post on X to @BethRigby, or send a WhatsApp voice note on 07934 200 444.

So it's "Call me Keir", is it? Sounds very informal. But we shouldn't be fooled.

"I'm very happy to be called Keir or prime minister," he said at his first Downing Street news conference. "Perfectly happy to be called Keir."

How very Sir Tony Blair. At his first cabinet meeting in 1997, Sir Tony famously began by telling his ministers: "Just call me Tony."

Sir Tony also was known for "sofa government", relaxed informal meetings with aides like Jonathan Powell and Alastair Campbell, but no civil servants or official minutes.

It was a style which appalled Whitehall mandarins and traditionalists, who claimed it led to indiscipline and poor decision-making. They would say that, wouldn't they?

You can read more from Jon below:

There is a storm of difficult issues in Labour's in-tray.

Falling living standards, war in Europe and a stretched NHS.

Tony Blair's former political secretary Baroness Morgan told Sky News there won't be a big honeymoon period for Sir Keir Starmer.

Here, our political correspondent Tamara Cohen explains more about the challenges facing his government:

There's a lot of speculation over who could become the next leader of the Conservative Party, after Rishi Sunak confirmed he will be stepping aside when a plan for succession is in place.

Jeremy Hunt has ruled himself out, but no one has yet put forward a bid.

Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick today declined to say whether he would seek to replace Mr Sunak.

He told the BBC: "I honestly don't think three days on from the general election, in which we've just lost so many of our friends and colleagues, it is right to have self-indulgent conversations like this."

Mr Jenrick said he'd been with the party since 1997, aged 16, "through thick and thin" and cared about its future.

"I want to ensure it has the right diagnosis of what's gone wrong," he said, pointing towards "principles and ideas" rather than "personalities".

Former health secretary Victoria Adkins also told the broadcaster it wasn't the right time to discuss leadership bids - but didn't rule out a run.

How about Braverman?

Meanwhile, in an interview with GB News, Suella Braverman said she is "very flattered" with what colleagues are saying to her about leadership.

She added: "I'm having lots of conversations with colleagues, and I'm very flattered with what they're saying to me."

Our political correspondent Darren McCaffrey says it's no surprise leadership hopefuls are "very much coming to the fore".

But the scale of Tory losses at the election means some of those who would have been contenders - like Penny Mordaunt and Grant Shapps - aren't in the picture.

"Some big beasts who have dominated our politics for the last 10 years are not going to be in parliament," he says, admitting even for political journalists like him, it's "going to take time to get used to".

By Adele Robinson, business correspondent

It's a gloomy and grey morning in Witney town centre.

Raindrops pour down Cotswold stone and bounce from the pavements.

This dismal July scene provides the perfect metaphor for Conservative sentiment here.

Witney, in Oxfordshire, has been a Tory stronghold for 102 years - and was also the constituency for former prime minister Lord Cameron - but it is now officially no longer a safe seat.

A "Liberal Democrats Winning Here" sign, visible from the roadside, is a nod to the town's newly elected MP.

A majority of people on the Sky News YouGov voters panel have expressed a cautious optimism about the new Labour government.

Half of the 46 constituencies represented by our panel changed party in the general election, with two-thirds of our voters backing a different party from their 2019 vote.

The panel has now delivered its verdict on the election result, which saw Labour win a landslide victory - ending 14 years of Tory rule.

There was some enthusiasm. One former Conservative voter told us: "I'm quite excited to look forward to what the future is going to bring and what this party is going to bring to the table."

But another described the result as "pretty depressing". They said: "I've never been a Labour voter, pretty sad... but I don't think they're going to do anything."

One former Labour supporter who backed the Greens said: "This has been a not-the-Tories and a pro-Reform vote, rather than a pro-Labour vote."

Read on here...

The first 100 days in a new job are often seen as an important period for reputation-building.

For those in a political office, they must show they are making headway on the promises they made during the election campaign.

At his first news conference taking questions from journalists, Sir Keir Starmer was asked by Sky's political editor Beth Rigbywhat he will deliver in his first 100 days to prove "change" is coming to fruition.

Listen to his answer here...

Trevor Phillips puts it to the SNP's former MP Joanna Cherry that the independence campaign is "on the shelf for a while".

"I wouldn't say that," says Ms Cherry, adding that support for the SNP has become "decoupled" from independence.

"It wasn't a big issue on the doorsteps in the election campaign, but I think it would be foolish for the incoming Labour government, and certainly foolish for new Scottish Labour MPs, to assume that the constitutional question is off the table."

Asked if she will stand in the next elections to the Scottish Parliament, she says: "I'm not ruling anything in or out at the moment."

That's all for Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips - but stick with the Politics Hub for all the latest from Westminster and beyond.

Trevor asks outgoing MP Joanna Cherry if she believes the current SNP leadership lacks competence and integrity.

"No," she says. "It's not fair to blame the people who were left holding the baby when Nicola Sturgeon suddenly resigned.

"John Swinney has only been in post for a couple of months, and most of that time has been taken up with what was an unexpectedly early general election campaign.

"If anyone could bring the SNP together and resolve issues, you might argue it is John Swinney, because he is so widely respected."

Ms Cherry says Ms Sturgeon "ran the party the way that she wanted it".

"She was re-elected in a wave of optimism... and then thereafter she was presented with a series of opportunities after the Brexit referendum and during the early years with Boris Johnson... that ought to have been able to be exploited to further the cause of independence."

She adds there has been a "huge strategic failure" to do that.

Next onSunday Morning With Trevor Phillips is Joanna Cherry, a former Scottish National Party MP who lost her Edinburgh South West seat on Thursday.

The SNP were kicked out of 39 constituencies, reducing their number of MPs in Westminster from 48 to nine.

Labour have already made much of their resurgence north of border, with 36 MPs.

"In fairness to Labour, their vote went up very significantly in Scotland," she admits.

"It was difficult to persuade people to vote SNP in this election."

She says people who believed in Scottish independence were disillusioned with the party's "failure to progress the cause" during Brexit and Boris Johnson's premiership.

Secondly, the party's reputation of governing competently and with integrity "has taken a severe battering".