There it is …. 👇🏼 Truss says she's not blameless but points to,
- her party
- the Treasury
- the public
- even the US President
for not giving her ideas as fair crack of the whip...

Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak and Penny Mordaunt: Who are MPs backing? - latest numbers of backers for each candidate confirmed to ⁦@BBCNews⁩ - Sunak 97, Johnson 45, Mordaunt 21 bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi… True numbers maybe higher but those are confirmed names

I'm told..
-Dept of Health asked No 11 for more than 5bn extra last week to maintain more free testing, eg testing of NHS staff even if they didn't have symptoms
-By Sat, DH demand down to 3bn but warned of cuts elsewhere if no more £££
-By Sunday, DH demand down to 1.8bn... But seems talks btw DH and Treasury now settled with no extra cash, plan seems instead to move money around within exsiting Dept of Health budget - no new time agreed yet for Cabinet tho

"I walked in, I gave him a salute and said ‘Prime Minister, Guto Harri reporting for duty’ and he stood up from behind his desk and started to salute but then said ‘What am I doing, I should take the knee for you.".... "I then asked ‘Are you going to survive Boris?’ And he said in his deep voice, slowly and with purpose, whilst singing a little as he finished his sentence ‘I Will Survive’.
" he answered, ‘I’ve got all my love to give’, so we had a little blast of Gloria Gaynor!".. says Harri

I remember it it felt very edgy when the old chief whip said this... bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-pol… in 2019 There is a lot going on this week, but it is really extraordinary to have a row going on btw the current Chief Whip and a former minister over allegations of racism in the Tory Party and it playing out partly in public

Understand Baroness Hallett, crossbench peer and hugely experienced judge, likely to announced as chair of Covid inquiry, maybe as early as today Announcement expected to be made in a written statement from ministers later

Meanwhile,,,, Starmer says 'Tory corruption scandal is eroding trust', everyone wants to 'call time on the scandal that the Prime Minister has created' he says -'it's time to ban MPs from being paid directors and commercial consultants' Moment when Johnson was trying to defend Paterson and ministers were talking about the 'richness' that second jobs brought to Parliament feels a LONG time ago - massive reverse ferret by No 10 with naked political advantage of trying to blunt Starmer's attack today

Chatter in Westminster pointing finger at Chief Whip for the Paterson debacle, but it's unlikely he'd have done anything without No 10's say so It's suggested Spencer did phone Whittingdale and ask him to put his name to a committee to look at standards, to create an appeals process that could then, in turn, allow Paterson to appeal the ruling against him

Standby for something that is technical but important-govt document contains this 'using legislation included in the 2014 Care Act, we will ensure that self-funders are able to ask their Local Authority to arrange their care for them so that they can find better value care' So.. people who can afford to pay for their own care, will be able to ask their council to find them a place at the cheaper rates local authorities pay

Hello again -part of discussion No 10 and No 11 had to resolve about paying for health and care seems done tonight - senior govt source says 5.5bn extra on the way for winter + Covid backlogs - details of that likely to be confirmed tmrw, but social care deal still not clear Sounds like haggling still going on over social care funding - delay in reaching agreement's created plenty of space for a backlash before the details have even emerged

Cummings promised to give MPs evidence of some of his most explosive claims - bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi… he's just published text exchange with PM about Hancock and testing on here dominiccummings.substack.com/p/the-pm-on-ha… ... doesn't make pretty reading for Health Sec This was how Hancock answered some of the charges last week bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…

While Speaker was furious PM wasn't in the Commons to do Covid annoucement, he was in Number 10 having dinner with the Australian PM, Scott Morrison - understand the 2 have agreed broad terms of a Free Trade Agreement btw the two countries tonight, expect it to be announced tmrw Likely to be announced in Downing Street in the morning - we don't know the all important terms that have been agreed - have been a lot of nerves in parts of farming community, and some concerns shared by Environment Sec, George Eustice

PM says July 19th is a ‘terminus’ date, but can’t exclude possibility of another dangerous variant but says now he is confident that’s when rules will disappear But was interesting he said after that time people may still wish to ‘be sensible’ whether distancing or wearing masks - after that date PM suggested we have to learn to live with the disease

Hoyle confirms vote on aid will NOT happen today, but, sounds like there is a big 'but' coming Hoyle opens application for debate on the issue tmrw, and suggests govt must give Commons a proper discussion on this issue - Mitchell on his feet blasting govt for trying to avoid debate

- Silence from Starmer's team so far today, nearly 24 hours after his conversation with Angela Rayner which exploded last night - Her allies insist she was sacked + yday was at Party HQ preparing to go out and defend Starmer's leadership on TV today as party chair, and her team discovered she was being sacked from reporters

At this stage all the parties are in official, ooh it’s been very tough mode - that’s what they do at this moment in time when polls have just shut Broad picture - parties all quite blind this time due to constraints of pandemic so they don’t have the data that would give them a fuller picture, it’s a huge and unusual mix of contests in any case so hard to predict

Interesting sidebar on this... bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi… I understand No 11 was uneasy about what Dyson was asking for, and it's suggested they had quite deliberately not responded to his firm's requests before Sir James himself then texted Johnson directly about the tax issue

Letter from ACOBA, lobbying watchdog, reveals civil servant joined Greensill board while he was STILL working in government assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/upl… So, a very senior civil servant who was making commercial decisions about procurement, started working for Greensill even before he left Whitehall

here's the official announcement

https://twitter.com/nickeardleybbc/status/1381670495913979907

Review doesn't have any legal powers, and not expected to come up with recommendations for tightening up the system

Sad news - Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of Crosby, has died aged 90 She was a groundbreaking politician - MP in the 1960s Labour Cabinet minister in the 1970s, co-founder of the SDP in 1980s, then Liberal Democrat peer in later life

1. PM on EU - 'you can see sadly there is a third wave under way and people in this country should be under no illusions that previous experience has taught us that when a wave hits our friends, I'm afraid it washes up on our shores as well'.. 2. ....PM cont - " I expect we will feel those effects in due course. That's why we're getting on with our vaccination programme as fast as we can."