Patrick Lunt 🇬🇧

Hi

[Politics UK @PolitlcsUK]

🚨 NEW: Andy Burnham oversaw a £55m taxpayer loan to businesses owned by Manchester City's owners while he was Greater Manchester Mayor

[YouGov @YouGov]

With personal finances a major theme for this year's party conference season, which party do Britons think would leave them financially best off?

Conservatives: 19%
Labour: 17%
Reform UK: 12%
Greens: 6%
Lib Dems: 3%

[Steve Loftus @LoftusSteve]

Latest development in "Too many people are ridiculously stupid".

[Benedict Spence @BenedictSpence]

If you were to give me a lineup of the candidates the Tory party will field at the next general election, I will show you a gallery of men and women who were not only told what to think, but what to say and wear, too – and every single one will have been delighted to oblige.

[Christopher Hope📝 @christopherhope]

NEW A Conservative government will HALVE National Insurance contributions from 15pc to 7.5pc for 18-24 year olds to get more into work, in plan costing £2.3bn.
Kemi Badenoch tells me: "People aren't hiring young people anymore. So we're going to reverse Labour's jobs tax on young people, and we're going to go even further, bringing next payments to about 7.5% if you're aged between 21 and 24." Watch now on @GBNEWS.

[Jane @janeprinsley]

EXCL: The lead author of the Zionism is racism motion was identified in US court filings as a 'close friend' of a convicted al-Qaeda terrorist who plotted a suicide bomb attack at Heathrow Airport

[Robert Colvile @rcolvile]

Wait till someone tells John Healey, he’s going to be furious.

[(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges]

Hi @metpoliceuk Your post literally says you have the power to ban a march if it threatens “disruption to the life of the community”. What impact do you think this march will have on members of the Jewish community wanting to go about their lawful business in its vicinity.

[GB Politics @GBPolitcs]

🚨NEW: It has emerged that Labour's Manchester council chief, Sir Howard Bernstein, who signed the 2015 "first refusal" land deal with Man City owners ADUG, was later given the role of Man City's strategic adviser after leaving the council

[@theipaper]

[GB Politics @GBPolitcs]

🚨NEW: It's been revealed that Andy Burnham's "No 10 North" is set to be built on the exact Ancoats site that Manchester City's Abu Dhabi owners spent a decade holding first refusal over

[@theipaper]

[Nick Tyrone @NicholasTyrone]

This makes the Tories sound good, well done, Labour Press team. Nice boost for them on the verge of their conference.

[Fraser Nelson @FraserNelson]

That's the snag. Rejoining EU means adopting free movement, obeying the EU’s AI regulation etc.

With Marine Le Pen in the Élysée and AfD in power in Berlin I’m not sure it’s a club whose rules will sound attractive to many Brits.

Unusual fight for Burnham to pick.

[Jardine Matheson Internationalist @emergenteffects]

Intervening in this was a hilariously stupid move by Andy. Political instincts of a jacket potato.

[Alfie @AlfiePottsH]

This is how I imagine an innocent party with irrefutable evidence proving their innocence would act.

[Alex Wickham @alexwickham]

NEW: The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats say Andy Burnham’s government has questions to answer following our story

Tory shadow sports minister Louie French says: “Why was the Government giving Manchester City’s leadership such privileged access at this sensitive time? What was discussed? Transparency is key to ensuring that all parties are treated fairly and the integrity of English Football is upheld.”

The Liberal Democrat’s call on Burnham to publish the minutes of meetings between ministers and the UAE over investment and Man City

[Steve Loftus @LoftusSteve]

This is dangerous ground for Labour.

There are far more people who care about football clubs that are not Man City than care about Labour.

If City get off easy, and Labour are seen to have meddled, it's going to do them serious damage.

[Alex Wickham @alexwickham]

**EXCLUSIVE**

Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak met a senior UK government minister to discuss the UAE’s investments in Britain just days before the club’s guilty verdicts were announced.

Al Mubarak asked to meet Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds on 14 September in his capacity as CEO of Mubadala Investment Company, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund, sources tell Bloomberg.

The pair held a private meeting in Downing Street on that date, the people said. Al Mubarak talked about current and future UAE investment in Britain, they said.

The conversation covered the full range of the relationship including defence, security, intelligence and trade, they said.

Eleven days later, on 25 September, the Athletic reported Man City had been found guilty of breaking Premier League rules.

On 29 September, the Premier League confirmed Manchester City had been found guilty of artificially boosting its balance sheet by more than £900 million.

The fact of the meeting so close to the verdict will raise further questions about the UK government’s handling of the case.

Andy Burnham has faced criticism, including from his own ministers and officials, after he publicly suggested Man City’s Abu Dhabi owners should not be disqualified from running the club because of the investment they bring to Britain.

Earlier, Bloomberg reported that Emirati officials have warned the UK government that the severity of the ruling could undermine their appetite for future grand-scale commitments in Britain.

https://t.co/kEZiAWiFEV

[Nick Tyrone @NicholasTyrone]

I don’t think Andy Burnham’s comments on Man City were vague at all. They were pretty clear. He said about the owners of the club that he “would be really concerned to lose them.” That’s clearly picking a side. He can try and roll back on that, but that’s what he said.

[Daniel Storey @danielstorey85]

The Prime Minister seems to be the only person in the country who has missed that wrongdoing by Manchester City has already been established.

[Si @PhantomGoal]

i mean that’s a stinking look isn’t it? one of the biggest sporting scandals we’ve ever seen, irreparable damage done to the league’s reputation and many of its member clubs - and the PM’s first reaction is to bloviate about the good they’ve done. absolutely stinks of cronyism.