By election results live: Tories ‘doomed to lose power’ without change of course, warns Lord Frost

Labour has stomped to its largest ever by-election win in Selby and Ainsty, with the 23-point swing celebrated by Sir Keir Starmer’s party rivalling heights not seen since the run-up to 1997’s landslide.

But voters in the Yorkshire market town were not alone in questioning whether the dramatic reversal of the Conservatives’ 20,000-strong majority was more representative of exasperation with the Tories than enthusiasm for Labour’s vision.

Andy Gregory reports:

There is no point “sticking to the plan” if you are heading for the “edge of the cliff”, Lord David Frost has said as he urged the prime minister Rishi Sunak to change course and avoid a general election defeat.

The outspoken peer and former Brexit negotiator, who quit government after failing to secure a new deal with the EU, has been a vocal critic of the green agenda and says Mr Sunak should scrap net zero policies if he wants to remain in No 10.

He said: “These policies are massive vote-losers, and especially so for Tories. It’s surely obvious that if we don’t bring back voters who voted for us in 2019 - and people who voted Leave in 2016 - we are doomed to lose.

“We should also be worried by the degree of apparent mistrust of the Prime Minister among our members and core voters because of the way he came to power.”

Lord Forst, who backed Liz Truss in the Tory leadership campaign, said the government must offer voters “something to vote for” as he called for tax cuts ahead of the general election.

“Getting inflation down is important but won’t be enough: that’s just a baseline requirement for being taken seriously,” he wrote in the Daily Telegraph.

“More is needed; some of the energy we’ve seen this week in acting on debanking; lower taxes and reduced spending; junking the costly net-zero policies; lower legal as well as illegal migration; ending the assault on the self-employed and much more - in all, a serious effort to get growth going again in a properly Tory way. There is still time to change course, but it is running out.”

Keir Starmer will deliver a speech to his party’s national policy forum this morning following Thursday’s by-elections.

Labour will debate its pitch to the electorate ahead of the next election, as the party reflects on a momentous by-election victory and narrow loss against the Conservatives.

Starmer is expected to address the national policy forum in Nottingham at around 10a, as members and affiliated groups consider on Saturday what ideas Labour should put forward in its manifesto at next year’s likely election.

Ulez and the controversial U-turn on child benefits police are likely to be discussed over the weekend.

A furious Nigel Farage has said he is considering suing Coutts bank after it closed his account in a major row over free speech that sparked interventions from the top of government.

The arch-Brexiteer claimed the bank had defamed him with comments it made in a report about why it no longer wanted him as a customer.

The Brexit supremo said it would be “difficult” to sue the BBC but that he was considering “all options” against NatWest. “What was said about me in the report was unfair and defamatory,” he told The Sun.

As we’ve reported, Nigel Farage is considering suing Coutts for closing his account.

The row sparked interventions from the top of government and campaigners...and now former prime minister Boris Johnson has waded in.

Writing in his Daily Mail column, Mr Johnson called on the boss of Natwest, which owns Coutts, to resign if she is found to have leaked details about Mr Farage’s account to the BBC.

Kate Devlin reports:

Labour leader Keir Starmer is delivering a speech at his party’s national policy forum in Nottingham.

It comes after Labour recorded a huge by-election win in Selby and Ainsty but narrowly lost in Uxbridge and South Ruislip.

We’ll bring you updates from the speech shortly.

Starmer starts his speech by thanking Labour staff for their hard work and says he’s happy to be in Nottingham.

He says the party will start its work this weekend in “good spirits” following the party’s huge win in Selby and Ainsty.

“I went there yesterday with Ange Rayner and we could feel that it was history in the making”, he told the audience.

Starmer thanks Danny Beales, the party’s candidate in Uxbridge, for his efforts in Boris Johnson’s old seat, which Labour narrowly lost.

He says that the result in the west London constituency seat showed Labor has a “long way to go” to win the public’s trust and form the next government.

“Of course we’ve every reason to be confident…but that result in Uxbridge demonstrates there is never any reason to be complacent.”

Starmer reminds staff and activists that Labour does not have a good record of winning from opposition as he urges them to stay focused on the task ahead.

He adds that overturning the party’s catastrophic 2019 defeat requires a “historic effort” and will be a difficult task to achieve in one term.

“We’ve got to ask ourselves: are our priorities the priorities of working people?”

Starmer says a Labour government will not be a “magic wand” able to “wash away” 13 years of Conservative chaos”.

He says that, if the party does win next year, it will have to make tough choices on the economy to repair the country’s finances.

“The rescue job will be like no other,” he adds.