UK politics live: Badenoch warns of Tory leadership ‘stitch-up’ as Johnson reveals ‘nuts’ vaccine raid plan

Boris Johnson has claimed his Brexit deal allowed a faster rollout of the Covid vaccine saving lives.

Writing in Unleashed, serialised in Mail +, he said: “Under my deal, we came out. We took back control. That meant that when it came to the approval of vaccines, we no longer had to go at the pace of the rest of the European Union.

“We had our own agency – the ­Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency – and we could do our own thing.

“It meant, bluntly, that we were able to immunise huge numbers of elderly and vulnerable people who – if they had been living in an EU country, or in pre-Brexit ­Britain – would unquestionably have been forced to wait for EMA approval for their drugs, and who might therefore have died of Covid.

“It wasn’t long before some ­graffiti appeared on the wall in Portobello Road, West London.

“‘Brexit saves lives,’ it said.

“It wasn’t the sort of writing you expect on the wall in the largely Remain-backing Kensington and Chelsea, and I know that some of you will still find it a pretty indigestible assertion. But painful as it may be for some people, it’s true.”

Kemi Badenoch has doubled down on her claim that she “became working class” when she got a job at McDonald’s.

The Tory leadership hopeful said she came to the UK “with no money, no friends, no parents”.

She told LBC at that point in her life she was working class as she “had to work to eat”.

“I grew up in a middle class family but coming here I became working class - my dad gave me his last £100, he said ‘you know this is all we have’ because all our money was gone and this is one of the things that people don’t understand,” Ms Badenoch said.

Watch her original comments below:

Pension credit claims have hit almost 75,000 amid Government efforts to boost benefits take-up.

Department for Work and Pensions figures released on Friday showed the Government received around 74,400 pension credit claims in the eight weeks since 29 July, when Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced means testing for the winter fuel payment.

This is up from 29,500 claims in the eight weeks before the announcement.

But in the seven days beginning on 16 September, the department received 11,800 claims, down from 13,400 the week before.

The vast majority (92 per cent) of claims made in the week beginning 16 September were made online.

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has previously urged pensioners to check if they are eligible for the benefit, which would unlock winter fuel payments of up to £300.

Boris Johnson has written of the moment he handed before he went to the ICU suffering with Covid-19.

Writing in Unleashed, serialised in Mail + he said: “With the oximeter on my finger, we could see that my oxygen levels started slowly to creep up again, and I began to feel sleepy. Before I folded, there was one thing I had to do.

“I rang Dominic Raab. ‘First Secretary of State,’ I said.

“‘PM,’ he said. “‘You know I said that you might have to deputise for me,’ I said.

“‘Yes, PM.’

“‘Well, that moment has come.’

“‘No problem, PM,’ he said. ‘Get well soon.’

“He didn’t sound remotely rattled – in fact, he went on to do an ­outstanding job.”

If Mr Johnson had died, Mr Raab would have taken over as caretaker prime minister while a successor was chosen from a leadership election.

Boris Johnson has insisted he didn’t see anything illegal at his Downing Street birthday party writing in his memoir Unleashed, being serialised in Mail +.

Writing about the fallout of the event he said: “I relied upon Sue Gray, who (though I did not know this) had already been approached to be the chief of staff to Ed Miliband, former Labour leader, and who was to go on to be the chief of staff to Keir Starmer, my number one political foe.

“Some of the allegations in her report – vomiting, fights and so on – turned out to be untrue, and had to be withdrawn.

“As for all the other fines that were issued – more than 120 fixed penalty notices – the answer is of course that I don’t know. I wasn’t there, or didn’t see anything that looked illegal. If the fines were like mine, they must have been a bit puzzling.

“But what could I do? I paid the fine and got on with the job. I had a lot on.”