PMQs live: Rishi Sunak faces Starmer IN first since local elections as Mordaunt tells Tories to end infighting

Good afternoon and welcome to The Independent’s live politics coverage.

We’ll bring you all the action as Sunak and Starmer face off at the first Prime Minister’s Questions since the local elections.

You can also watch it live on our YouTube channel (link below).

Stay tuned for all the latest updates from Westminster and elsewhere.

The former England cricketer  has revealed he is stepping down to reconsider his personal and political values.

Panesar was set to stand for George Galloway‘s Workers Party at the general election.

He was due to rival Labour in the Ealing, Southall seat in west London, which currently boasts a majority of 16,084.

Keir Starmer has promised a ‘decade of renewal’ but his chancellor will have a hard job funding it, says Sean O’Grady.

Read the piece in full here:

The Perthshire North MSP has officially become Scotland’s seventh first minister after pledging his alliance to the king.

The ceremony was presided by Lord President Lord Carloway at the Court Session in Edinburgh.

Swinney, 60,  has now the authority to make decisions and lead the country with the support of the Scottish parliament.

He attended the ceremony with his wife Elizabeth, his 13-year-old son Matthew and brother David.

Mr Swinney said it is an “extraordinary privilege” to become Scotland’s new First Minister as he pledged to “give everything I have” to the role, after winning the selection process on Tuesday.

Rishi Sunak needs to win back Tory voters who have gone “on strike” because of the failure to curb immigration and tackle extremism, former minister Robert Jenrick said.

The Prime Minister needs to ensure Conservatives who stayed at home rather than vote in the local elections came back to the ballot box at the national contest later this year.

The Newark MP, who has produced a paper on measures to curb net migration, said: “What I’ve tried to set out are a series of policies that could be implemented before the general election, such as what I’m saying today on legal migration, which would convince some of those Conservative voters – who are essentially on strike – to come back and support the party at the general election.

“And also to persuade some of those voters who are considering voting Reform that we do care about the issues that they do, which are principally immigration, but also on crime, on extremism and on lower taxes.

“But that will require honesty, it requires levelling with the public about the mistakes of the past and using every last minute we have in office before the general election to actually deliver positive change for the public.”

Rishi Sunak teased Manchester United fans yesterday while on a visit to Crystal Palace.

Crystal Palace defeated United 4-0 on Monday.

“United fans, look away now,” the prime minister wrote on X.

“Football changes lives and it’s great to see initiatives like this bringing communities together.”

Pollsters have dismissed Rishi Sunak’s claims that his party still has a fighting chance with a general election likely to produce “a hung parliament.”

The prime minister is set to try to persuade MPs tomorrow that the result will be closer than many people predict at the first of two briefing sessions on the local elections alongside his party chairman Richard Holden and head of election strategy Isaac Levido.

Michael Gove told his colleagues “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” as he invoked supermodel Kate Moss to warn against “comfort eating” on hard-line policies.

The secretary of state for housing and communities comments came during Tuesday’s cabinet meeting – the first since the Tories lost nearly 500 councillors in last week’s local elections drubbing.

He urged cabinet ministers not to pursue policies that “make us feel good,” The Times reported. But not everyone agreed, with Chris Heaton-Harris, the Northern Ireland secretary and Alister Jack, the Scotland secretary, raising concerns about the direction of their party.

“I disagree with you. We shouldn’t be apologists for what we believe in,” the latter said.