If he's Keir Starmer who says things, but he's just got better TikTok that will not be sufficient. But I think it's good when other parties start talking about Liberal Democrat priorities. We have led the debate on social care and carers because it's so important for our health service. We've led the debate on political change because we need to change our political system, and Mr. Burnham seems to be up for that.

Asked what he expected Burnham to do on adult social care, Davey said:

I genuinely don't know. The [cross-party] talks were more talks about talks. He was talking about the process that he wanted. So we haven't seen any substance on the table.

But he wants Louise Casey, who's chairing the care commission, to report much earlier than Keir Starmer wanted her to report. And he wants a deal to put to parliament by next summer. That's what he said. And I welcome that.

For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.

The latest edition of the Guardian's Politics Weekly UK podcast is out. It features and talking about what will happen when Andy Burnham meets Donald Trump tomorrow.

Scotland's current 32 council structure could be scrapped and replaced with a two-tier system of regional and more local bodies, under government proposals, the Press Association reports. PA says:

The Scottish government pledged to reform local government and published its initial offering today.

The proposals were published to "aid discussion" around the final plans.

The 1,800-word paper suggested replacing the current structure with between six and 10 regional authorities, which could be given powers over larger planning decisions, education and economic development, and between 120 and 160 more local "community" authorities, which would control local planning decisions, licensing and the historic environment.

The paper also suggested that responsibilities currently held by one of Scotland's roughly 130 public bodies could be given to either of the authorities.

Separate set-ups for Scotland's islands would also be required, according to the paper.

Funding models would probably be one of the more fraught areas of the new proposals with the government refusing to currently stake a position.

has claimed that women in the village of Piddington will not be safe if the government goes ahead with plans to house 1,250 male asylum seekers in a former military base nearby.

Today she met more than 40 women from the village, who told her that they had begun organising self-defence classes. They also told Badenoch that local police had told them they would need to "run and hide" if an incident were to take place, the Press Association reports.

Talking to journalists, Badenoch said:

We have 133 women in this village. I've been speaking to quite a lot of them right now, I had a meeting with about 40 to 50 of them, and being outnumbered 10 to one by men whose background is unknown on a site that is not well situated – it's right next to this children's park – this is a safeguarding issue and a Conservative government would intervene.

Badenoch also claimed that a letter sent to women in the village from Burnham had been "disrespectful". She said:

Not a single government minister has bothered to come down here and talk to these women. They haven't been offered a meeting. They have been dismissed.

The government tells us that it has a violence against women and girls strategy, but if they're not taking the issues of Piddington seriously, then I think that that strategy is not worth the paper that it's written on.

Here is 's report from the village published at the weekend. As she writes, even before Badenoch arrived, the far-right agitator Daniel Thomas, who prefers to be called Danny Tommo, the leader of the new balaclava-wearing anti-migrant movement Patriot Platform, was in the village giving his backing to their cause.

Reform's new leader in Wales was elected after narrowly defeating a rival candidate, Jason O'Connell, in a poll of the party's 33 Senedd members, it has emerged.

Nigel Farage made no mention of O'Connell when he joined , previously deputy leader of the party in Wales, outside the Senedd earlier today.

She succeeds Dan Thomas, who stood down last Tuesday as Reform's leader in Wales after he was arrested on suspicion of assault and controlling or coercive behaviours. He is on bail and denies all wrong doing.

While Thomas, previously a Tory councillor in London, was seen a figure who had been parachuted in to Wales by Reform UK, Jenner has been lauded by some in the party as a "long marcher" who has been involved with both the Brexit Party and UKIP in Wales.

However, the fact that she narrowly won – by a margin of 17 to 15 – the vote has led to speculation that fresh divisions could emerge in Reform's Senedd group.

Asked by LBC Wales if the Reform group had united around her, Jenner said:

There was a contest and I think any healthy democracy demands a contest, and both the candidates, myself and Jason O'Connell, we said whoever wins we will support each other and we said that right from the off.

While Reform is the latest Farage-led party to make inroads in Wales, their history has not been happy one.

Ukip Wales subsequently suffered a split in 2016, while a previous leader of Reform in Wales, Nathan Gill, was jailed last year for taking bribes to make statements in favour of Russia when he was an MEP.

The Conservatives and Reform UK are both proposing to save billions by tightening access to disability benefits for people with what they describe as milder mental health conditions. This is prompted in part by an increase in claims from young people suffering from depression, stress or anxiety.

This chart, from an Institute for Fiscal Studies report published last week, illustrates the trend. "The share of 16-year-olds claiming a disability benefit increased from 5% to 9%," the IFS claims.

The 'slash benefits' policies advocated by the Tories and Reform UK are based on an assumption that some of these mental health problems are bogus, or at least exaggerated.

and have both claimed that there is a problem of over-diagnosis, and that people are now getting medicalised for difficulties that in the past they might have just learned to put up with. In 2024 , who was then fighting the Tory leadership contest, released a paper making this argument at some length. "The socialisation of mental health, whereby mental health moved from something that people worked on for their own benefit, to something where everyone had to treat you differently, has both created costs and failed to improve people's mental health outcomes," Badenoch's report said. thinks the same, and has been even blunter; doctors were "massively over-diagnosing those with mental illness problems and those with other general behavioural disabilities," he said last year.

Now the government expert asked to investigate whether mental health conditions has suggested the Badenoch/Farage theory is wrong. was appointed last year by Wes Streeting, the then health secretary, to investigate "the prevalence and support for mental health conditions, ADHD and autism". Fonagy, a professor and head of psychology at University College London, has given an interview to the BBC in which he said that it was wrong to accuse young people of belonging to a "snowflake" generation. He said what young people were experiencing amounted to a genuine rise in mental health problems.

Fonagy told the BBC that it was "harder to be young now" and "in awe of the way they have adjusted to an environment that is far more difficult than I ever had to face".

Fonagy said:

They are a generation that has real serious challenges that I would not wish to have had when I was their age.

Adults have let them down. We're the first generation that probably collectively feels we had a better life than our children will have.

So, to the person who says it's a snowflake generation, just try living 24 hours as a 16-year-old.

Fonagy's final report has not yet been published. But he told the BBC that he wanted to speak out now because he did not want the debate about ADHD to obscure the wider mental health issues he is raising.

Fonagy's report is expected to say that ADHD symptoms should not automatically be formally diagnosed. Last week this led to claims that his recommendations would lead to a system of rationing.

Back to Reform UK, and these are from , the Welsh politics commentator, on how Helen Jenner was elected as the party's leader in Wales.

Reform has a new leader in Wales, but it was far from a unanimous choice.

I understand that there was a vote for either Helen Jenner or Jason O'Connell among Reform Senedd Members.

In the end Ms Jenner won with 17 votes to Mr O'Connell's 15.

Multiple sources close to the Reform group have told me that there is a fear "we will be back here in 6 months" with another leadership race...

Last week Reform MS James Evans said he had support of the "majority" of the group to be leader but didn't want the role.

This is not a happy ship.

The Lib Dems have uncovered what they claim is evidence of a "revolving door" between Ofwat and the water industry it is in charge of regulating. They have used freedom of information requests to find out that, over the past five years, 29 former Ofwat employees went on to take jobs either directly with some of the main water companies (10) or trade bodies or consultancies supporting the water sector (17).

Commenting on the figures, , the Lib Dem environment spokesperson, said:

We must smash the revolving door between the two water regulators and the industry they are meant to control. The recycling of regulator employees into the sector is an open secret, and shows just why responsibility is persistently and systematically evaded …

We utterly condemn the failure to fix our broken water system or protect our rivers from polluters. Labour must stop acting like campaigners and use their position in government to act now and prove they're serious about cleaning up our waterways.

Farron released the figures ahead of a debate tomorrow at the Lib Dem conference on what they claim is a comprehensive plan to reverse the failures of water privatisation. Summing up the plan, the Lib Dems say they would:

Replace the current regulator urgently with a new, powerful Clean Water Authority with statutory powers to end the sewage scandal, ban unjustified bonuses, and hold water executives legally accountable.

Convert failing water companies into Mutually Owned Public Benefit Corporations that are professionally managed, jointly owned by customers, and reinvest all surpluses directly into the water system rather than paying out dividends.

Strengthen Special Administration designation (SAR): Create an additional environmental trigger for the Special Administration of water companies to transfer operations to a mutual benefit model in cases of chronic or egregious environmental failure.

End the Sewage Cover-Up: Require water companies to monitor and publish live volume data for sewage spills, not just the duration, ensuring pollution is accurately measured and transparently reported.

Introduce a nationwide single social tariff for water bills to guarantee vulnerable households are protected from skyrocketing costs, as over 2.5m households are currently in debt to their water company.

Pursue a four nations agreement to restrict PFAS to prevent the manufacture and release of 'forever chemicals', alongside a remediation fund requiring polluters to pay for the cleanup.

The opening sentence to the preamble of the Liberal Democrats' constitution says:

The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community, and in which no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

Most of this is quite standard for a modern, progressive party – until you reach "conformity" at the end, which gives this a distinctive, liberal flavour.

In an unusual move, the party is using the quote as part of the backdrop to the conference stage. Normally parties go for just a bland, or blandish slogan. (According to in the Sunday Times yesterday, Labour's conference slogan this year will be: "Hope Again." This is not entirely bland, because it contains an implied dig at Keir Starmer.)

, the new Reform UK leader in Wales, has told the BBC that she thinks there are a "few things" Reform needs to change, including giving members more of a say on policy.

She also rejected claims that there were problems with unity in the Reform UK group in the Senedd, after it was claimed last week that James Evans had enough support to be elected leader if he had wanted the post.

Jenner said:

I think that it was a really difficult time for us.

They say a week's a long time in politics – to be honest, 24 hours was a long time in politics. But I think we are really united in terms of what we're trying to achieve here.

Reform UK's difficulties in Wales were highlighted by polling last week by for ITV Cymru Wales showing that, in terms of Westminster voting intention, support for Reform UK in Wales has fallen by seven points since May.

In his write-up for YouGov, said:

In the first YouGov / Barn Cymru (ITV Wales) Westminster voting intention poll since Andy Burnham took over as prime minister, Labour has seen a significant improvement in their vote share, accompanied by a decline for Reform UK.

Labour now take 18% of the vote, a 10pt increase from our last poll in May, just ahead of the 2026 Senedd elections. This means they are now neck and neck with Reform UK, who have experienced a seven point decline, to 19%.

Both trail Plaid Cymru by some margin, however, with their 27% vote share broadly similar to the 30% they achieved a few months ago.

Here is a further comment from , the Reform UK leader, about the resignation last week of the party's former leader in Wales, Dan Thomas, after he was arrested by the police. Farage said:

I am sorry for his personal difficulties that he is going through. No one's life is ever seamless and I am quite sure he will come out of these before too long.

But it was a pretty much untenable for him to continue as leader while he had these domestic disputes, so we very quickly and rapidly have moved to electing a new leader.

Thomas was arrested on suspicion of assault and controlling or coercive behaviour. He insists he has done nothing wrong and, after being arrested, he was released on bail pending further inquiries.

Helen Jenner was expected to be named as the new Reform UK leader in Wales. But, according to from ITV Cymru Wales, Jenner was not elected unopposed by Reform UK members of the Senedd. He says:

Reform UK Wales confirms that there was a contest in the choice of new leader. Two candidates stood, Helen Jenner won. The party won't say who the challenger was.