That's all from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the UK politics blog for today. Thanks for following along.

Here is a round-up of the day's headlines:

• Journalists at Declassified UK, an investigative media organisation, have been banned from the Labour party conference for a third year in a row. Declassified reported that three of its journalists were denied media passes for the conference in Liverpool next week because the party claimed they were only given to organisations "with a relevant portfolio".

• Zack Polanski declared himself an anti-Zionist and faced heckling at a Jewish community hustings in Holborn and St Pancras, where the Green party leader is standing as a candidate in next month's byelection. He said Zionism – the movement for a Jewish state – was a form of racism because it involved the displacement and genocide of Palestinians. His remarks were met with boos from the audience last night.

• Polanski, who is Jewish, said criticising the Israeli government and the occupation of Palestinian land was not antisemitic. "We need to come together to recognise that when we call that antisemitic, we are making ourselves as Jewish people less safe," he added. As the Green party prepares for its annual conference, members are due to vote on a motion to declare Zionism as a form of racism in official policy.

• Ravinder Athwal, the economist who wrote Labour's 2024 manifesto, is taking on a senior role as an adviser to John Healey, in a move likely to fuel speculation about an early general election. The chancellor is keen to beef up his team before the critical budget on 28 October, as the economy is buffeted by high oil prices and rising government borrowing costs.

• The government's decision to fully fund teacher pay rises in England has led to a speedy reward ahead of Labour party conference, after the National Education Union's executive said it will drop plans for a formal strike ballot next month. Around £460m of the 3.5% pay increase for teachers had been expected to come from this year's existing school budgets but Lucy Powell, the education secretary, announced last week that the entire amount would now be funded by the Department for Education.

• Grant Shapps, the former Conservative defence secretary, has warned government cuts to the Homes for Ukraine Scheme may "send the wrong message to [Vladimir] Putin" that the West is wavering in its support for Kyiv. From 1 January, payments to refugee hosts will fall from £350 to £100 a month, while council funding per arrival will drop from £5,900 to £3,300.

• A record £66m of emergency security funding was issued by the Home Office for mosques and related community sites in the UK when violent disorder spread in the aftermath of the Southport attacks in 2024. Exclusive figures obtained by the Guardian also reveal a record of about £41m of security funding was issued for mosques and related community sites for the year from April 2025-26 as part of the protective security scheme.

• The communications and governance director of Glasgow city council has said it was in a "hellish situation" as he blamed Unison for a decision to force workers onto new contracts, which involves the fire and rehire 23,000 workers across the city and about 11% of staff seeing their wages cut. PA Media reports Colin Edgar said "It's extremely difficult. We haven't taken this decision lightly. We absolutely do not want to do this. Two of our trade unions were together with us on a plan to not do this. One of them was not."

• Foreign secretary Ed Miliband told his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, that Britain will "not tolerate intimidation, threats or hostile activity on UK soil". The comments were made during a face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York, Foreign Office said.

• Advisers in No 10 are pushing for the prime minister to call an early election as part of an attempt to keep Labour in power, according to the Telegraph. The newspaper reported senior members of Andy Burnham's team believe calling an election in spring would give the party the best chance of winning another majority.

• and its proxies, including cyber attacks, sabotage and disinformation targeting organisations vital to Ukraine's defence. The government announced security minister Dan Jarvis and Armed Forces minister Louise Sandher-Jones will chair closed-door meetings with industry leaders in the coming weeks.

Andy Burnham was not even in the audience for the prime minister's speech at the Labour party conference this time last year. As Keir Starmer made the case for continuity to his restive party, Burnham was spotted slipping out over the bridge towards Liverpool's Albert Dock.

The Manchester mayor had been vying for the spotlight throughout the party's annual gathering, presenting the argument for change. But even he could not have envisaged the schism that would take place in the ensuing 12 months and would put him on the main stage as prime minister at this year's conference, beginning in Merseyside on Sunday.

At the time, Starmer retained a tentative grip on the party, while Burnham was mocked for leaving Liverpool with his tail between his legs, awkward and abashed, especially over his controversial comments about being too "in hock" to the bond markets.

But below the surface, disquiet was starting to take shape. Several cabinet ministers confided privately in Liverpool last year that they believed Burnham would ultimately be seen as the party's Cassandra: comically ham-fisted, but nonetheless telling hard truths about the party's problems.

After he succeeded Starmer in the top job in July, Burnham has made "Hope Again" his conference slogan, with No 10 strategists pitching this year's event as a definitive break with the past.

The government's decision to fully fund teacher pay rises in England has led to a speedy reward ahead of Labour party conference, after the National Education Union's executive said it will drop plans for a formal strike ballot next month.

Around £460m of the 3.5% pay increase for teachers had been expected to come from this year's existing school budgets but Lucy Powell, the education secretary, announced last week that the entire amount would now be funded by the Department for Education.

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, said:

This is the strongest signal yet that the new administration is willing to put its money where its mouth is.

It is my sincere belief that we now have a genuine opportunity on our hands to build on this victory, leverage our success, and make austerity in the classroom a thing of the past.

Powell posted on social media:

Pleased to see the NEU has agreed to stop its ballot for industrial action. There's a lot to do to get our education system working well for every child, so let's work together to achieve that.

The NEU's decision came after the Institute for Fiscal Studies said it nows expects school funding per pupil to grow by 9% in real terms between 2025–26 and 2028–29, more than double the rate expected after last year's spending review.

A record £66m of emergency security funding was issued by the Home Office for mosques and related community sites in the UK when violent disorder spread in the aftermath of the Southport attacks in 2024.

Exclusive figures obtained by the Guardian also reveal a record of about £41m of security funding was issued for mosques and related community sites for the year from April 2025-26 as part of the protective security scheme.

The chief executive of the British Muslim Trust, the government's partner for monitoring anti-Muslim hatred, said the figures "tell an incredibly sombre story about the rise in anti-Muslim hostility that British Muslims are living with".

"Security needs are increasing as a direct response to the increase in attacks that mosques are under," Akeela Ahmed said. "If we want to bring down the costs for protecting British Muslims in the UK then we need to reduce the need for protection and address the root causes of hate against Muslim communities."

The trust published data in July showing that across Britain one mosque was attacked every five days in the past year.

The government launched a security scheme for places of worship in 2016 for England and Wales, and later created a dedicated scheme worth £29.4m for mosques and faith schools in the UK in 2023 to provide security to ensure the safety of Muslim communities.

Journalists at , an investigative media organisation, have been banned from the Labour party conference for a third year in a row.

Declassified reported that three of its journalists were denied media passes for the conference in Liverpool next week because the party claimed they were only given to organisations "with a relevant portfolio". That is despite Declassified journalists being accredited with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), with one staff member also a member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

The organisation said it received a rejection email from Labour saying:

We reserve the right to reject an application if we cannot find any evidence the applicant is a working journalist or photographer with a political portfolio or working on behalf of a relevant media outlet."

Some Labour MPs likened the decision to a "Trump-like banning". Kim Johnson, the MP for Liverpool Riverside, said it was "bang out of order", telling Declassified: "To suggest they somehow aren't 'real journalists' because Labour doesn't consider them 'relevant' is frankly insulting."

The Guardian has contacted the Labour party for a response.

Declassified journalists were also banned from Reform UK's conference earlier this month, as were the Guardian's City editor, Anna Isaac, the investigative reporter Peter Geoghegan and the broadcaster and biographer Michael Crick.

Earlier this year, Declassified won a seven-month dispute over access to parliament after officials initially rejected its press pass application, citing concerns about its "particular standpoint", namely its coverage of Israel's war on Gaza. Following public and political pressure, Westminster authorities reversed the decision, granted Declassified a media pass, and changed the application process to clarify criteria and introduce an appeals route.

The communications and governance director of Glasgow city council has said it was in a "hellish situation" as he blamed Unison for a decision to force workers onto new contracts, which involves the fire and rehire 23,000 workers across the city and about 11% of staff seeing their wages cut.

PA Media reports said "It's extremely difficult. We haven't taken this decision lightly. We absolutely do not want to do this. Two of our trade unions were together with us on a plan to not do this. One of them was not."

The council has been in negotiations with unions over its plans to implement a new pay and grading system after the previous one was found to discriminate mostly against female workers.

Trade union spokespeople have vigorously disagreed. , Glasgow education convener at , said the council's claims that it was to blame for the situation were "misleading" and "false". She said the policy of fire and rehire was "utterly immoral", "shockingly deplorable" and that most of the staff receiving pay cuts were women.

industrial officer said: "Glasgow City Council must remove direct threats to our membership in its proposed new pay and grading structure whether it is through cuts to terms and conditions, or the scandalous threat of fire and rehire tactics. If they go down this reckless path then it will be met with the full force of Unite."

Ravinder Athwal, the economist who wrote Labour's 2024 manifesto, is taking on a senior role as an adviser to John Healey, in a move likely to fuel speculation about an early general election.

The chancellor is keen to beef up his team before the critical budget on 28 October, as the economy is buffeted by high oil prices and rising government borrowing costs.

Healey has poached Athwal to be his senior special adviser from the business advisory group Flint Global, previously run by Andy Burnham's chief of staff, the former Blair-era cabinet minister James Purnell.

Athwal, a Cambridge economics graduate, was closely associated with drawing up Labour's manifesto, and devising Keir Starmer's five "missions", which were meant to shape Labour's approach to government.

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the former Conservative defence secretary, has warned government cuts to the Homes for Ukraine Scheme may "send the wrong message to [Vladimir] Putin" that the West is wavering in its support for Kyiv.

From 1 January, payments to refugee hosts will fall from £350 to £100 a month, while council funding per arrival will drop from £5,900 to £3,300.

"What worries me about this announcement is that it might inadvertently send the wrong message to Putin and others that the west is somehow wavering, that we're losing interest, that our attention has gone elsewhere, which is the calculation that he has always wanted and tried to make, and and that would be the concern," Shapps told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.

has this report on how the changes will affect Ukrainian refugees in the UK, with some fearing that they could be left homeless:

Nataliya Rumyantseva is hosting her mother, the first Ukrainian to arrive in the UK after the war started. She said the changes were likely to have a significant impact.

"When refugees arrive here from Ukraine, they are shellshocked and need time to adapt and learn the language. If hosting changes to become a more commercial rental arrangement, I think that's cruel."

One host who lives in Greenwich said he did not know if he would be able to continue hosting because of the drop in payments. "I've been a sponsor since May 2022. I was dismayed to learn that thank you payments are reducing to just £100," he said.

"I lost my job within months of becoming a sponsor and these payments have become an absolute lifeline even though I did not volunteer for this scheme for the money. I genuinely worry about the consequences of this change for Ukrainians in the UK."

Read more:

Sagal Abdi-Wali does not want to be the prime minister. She doesn't even want to lead her party. Labour's candidate for Holborn and St Pancras laughs and shakes her head with unusual vigour when asked if she would like to follow in the footsteps of the last member of parliament for the constituency, Keir Starmer.

"No, no, no, no, that's not at all, in any way, what I'm trying to do," she says during a break in campaigning in the Primrose Hill cafe in Regent's Park. "I'm literally trying to get through the next few weeks and trying to be the member of parliament for this constituency, and that's all I care about."

It's a message the 42-year-old leader of Camden council returns to with ruthless discipline ahead of a byelection on 8 October. It is plastered all over her campaigning material and brought up by every door-knocking Labour activist – every mention an implicit comparison between herself and her high-profile opponent Zack Polanski.

"All I've done, all my life, is be a committed champion for people here," says Abdi-Wali. "Whether it's volunteering as a teenager or being a councillor, and all the work I did in between, that's all I've ever done. All I want to be is someone who will be visible and local and committed every single day."

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the editor of the Camden New Journal, was at the hustings last night. Here is his take (as posted on X):

Overall tonight was another hustings where most of the audience will have known who they were going to vote before they took their seats - one of the questions from the floor was asked by a Labour councillor.

It was a space for attendees to make it clear to Zack Polanski how very much they disagree with him on Israel and Palestine - and how they feel offended by his views.

But the fact we have this unusual flip where the coverage is being shared by both his opponents AND his supporters probably means he might feel this uncomfortable evening for him wasn't a waste of time.

The floor of the Green Party conference next month might be a different kind of challenge.

Zack Polanski is reportedly backing two amendments that would tone down the 'Zionism is racism' motion, according to Sky News.

As reported by the Guardian's senior political correspondent, the motion calls for "a single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital, equal rights for all, and the right of return for Palestinians and their descendants", and says the Palestinian people have the full right to "resistance and liberation from Israeli occupation, domination and subjugation" within international law.

If passed, Zionism "will be treated as any other form of racism" by the party, it adds.

Sky News reported that the amendments, which have been selected for a vote at the Green party conference next week, "pushback on the call for a single Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, and add safeguards for Jewish members who are part of groups that describe themselves as Zionist".

In other developments:

• Foreign secretary told his Iranian counterpart, that Britain will "not tolerate intimidation, threats or hostile activity on UK soil". The comments were made during a face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York, Foreign Office said. The pair discussed the war in the Middle East, the strait of Hormuz crisis and the UK's "unwavering resolve to combat threats from Iranian-linked groups in UK soil", according to a readout of the meeting.

• Advisers in No 10 are pushing for the prime minister to call an early election as part of an attempt to keep Labour in power, according to the Telegraph. The newspaper reported senior members of Andy Burnham's team believe calling an election in spring would give the party the best chance of winning another majority.

• and its proxies, including cyber attacks, sabotage and disinformation targeting organisations vital to Ukraine's defence. The government announced security minister Dan Jarvis and Armed Forces minister Louise Sandher-Jones will chair closed-door meetings with industry leaders in the coming weeks.

Morning, and welcome to our UK politics live blog.

Zack Polanski declared himself an anti-Zionist and faced heckling at a Jewish community hustings in Holborn and St Pancras, where the Green party leader is standing as a candidate in next month's byelection.

He said Zionism – the movement for a Jewish state – was a form of racism because it involved the displacement and genocide of Palestinians. His remarks were met with boos from the audience last night.

"I'm an anti-Zionist. I think countries have always been ideas and I think things change over time," he said.

Polanski, who is Jewish, said criticising the Israeli government and the occupation of Palestinian land was not antisemitic. "We need to come together to recognise that when we call that antisemitic, we are making ourselves as Jewish people less safe," he added.

As the Green party prepares for its annual conference, members are due to vote on a motion to declare Zionism as a form of racism in official policy. As my colleague reported last week, some in the party fear it could alienate Jewish supporters if it passed:

A Green official said that many activists loyal to the party's leadership might not be at the autumn conference because it takes place a week before voting in the Holborn and St Pancras byelection, in which Polanski hopes to take Keir Starmer's old seat from Labour, potentially leaving more scope for others to push through the motion.

"The risk is that if it passes as it is we are alienating ourselves from the Jewish community in the UK, a lot of whom are not big fans of the current Israeli government," a Green source said.

There was, they added, a parallel worry about internal splits, with some Green activists in leaked WhatsApp chats warning that Polanski was "struggling to overcome Zionist indoctrination".

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