Home Sir Tony Blair, the former Labour prime minister, said in a 5,700-word essay: ‘The Labour party is playing with fire; or, more accurately, with its future, and that of the country.’ He said the party shouldn’t choose a new leader before deciding policy. In the first part of his government-commissioned report into economic inactivity

Intervention by former PM feels almost designed to inflict maximum annoyance on his party

The party’s most successful former leader and prime minister issues a scathing indictment of Starmer’s government – and warns that the UK cannot even discuss rejoining the EU…