The Daily Politics

The extra £8bn for the NHS in England promised by the incoming Conservative government was the "bare minimum" said Chris Ham of the King's Fund, who spoke of a black hole in health and social care funding.

He spoke to Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics, along with Conservative MP and GP Sarah Wollaston, and former Labour Health Secretary Alan Milburn about spending on health care.

Watch the clip

A quick recap on the day's events so far, as the early team take our leave and hand over to the late team.

David Cameron's new Conservative-only cabinet has held its first meeting and the prime minister has also appointed a number of junior ministers.

Business Secretary Sajid Javid told the BBC he was keen to press ahead with plans to require any strike ballot to have a minimum turnout of 50% of union members eligible to vote - on the same day that the RMT rail union announced strike action as a result of a ballot which it claimed had a 60% turnout.

Shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna has followed shadow health minister Liz Kendall in throwing his hat into the ring to be the next Labour leader. MPs Stella Creasy and Ben Bradshaw are rumoured to be considering bids for the deputy leadership.

And Lib Dem MP Norman Lamb has indicated that he will stand to succeed Nick Clegg as his party's leader.

Image source, AFP

We've received an email from UKIP chairman Steve Crowther about the Nigel Farage un-resignation.

He writes: "There was not the slightest suggestion that the NEC was anything other than unanimous in its wish for Nigel to withdraw his resignation. He spent a considerable time making the case for his resignation, and the appointment of an interim leader, but there was no-one in the committee who did not want him to stay on. He left the room while it was further discussed.

"I took the views of members and they unanimously asked him to remain as leader. The NEC is 100% behind Nigel as we go forward into the referendum campaign which is already under way."

Sources at Westminster have indicated the SNP will be given control of two Commons Select Committees as a result of their increase in numbers. Parliamentary convention dictates that the official third largest party at Westminster gets to chair a number of the committees, which scrutinise the work of government departments. Now the SNP has 56 MPs, it has overtaken the Liberal Democrats as the third largest party. The SNP is expected to take over the chairmanship of the Scottish affairs committee and another, yet to be decided.

Labour leadership candidate Chuka Umunna tells the BBC that the party needs "to be very clear that we want to address the insecurities, but also the aspirations of people all the way up the income scale".

Labour, as the name suggests, is "about good, fulfilling work for those that want to make the effort," he adds, which also means supporting those who create wealth and create jobs.

He argues that Labour's election programme did contain measures to "help the wealth creators" but the party did not get that message across sufficiently.

He also says Labour needs to draw attention to what he calls "the terrible things the Conservatives want to do" that will stand in the way of people's ambitions.

Image source, PA

A new law giving more powers to the Welsh Assembly - pictured above - is unlikely to be in UK ministers' plans for their first year in office.

BBC Wales understands the proposed Wales Bill will not be among the early laws to be debated by MPs.

During the general election campaign, Chancellor George Osborne promised Welsh legislation within 100 days of the Conservatives taking power.

Now ministers say they want to get the detail of any new law right, rather than meet an artificial deadline.

Ben Bradshaw is preparing to stand for Labour deputy leader,according to MailOnline., external

The Exeter MP and former culture secretary yesterday urged Lord Sugar not to quit the party and "help us back to sanity, ensuring we win in 2020".

The Mail quotes some critical words from Mr Bradshaw about Labour's campaign under Ed Miliband:

Marc Williams
Newsnight Election Producer

There has been a lot of talk about how David Cameron's cabinet Reshuffle was designed to promote advocates of "Blue Collar Conservatism" like Sajid Javid and Robert Halfon.

But getting the votes of who statisticians call DEs and who most people would call the "working classes" (although the E class includes some pensioners and unemployed) is a real problem for all of what, before the Lib Dem collapse, used to be called the three main parties.

Let's look at their performance in this area since October 1974:

Image source, Newsnight

The 2015 figures are taken from Lord Ashcroft's post-election survey, external and so should be taken with a pinch of salt. Here's the chart of the same data:

Image source, Newsnight

A few points:

- If the Ashcroft poll is correct, the Tory High Command will be disappointed that their vote share among DEs has sunk towards the level of their 1997 landslide defeat

- The Labour Party is experiencing a long and seemingly systemic decline in their DE vote which began in 1997

- The total share of the DE vote seized by the three main parties has collapsed to a low of just 65%, again, assuming the Ashcroft poll is correct

- There are two big beneficiaries of this: first, UKIP, who got 20% of the DE vote (just below the Tories); second, the SNP, who hoovered up the traditional Labour vote to achieve those remarkable swings last Thursday

A big challenge awaits the Tories and Labour on this front. The Tories need to push their DE support back up to the 30% level if they are to achieve the sustained electoral success of the party between 1979 and 1992. Labour urgently need to stem the flow of DE people away from them if they are to stand any chance of retaking their former Scottish heartlands AND head off a possible similar collapse to UKIP in 2020 in their Northern strongholds.

The Daily Politics

Tuesday's newspapers raised fears for the BBC under new Culture Secretary John Whittingdale, who has previously spoken out against the licence fee.

Andrew Neil and Jo Coburn heard from Conservative MP Philip Davies, who sat on the culture, media and sport committee in the last parliament and Chris Bryant, a Labour MP and shadow culture secretary, about the future of the broadcaster and whether it was too dominant. Watch the debate.

Image source, EPA

The Home Office says the United Kingdom will not take part in any European Union scheme to relocate migrants travelling across the Mediterranean. The European Commission is to propose that EU member countries take in refugees under a quota scheme. This will need to be be agreed by EU states.

The United Nations estimates that 60,000 people have attempted to make the journey on people smuggling boats this year already.

A Home Office spokesperson said:

The spokesman added: "When a new piece of legislation in the area of justice and home affairs - including asylum policy - is proposed, the UK can choose whether or not to participate in it."

Carole Walker
Political correspondent

Image source, AP

The prime minister’s spokesman said there was no change in the position or timetable for an EU referendum. He said that as the PM has set out on a number of occasions, you do need some time to renegotiate a new relationship and the PM would not want to make promises he could not keep. The spokesman added: “If we can do it earlier we will, but I would underline there is no change in the position.“

He said the renegotiation would be led by the PM along with the chancellor, foreign secretary, minister for Europe and other relevant cabinet ministers.

Asked about treaty change, the spokesman said: “We want treaty change.” He said all the advice was that treaty change was required for the reforms the government wants to introduce on issues such as access to welfare.

He said David Cameron would be saying more about this at the June EU council and would take the opportunity for preparatory discussions in bilateral meetings ahead of that.

We know Norman Lamb is running for the Lib Dem leadership and the expectation is that Tim Farron will also join the race. But could there be a third candidate - MP for Leeds North West, Greg Mulholland? He's been teasing his Twitter followers in the last couple of hours...

The Daily Politics

UKIP's leader carried out his promise to stand down if he failed to win his seat at the general election. But in a Daily Politics film, Adam Fleming looks at how Nigel Farage was not the first politician to make a quick comeback to the political stage, after standing down. The list is made up of Iain Duncan Smith, Winston Churchill, Peter Mandelson, Alex Salmond and Nigel Farage. Watch the film