The Daily Politics

UKIP's only MP Douglas Carswell says he believes the election of a new leader will give the party a chance to "press the reset button".

He says he sees the situation as a "huge opportunity" to present a fresh face with "a slightly more optimistic tone".

Mr Carswell says he's looking forward to working with the new leader.

The Daily Politics

A former aide to ex-UKIP leader Nigel Farage says she believes the damage done to the party is "almost irreparable".

Alex Phillips, who was UKIP's head of media for two years, told BBC2's Daily Politics that she had "outgrown the party".

She said it was not for her to say if UKIP was needed as a party, but she stressed that it did need to rebrand after all the "conspiracies and bitterness".

The turning point for her was seeing what Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May was saying and doing, adding that her policies will appeal to UKIP voters.

Ms Phillips said she told Mr Farage on Wednesday night that she planned to quit the party for the Conservatives. While he was "disappointed", she believes she's still friends with him.

BBC News Channel

BBC political correspondent Ben Wright says he does not think former chancellor George Osborne will want to spend his time on the Commons backbenches sniping - but will intervene on issues when he feels like it.

Commenting on Mr Osborne's first interview since he was sacked by Theresa May, Ben said it was clear the former frontbencher wants a public role, perhaps a return to front-line politics eventually.

But he will talk about issues he cares about - particularly the Northern Powerhouse, he said.

When asked about his own plans for the future, Mr Osborne said he was not going off to write his memoirs because "he doesn't know how the story will end".

Ben added that Mr Osborne was "pretty cool" on grammar schools, saying he believed greater focus should be on the majority of people.

Andrew Neil
Presenter, The Daily Politics

Onto questions now at Owen Smith's final speech of his leadership campaign. He's pressed on whether he thinks the party will split, if Jeremy Corbyn wins.

It's a "clear and present risk", Mr Smith replies.

On Momentum, he says their activities are "damaging to the party's interests" as he claims they are trying to get MPs deselected.

He says Jeremy Corbyn is rumoured to be ready to accept elections to the shadow cabinet which he thinks would be a good thing. But he says talk of unity is hard to reconcile with the "hit list" of MPs sent - by accident - by Mr Corbyn's team to the Press Association earlier this week.

Leadership challenger Owen Smith says Labour "just isn't on the pitch" over Brexit - a key dividing line between him and Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn.

In his final speech of the campaign, he claims Mr Corbyn is not holding the government's "feet to the fire" and was fighting harder to keep his job than he did to keep the UK in the EU.

Mr Corbyn was "satisfied to be the leader of our party in opposition" and was "complacent" about winning power, he warns.

And he attacks Theresa May's "warmed-over 1950s agenda" saying Labour's ideas have "never been more vital" - but the party must be a strong opposition in Parliament.

"Elect me to save the Labour Party that we all love and we all belong to," he adds as he winds up the speech - to applause from supporters. 

Labour is "in the doldrums", Mr Smith continues and is "staring electoral oblivion in the face". The former work and pensions spokesman says he's not prepared to let that happen.

He says Conservative PM Theresa May wants to take on the language of Labour "because with it they know they can win" - but that only works "if Labour isn't credible".

He says it's not true to say Labour was ahead in the polls before the leadership contest and says Jeremy Corbyn and those around him are "blaming anybody but themselves for Labour's poor performance since he took over".

"We've got ... five days to save the Labour Party" from a leader who is taking it away from credibility, Mr Smith claims.

Image source, Getty Images

In his Today interview earlier, George Osborne said the new agreement over the Hinkley nuclear plant is "pretty much" unchanged from a deal struck when he was chancellor.

The government announced that it will take a "special share" in critical infrastructure projects to stop investors selling before completion.

But Mr Osborne told the BBC's Today programme: "It looks to me pretty much the same deal."

He said he rejected a special share option during original negotiations.

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Owen Smith criticises "abuse, booing and hatred" seen during the Labour leadership campaign - saying the exchanges over the past couple of months have not been "comradely".

He said people should be able to have "honest disagreements" over policy and tactics but share common values.

"This Labour Party is not one man, it's a movement," he says.

He says a comment from a Labour member this week that "everyone hates Tony Blair" summed up what was wrong with the party and lists achievements made under the New Labour government.

"The biggest tragedy is in the misunderstanding of our own party - the willingness to narrow ourselves as a movement," he says.

"We are the party of Jeremy Corbyn and Tony Blair, not the party of Jeremy Corbyn or Tony Blair. Those of us who don't think of ourselves as Corbynites or Blairites .. we should all be welcome in this party."

Giving his speech, Owen Smith describes himself as a "Keynesian, not a Marxist, like our current shadow chancellor" - a dig at John McDonnell.

He says Labour has to win power to "enact our values" but with Mr Corbyn as leader "we are heading for electoral division and destruction".

The Corbyn-supporting Momentum group plan to "get rid of good Labour MPs through deselection", Mr Smith claims, while Mr Corbyn's leadership was threatening to get rid of them through "electoral defeat".

"Just as we had to fight Militant in the 1980s, we have to fight to save the party we love today," he says.

Owen Smith is giving his last major speech of his Labour leadership campaign in London, before the winner is announced next weekend. 

With "five days to go" before the ballot closes, he says he initially had agreed with some of leader Jeremy Corbyn's calls for honest debate and had hoped Mr Corbyn and his shadow chancellor John McDonnell might change.

But he says he was "kidding himself" and they wanted to "drag" the party away from the centre left to the "hard left" of British politics. 

MPs have launched an inquiry into corporate governance, focusing on executive pay, worker representation in the boardroom and the lack of women in senior positions.

The Business, Innovation and Skills Select Committee has recently held inquiries into BHS and Sports Direct.

Committee chair Iain Wright said it needed to look "at the laws that govern business and how they are enforced".

The prime minister has also pledged to overhaul the way businesses are run.

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Victoria Derbyshire

Governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney is taking questions from school children as part of a BBC School Report event being broadcast on the Victoria Derbyshire show.

He tells them, by way of introduction, that his becoming governor was a "total accident of history", joking that a "number of people wondered how it happened or whether it should have happened".

The Canadian economist, chosen by George Osborne, did not endear himself to Brexit campaigners during the recent referendum when he warned about the economic consequences of a Leave vote.