Labour’s new brood includes an economist whose family fled from Liberia, Westminster insiders and a former soldier

A former adviser to Alistair Darling during his time as chancellor, he has since become one of the most respected surveyors of the British economy in the country in his role as director of the Resolution Foundation thinktank. His recent book on improving the economy was Starmerite in outlook, putting economic growth at its heart. However, he did call for a rewriting of fiscal rules to allow for long-term investment in infrastructure. Expect Bell to have a significant policy job at the centre of a Labour government that has staked everything on securing economic growth.

Senior figures tell the party not to rush into choosing a new leader, citing 2005 and David Cameron as a successful precedent

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Senior Tories are pleading with the party to avoid the “weapons-grade idiocy” of a further drift to the right, amid a concerted and organised effort from grandees to stop a kneejerk leadership contest.

Figures from Rishi Sunak’s cabinet, prominent MPs who lost their seats and former prime minister David Cameron are among those involved in working to secure a repeat of the 2005 contest, which eventually saw Cameron installed as leader seven months after an election defeat.

Honours for the key figures behind decision to hold July poll becomes focus of anger among senior Conservatives

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Some of Rishi Sunak’s closest allies are facing an angry backlash after being awarded honours by the former prime minister, despite their apparent role in the “insane” decision to call an early election.

In a sign of the growing anger within the party ranks over the decision to call the snap poll – as well as alarm over the way it was conducted – the former deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden and chief of staff Liam Booth-Smith were singled out by angry candidates and aides for their role in the “cataclysmic defeat” that several sources claimed had been made worse by the early election decision.