Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including the home affairs committee meeting to discuss the future of Keith Vaz

9.05am BST

Two days after the Sunday Mirror splashed on a story about Keith Vaz paying two male escorts for sex, the veteran MP faces the meeting that may decide whether he can survive as chair of the Commons home affairs committee. On Sunday Vaz indicated that he would temporarily stand aside as chairman, but he was clearly hoping that he would be able to return. This afternoon the committee will meet to discuss his position. But, according to the BBC’s Norman Smith, some members of the committee want him to stand down and they are even discussing holding a vote of confidence in him.

Keith Vaz to be given 24 hours to “reflect on his position” if does not quit today as committee chairman

MPs consulting Commons clerks over whether can force vote of confidence in Keith Vaz

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Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including Brexit secretary David Davis’s statement to the Commons on the government’s latest plans for leaving the EU

9.09am BST

MPs return to the Commons today after their summer recess and the highlight will be a statement from David Davis, the new Brexit secretary, about the government’s plans for leaving the EU. We’ve been told that Brexit means Brexit, but beyond that relatively little has been said about what Brexit will entail and Davis’s statement may enlighten us (but probably only marginally – don’t expect the full negotiating prospectus). In a statement released overnight Davis stressed that Britain’s future outside the EU would be marvellous.

Brexit isn’t about making the best of a bad job. It is about seizing the huge and exciting opportunities that will flow from a new place for Britain in the world. There will be new freedoms, new opportunities, new horizons for this great country.

Now I’m not going to pretend it will be plain sailing. There’ll be some difficult times ahead.

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Rolling coverage of the opening of the Green party conference in Birmingham, including the election of a new leader (or leaders)

9.43am BST

One of the defining stories in British politics since 2010 has been the rise of insurgency parties. Ukip went from a party attracting under 1m votes (3.1%) in the general election six years ago to one getting 3.9m votes (12.6%) in 2015. The SNP transformed itself from a party that was seen as lucky to form a minority administration in Edinburgh to one that is now the unchallenged party of government in Scotland, with almost all the countries’ MPs. And, in a less dramatic way, the same trended boosted the Greens. In 2010 they got just 286,000 votes (1%). Last year they were up to 1.2m (3.8%.) and their leader, Natalie Bennett, achieved prominence because she was included in the TV debates.

But since then the Green party has collided with an obstacle – called Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn’s purist, anti-capitalist, green-tinged radicalism overlaps to a considerable degree with the Green party’s policy platform. It is not just that Corbyn has an allotment; at the general election the Greens’ flagship policy proposal was for a citizen’s income , and Corbyn and his team are now actively considering whether Labour should adopt the idea. As a result the Greens start their autumn conference today in Birmingham facing the challenge of how to compete or coexist with a Corbynite Labour party that seems to be stealing their USP.

5.14pm BST

Profiles of candidates

Jonathan Bartley and Caroline Lucas (job share)

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Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen

9.26am BST

Eighteen months ago Ed Balls, the then shadow chancellor, was preparing for a general election in the expectation that he might soon become the second most powerful person in the government. But Labour was defeated, Balls lost his seat, and today his principle contribution to national life is as a contestant on Strictly. Still, on a relatively quiet day, he’s worth a mention on the Politics Live blog. He has got a memoir to plug, and extracts have already appeared in the Times. He had more to say this morning in an interview with Nick Robinson on the Today programme. Here are the key points.

I’m afraid it’s a great delusion, in a constituency like mine, to think that people who voted Liberal Democrat in 2010 and went to the Conservatives in 2015 did so because they thought Labour was not radical enough. In the end it was a matter of trust on the economy, and whether we would spend the money wisely … The idea [Labour lost] because we weren’t leftwing enough I’m afraid is just a nonsense.

I was making a broader point than just about Jeremy. I was talking about what we are seeing in America in Bernie Sanders, and with Donald Trump – an issue of left and right – and saying it is a complex, difficult world, in which populations are angry, incomes have not risen, people are worried about identity, the globalisation of labour, and there is a tendency for some to peddle a simple solution and say ‘We can just solve the problem, it’s all the fault of the bankers, or immigrants, or a neoliberal conspiracy, or welfare scroungers’. And I don’t think that’s enough.

My advice would be that would be a disastrous thing to do. I think one of the messages of my book is that to walk away from challenges is a mistake.

I would have preferred it if it had been more. I would rather have been on the inside of that strategy … In the era of Brown and Blair, even when their relationship had become difficult, when it came to elections, everybody came together and they were speaking once, more than once, a day. That was not the case in our election campaign.

There are lots of politicians who lose and try and come straight back. But that’s not what I’ve decided to do …. I’m having a good time. We’ll see what happens in the future. But back to politics? I think it’s pretty unlikely.

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Bad sportsmanship is not confined to either camp. Lets have more signs of mutual respect across the divide

I’m trying to cure this summer’s unattractive impulse before it turns into a bad habit. Whenever I see someone doing something stupid or self-harming like jumping an orange light on a bike or getting tattooed from neck to ankle, I want to shout: “Brexit voter.”

It’s not nice and it’s not fair. I’m trying to stop. As Theresa May’s divided cabinet meets to decide where to go next, ministers and demoralised Whitehall officials should refrain from recrimination too. The “phoney war” lull before the negotiation storm is about to end.

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Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen

9.02am BST

The polling company YouGov has a huge panel of of people who participate in its online polls and, because it knows which of them belong to political parties, it finds it relatively easy to carry out party membership polls. It polled Labour members during the leadership contest last summer and its findings were a reliable guide to the final result. (A poll in August had Jeremy Corbyn on 53% of first preference votes, more than 30 points ahead of his nearest rival, Andy Burnham; a month later Corbyn won with 59% of first preference votes, 40 points ahead of Burnham.) And so, on the basis of today’s Times spash, Corbyn would be entitled to conclude that he is home and dry.

The Times reports the findings of YouGov’s latest Labour membership poll. And they suggest Corbyn is on course to win by an even bigger margin than he did last year.

Wednesday’s Times front page:
Corbyn on course to win bigger mandate#tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers http://pic.twitter.com/mqGQEmpEv7

New YouGov/Times Labour leadership poll of the party selectorate: Corbyn 62%, Smith 38% https://t.co/KVojr7PZfQ http://pic.twitter.com/2mtNFgW8gA

Labour leadership poll: Corbyn leads among each part of the selectorate https://t.co/FQjhIqw49Y http://pic.twitter.com/TSp6xDXZgy

Among those who joined before May last year, support for Mr Smith is at 68 per cent compared with 32 per cent for Mr Corbyn, according to the YouGov poll. It drops to 28 per cent for Mr Smith among those who joined between May and September, and to 14 per cent for those who signed up after September, underlining Mr Corbyn’s popularity among newer members.

A further 129,000 paid a one-off £25 fee to become registered supporters and eligible to vote in the leadership election. The challenger’s hopes of unseating Mr Corbyn rest on winning over this group. However, Mr Smith is attracting only one in four, with 70 per cent opting for Mr Corbyn and the rest undecided.

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From parking fines to airline fares, society’s financialisation is seeing the collective cake shrink as the rich claim an ever larger slice

It is the dog end of August and the sun is shining in many places. A cue for all sorts of predatory people in the thriving British holiday trades to rip off customers who don’t always have a choice and feel ambushed.

In a remote and empty Lake District car park the other day my sister fell foul of an unclear car parking regime. It led to a fine being levied for outstaying the time she had paid for by a few minutes. It happens to us all. In crowded Notting Hill last week, a man told me his car had once been given a penalty notice while he was away at the ticket machine paying his £1.60 for 30 minutes.

Related: Corbyn promises to ‘democratise the internet’ – Politics live

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Rolling coverage of all the day’s political developments as they happen, including Jeremy Corbyn’s speech on digital democracy

9.17am BST

Here are more proposals from Jeremy Corbyn’s digital democracy manifesto. This summary is taken from the news release from Corbyn’s team released overnight.

The Digital Democracy manifesto includes plans for a:

9.03am BST

Jeremy Corbyn is launching a digital democracy manifesto this morning. As my colleague Peter Walker reports, he is going to say that if he gets re-elected as Labour leader, the party will use digital technology to fight “the most visible general election campaign ever”, using techniques inspired by Bernie Sanders’ campaign in the US and roadtested by his own campaign in the UK.

This morning we’re launching our #DigitalDemocracy manifesto. Join us live at https://t.co/FlVc8rb2Ec at 10.45am http://pic.twitter.com/auBjV9Mo3C

Related: Jeremy Corbyn plans Sanders-style campaign for next general election

My leadership campaign is leading the way in harnessing the advances of new technology to organise political campaigning like we’ve never seen before.

The creativity of the networked young generation is phenomenal. We have thousands of young volunteers on our campaign taking part in this digital revolution.

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The candidate’s excesses appeal to voters who feel marginalised and for whom the temptation is to blur reality and illusion

Whenever I think about the dysfunctional horror of the looming presidential election in America – so weird that Nigel Farage can pop up in Mississippi on the Trump campaign – I can’t get Susan Sarandon or Plato out of my mind. Let’s talk first about the actor. When did Plato make a decent movie, eh?

A few weeks ago Sarandon gave a magazine interview to an overawed writer in which she set out her well-known political stall as a radical feminist who backed Bernie Sanders and doesn’t think much of Hillary Clinton. “There’s nothing about her I find feminist except that she’s a woman,” she said.

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As he tussled with John Humphrys on Radio 4, the Labour leadership challenger sounded confident, articulate and human

Listening to the radio this morning I had an experience I realised I’d almost forgotten. It was the sound of a Labour politician being combatively quizzed on Radio 4 by Today’s John Humphrys in the key 8.10 spot and giving confident, articulate answers in return. When did I last hear that, I wondered?

What follows here isn’t a party political broadcast for Owen Smith. For the first time since Labour’s glittering leadership contest to succeed Harold Wilson in 1976 – Callaghan versus, Healey, Foot, Crosland, Jenkins and Benn – he’s a leadership contender whom OAP Mike doesn’t really know.

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