PM accused of not knowing government’s coronavirus advice after clash in Commons
Boris Johnson has been accused by Labour of not knowing the government’s advice on coronavirus after he told Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions that it “wasn’t true” that the care home sector had been advised it was unlikely to face an outbreak.
In a tricky series of exchanges in the Commons, Starmer put Johnson under intense pressure to explain the extent of care home deaths.
Continue reading...Health secretary says Professor Neil Ferguson was right to step down after breaking lockdown rules; Boris Johnson to face Keir Starmer for the first time at PMQs
Rory Stewart has abandoned his bid to become London mayor, saying that campaigning has become impossible after the election was delayed due to the coronavirus crisis. The former Tory cabinet minister said it had been an “agonising decision” but it was unfair on the unpaid volunteers working on his campaign.
I have decided that I will not be standing again for Mayor in the now delayed 2021 election. It has been a great privilege to work with so many amazing people with such passion and vision for London. Thank you very much again from the bottom of my heart. https://t.co/pDve6kTcjq
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has just started taking part in a Q&A on Sky News. And he started by escalating the criticism of Prof Neil Ferguson, suggesting there could be a case for the police getting involved.
Asked by the presenter Kay Burley if Ferguson should be prosecuted for breaking the lockdown rules, Hancock replied:
You can imagine what my views are.
It’s a matter for the police. As a government minister, I’m not allowed to get involved in the operational decisions of police matters. But I think that the social distancing rules are very important and people should be followed.
Absolutely I back the police. I back the Scottish police, I would back the police here. They will take their decisions independently from ministers, that’s quite right. It’s always been like that.
And that’s why, even though I’ve got a view as to what I think, as a minister the way we run the police is that they make their decisions like this. So I give them their space to make that decision. But I think he took the right decision to resign.
Continue reading...In his first prime minister's questions in parliament as Labour leader, Keir Starmer criticised the government's response to the coronavirus outbreak: 'There's a pattern emerging here. We were slow into lockdown, slow on testing, slow on protective equipment, and now slow to take up [PPE] offers from British firms.' Answering on behalf of Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab said he didn't accept the accusation: 'We have been guided by the scientific advice, the chief scientific adviser, the chief medical officer, at every step along this way'
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs and Michel Barnier’s Brexit speech
Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, says immigration is crucial for the Scottish economy. The Scottish government’s plans for a Scottish visa system have been welcomed by business and even Scottish Tories. Does the PM accept it was a mistake to reject the plan?
Johnson says this idea was rejected by the migration advisory committee. He says under the government’s plan firms will be able to get the workers they need.
Corbyn says he has learnt a lot from visiting victims of flooding. The PM should try it. He says people cannot get insurance. Isn’t it time the PM found an urgent solution to this problem? Just imagine what it must be like. People are looking to the government for help.
Johnson says there are problems with insurance. But the government scheme has helped many households. He says he is looking at what can be done to protect homes that cannot get insurance. He says any government led by Corbyn would not be able to help.
Continue reading...Jeremy Corbyn confronts Boris Johnson on drug use after deportation of ex-offenders
Jeremy Corbyn launched a scathing personal attack on Boris Johnson over the way black and white children connected to class A drugs are treated by the government in the wake of the deportation of ex-offenders to Jamaica.
Speaking in the Commons, the Labour leader called out the prime minister over allegations of Johnson’s own drug use, saying: “If there was a case of a young white boy with blond hair who later dabbled in class A drugs, and conspired with a friend to beat up a journalist, would he deport that boy?
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Boris Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs
The SDLP’s Colum Eastwood asks about the involvement of the IRA in the murder of Paul Quinn in 2007. It was claimed Quinn was a criminal, he says. That was a lie, he says.
Johnson says the government will implement the Stormont House agreement so as to provide justice for victims.
The SNP’s Owen Thompson asks when the report into Russian interference in UK elections will be published.
Johnson says it will be published when the intelligence and security committee is reconstituted. He says conspiracy theorists will be disappointed by its conclusions.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including the third round of voting in the Tory leadership contest and Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs
The SNP’s Neil Gray say in-work poverty has risen dramatically. Isn’t that May’s legacy?
May says the relative poverty has gone up because pensioners are better off. Gray may want to see pensioners worse off, but she doesn’t.
Julian Lewis, a Conservative, asks what May feels about the principle of bringing a dying soldier to court in Northern Ireland on the basis of no new evidence.
May says no one wants to see cases like this coming to court. But previous investigations have not been found to be lawful. She says she wants to see terrorist being properly brought to justice.
Continue reading...Tory ministers and backbenchers conspicuously absent as Theresa May makes statement about her proposed Brexit bill
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson criticised Andrea Leadsom’s decision to step down on the eve of the European elections, calling it a “slap in the face” for her colleagues.
He tweeted: “I accept that she may want to go but to do it the night before an election looks odd.
Commentators are pointing out the irony that it may be a resignation by Andrea Leadsom, who stood aside to let Theresa May take the Tory leadership in summer 2016, which may eventually lead to the prime minister’s downfall.
.@andrealeadsom will be seen by history to have delivered the coup de grace to @theresa_may - which is appropriate some would say because it was her withdrawal from leadership race that handed 10 Downing St to May on a plate. Revenge dish best served steaming hot perhaps
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including PMQs
Here is the key quote from Sturgeon’s opening statement.
There are some who would like to see a very early referendum, others want that choice to be later.
My job as first minister is to reach a judgment, not simply in my party’s interest but in the national interest.
Asked if she is willing to drop her demand for an independence referendum, Sturgeon says she is genuinely open-minded. If other parties can come forward with another mechanism that will protect Scotland’s interests in the event of Brexit, she will consider that, she says. She stresses that she is “open-minded”.
Continue reading...Political leaders from UK and Ireland are at journalist’s Belfast service
The funeral of Lyra McKee, the journalist shot dead in Derry last week, brought a rare political unity to Northern Ireland on Wednesday.
Theresa May joined dignitaries including the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, the Irish PM, Leo Varadkar, the Irish president, Michael D Higgins, and the Irish minister for foreign affairs, Simon Coveney, at the funeral.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments, where third reading of the Cooper bill seeking a Brexit delay passed 313 to 312
I’m going to wrap up now.
Here the latest key developments at a glance:
The Leave.EU campaign seems to be rather cross:
The "Conservatives" who voted to block Brexit this evening.
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Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments, including the indicative votes debate as MPs choose from eight options
The Commons sitting has been suspended but, as my colleague Dan Sabbagh and others report, there is a bit of a row going on about the fact that the mace is still there.
Speaker has walked out suspending proceedings until the indicative votes are counted. But Tories are furiously pointing to the mace, still in its place, and trying to encourage deputy speaker Eleanor Laing to take the chair. Which would be a parliamentary take over...
The mace is still in place which I think is the cause of the uproar. It’s not meant to be there if we’re not sitting, but I don’t know if a brief suspension counts. It’s not normal for the Chamber to be occupied without anyone in the chair.
Speaker suspends sitting & vacates chair while we wait for results of this evening’s votes - as he had said he would do.
Tory MPs object that the mace is still there.
They object by trying to raise points of order to an empty chair.
What a total shambles of a parliament.
John Bercow, the Speaker, says he is not able to announce the results of the indicative votes ballot yet because they have not all been counted. But he says he hopes to be able to announce them soon.
So he suspends the house.
Continue reading...MPs vote by 321 to 278 to rule out no deal despite government whipping Tory MPs against motion, following 312-308 win for Spelman amendment
Folks, it’s time to wrap up the blog for the night.
I’ll be back in a few hours to launch a new Politics live blog, bringing you all of Thursday’s Brexit and other political news. A reminder of what’s on the agenda for Thursday:
There have been some remarkable turns of phrase from commentators and politicians in their attempts to capture just what exactly has gone on in British politics in the last few days.
This is a turd of a deal, which has now been taken away and polished, and is now a polished turd. But it might be the best turd that we’ve got.
The House of Commons was a Benny Hill chase on acid, running through a Salvador Dali painting in a spaceship on its way to infinity.
A vague, and vain attempt to make sense of the great mad nights in British political history.
Sketch here.https://t.co/4zCw505yNv pic.twitter.com/ZENHV8wTnz
Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs
- The government are defeated on Labour’s amendment 13 in the House of Lords. The amendment makes it an “objective” of the government during negotiations to pursue a free trade deal allowing the UK to stay “in a customs union” with the EU after Brexit.
- The government was defeated on amendment 12 which called for parliamentary approval of future trade agreements.
Prince Charles has saluted the ”unparalleled bonds” between Britain and Ireland at a time of strained Anglo-Irish relations caused by Brexit.
The Prince of Wales was attending a special St Patrick’s Day dinner at the Irish embassy in London where British and Irish politicians mingled amid continuing uncertainty and recriminations over the Irish border issue in the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
Continue reading...Rolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including the Commons debate on Brexit next steps, and Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs
The Electoral Commission has released its latest figures for political donations. In the last three months of 2018 £10.4m was given to political parties - £1.9m more than in the previous quarter. Most of it, £7.4m went to the Conservatives, who received more than four time as much in donations as Labour (£1.6m). The increase is almost certainly linked to speculation about a possible early election.
There are more details on the Electoral Commission website here.
Yesterday the arch Corbynite MP Chris Williamson was reprimanded by Labour party officials after he helped to arrange a screening in parliament of a film defending Jackie Walker, the activist suspended from the party over comments about antisemitism. This morning Williamson is in the headlines again after the Yorkshire Post uncovered a video of him saying Labour had been “too apologetic” over antisemitism allegations.
On Sky’s All Out Politics the Labour MP Phil Wilson said Williamson should be suspended from the party for his comments. Wilson said:
I think it is just outrageous, really. And I think he should be suspended from the Labour party. I actually spoke to Tom Watson [the Labour deputy leader] about this this morning, and Tom is [of] the same view. Tom, I know, is writing to the general secretary of the Labour party to express his concerns about it. I just think it’s outrageous. There has got to be tough action taken on people like this in the Labour party. And when you have got a member of parliament expressing these views, I don’t think there is any place for them ultimately in the Labour party.
Stomach-turning. No action will be taken. https://t.co/gWd1a8G3zK
Continue reading...As Theresa May girds herself for renewed talks with the EU about changing the Irish backstop, follow all the news and reaction with our live blog
And Nathalie Loiseau, the French Europe minister, has said much the same thing. She said:
Brexit will take place in two months. Time is running out.
We are ready to talk about the future but now is the time to agree on the conditions of the separation.
This is from the Express’s Joe Barnes.
German foreign minister Heiko Maas on prospect of renegotiating Theresa May's #Brexit deal: 'The withdrawal agreement is the best and only solution for an orderly withdrawal.
'Germany and the entire Union are firmly on Ireland's side.'