Starmer rejects claim he has let Partygate distract from Labour"s campaign focus on cost of living Keir Starmer has rejected claims that Labour has let Partygate distract from its campaigning on the cost of living. According to a HuffPost story by Kevin Schofield, Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling-up secretary, complained at shadow cabinet last week that the party was focusing too much on Partygate. In the Commons last week Starmer spoke about Partygate three times: in response to Boris Johnson’s statement on the the matter on Tuesday, at PMQs on Wednesday, and in the debate on the privileges committee on Thursday. Schofield says: Nandy said there was a danger that voters would think “we’re all as bad as each other” if Labour continued to focus on Boris Johnson’s woes over lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street. She said Labour risked looking “out of touch” at a time when families across the country are struggling to make ends meet. But Schofield also says that other members of the shadow cabinet did not agree with Nandy’s point. Asked about this today, Starmer insisted that Labour’s campaign had remained focused on the cost of living. He said: When we started the campaign, we had a laser-like focus on the cost of living and we’ve maintained that throughout. Starmer also restated Labour’s call for an emergency budget (see 10.10am), saying that this was what the country needed, not a cabinet meeting. He said: The cost-of-living crisis has been staring us in the face for six months now and it’s a real problem for people struggling with their bills – and the cabinet meeting this morning isn’t going to change any of that. Afternoon summary Keir Starmer has rejected claims that he let Partygate distract from Labour’s campaigning on the cost of living. (See 2.54pm.) Boris Johnson has threatened to “privatise the arse” off the Passport Office if it cannot clear its backlog and deliver better value for money, a senior government source has told reporters. He made the comment in private as the cabinet met to discuss cost-free measures the government could take to help people cope with rising prices. (See 9.17am.) No 10 did not mention the proposal to privatise the Passport Office in its post-cabinet lobby briefing for journalists, but instead Downing Street signalled that one of its cost of living initiatives would involve cutting staff/child ratios in nurseries, to reduce childcare costs for parents. (See 12.33pm.) Angela Rayner has revealed she begged the Mail on Sunday not to run a story claiming a Conservative MP compared her to the character in Basic Instinct, saying the “classist” comments in the piece were disparaging about working-class people. Ministers appear unlikely to make the forthcoming extra bank holiday in honour of the Queen’s platinum jubilee permanent, as Downing Street poured cold water on the plans and emphasised the high cost to the economy of such a move. Imran Ahmad Khan, the MP found guilty this month of molesting a 15-year-old boy, advised the government on child sexual exploitation while under police caution, the Guardian can disclose. Peers have been debating Commons amendments to the nationality and borders bill. The bill is in the process of “ping-pong”, where it shuttles between the Commons and the Lords until the two chambers can resolve their disagreements, and peers are still pushing for measures to ensure the bill is compatible with the Refugee Convention, to allow asylum seekers the right to work after six months, to stop the automatic criminalisation of asylum seekers arriving in the UK on small boats and to limit the use of offshoring. A measure of the opposition to the bill came in the debate when Viscount Hailsham spoke about his reservations about the government’s plans to send asylum seekers to Rwanda. Hailsham - who was seen as a rightwinger when he served as agriculture minister in John Major’s cabinet in the 1990s - said: The experience of the Israeli government when they tried something rather similar is not encouraging. I have great reservations about the legality of what is proposed. I do note, of course, that ministers have repeatedly said that the policy is consistent with international law and our obligations under the 1951 convention. However, ministers repeatedly said that the policy of turning back the boats of asylum seekers was both legal and practical. However, it seems that in the face of legal challenge, both as to the practicality and legality of the policy, the Home Office yesterday backed away from that position. I view the advice from the Home Office - this Home Office - on these matters with very great caution. But above all my reservations about the Rwanda policy are based on my concerns as to its propriety. Can it be right to offload the responsibility for individuals who for a time have come into our jurisdiction, offload them to somewhere else? For by doing so we will have ensure that ministers who are responsible for where they have gone are not accountable for the way they are treated. And I am finding myself extraordinarily uncomfortable with that concept. Peers will vote on the bill, and three others in the “ping-pong” process”, later this evening. UK"s "self-lacerating classes" should realise much of world admires their country more than they do, Australian diplomat says Britain’s “self-lacerating classes” should realise that much of the world admires their country much more than they do, the outgoing Australian high commissioner has said. Speaking at an event hosted by the British Foreign Policy Group thinktank, George Brandis, who has represented his country in London since 2018, said: Britain has a lot of moral authority in far away places. One thing that rather bothers me is that there are some in the commentariat, possibly some even in the Foreign Office, who are almost guilty about Britain’s imperial past and therefore think notions like the Commonwealth should be uttered sotto voce. Could I tell you that among the small island states of the south-west Pacific, Britain is loved, the Queen is loved, all of the majesty of the British state is admired in those small nations which are now a very critical part of the world because they’re an object of Chinese ambition. Britain should not underestimate its soft power in a lot of the small Commonwealth nations as the nation whose head of state is the head of the Commonwealth, and nowhere is that more so than in the south-west Pacific. I just wish that the self-lacerating classes in Britain would realise that the world respects their own country a lot more than a lot of them do. Students are being done a “disservice” over trigger warnings placed on books such as Harry Potter at universities, Michelle Donelan, the universities minister, has said. PA says: Donelan told the PA news agency there is a need for “common sense” over the issue of institutions such as the University of Chester placing warnings about content on JK Rowling’s stories. “Harry Potter is actually a children’s book. Fundamentally it is probably a multimillion-pound industry that has been franchised into films. To say that we need to protect some of our brightest and our best from the likes of Harry Potter is to not only do our universities a disservice but to do our students a disservice,” she said. “And it’s not the way to ensure that they can enter the world having those skills at their fingertips - the ability to challenge, to be critically astute - and that’s certainly not the interpretation that I’d had talking to students, that they want or they need this from their universities,” she added. Donelan said “students have to be able to live in the real world once they graduate university”. “There are no trigger warnings every day as you operate. I’ve not met students who have called for these trigger warnings either. They are not the issues that students are bringing up to me - they’re bringing up sexual harassment, they’re bringing up antisemitism,” she said. Donelan was elaborating on a speech she gave today to the Policy Exchange thinktank about freedom of speech at universities. She was referring to an incident in which the University of Chester warned students that a module that involved studying Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and other fantasy books for young adults could “lead to some difficult conversations about gender, race, sexuality, class, and identity”. Government childcare plan would "drive down quality" without increasing availability, says Labour Labour says that trying to cut the cost of childcare by reducing staff/child ratios for nurseries (see 12.33pm), as the government seems to be considering, will “drive down quality whilst making no difference to availability”. This is from Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary. The Conservatives are making high-quality childcare increasingly unavailable and unaffordable. Parents are having to work fewer hours or leave jobs because they cannot find or afford it, once again failing children and families. Now the government’s solution is to drive down quality whilst making no difference to availability. Labour’s children’s recovery plan would invest in early years places for children on free school meals and boost access to before- and after-school clubs. Boris Johnson’s cost of living strategy seems to involve relaxing government regulations previously deemed prudent. As well as mulling over plans to reduce staff/child ratios for nurseries (see 12.33pm), according to Sky, ministers are also considering no longer requiring cars to undergo an MOT check every year. Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, reportedly had a row with Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit minister, about the value of the government’s net zero policies at cabinet this morning. (See 3.25pm.) Now he seems to be out to clinch the argument on Twitter. Brexit has led to "deep and sustained fall" in relative imports from EU, report says The Centre for Economic Performance at the LSE has published a report today on the impact of Brexit on trade with the EU. Described as the most comprehensive study of this topic yet, it says that the introduction of new, post-Brexit rules (under the trade and cooperation agreement [TCA]) from January 2021 led to “a deep and sustained fall in relative UK imports from the EU”. It says: “This is consistent with the TCA causing a substantial increase in UK-EU trade costs and leading to a shift in UK import activity away from the EU.” The report also says that, surprisingly, Brexit has had less impact on exports. It led to “a small and only temporary decline in relative UK exports to the EU in 2021”, the report says. But it says that, although the overall value of exports to the EU has not fallen markedly, the composition of those exports has changed. There has been a reduction in the variety of goods being exported, it says, and a reduction in the number of buyer-seller relationships with the EU. This is because firms that were only doing relatively modest amounts of exporting to the EU have stopped. It says: It would be a mistake to interpret the missing export value effect as evidence that UK exporters were unaffected by the introduction of the TCA. Instead, we conjecture that the TCA has increased the fixed costs of exporting to the EU, causing small exporters to exit small EU markets, but not (or at least not yet) severely hampering exports by large firms that drive aggregate export dynamics. Commenting on the report, Drew Hendry, the SNP’s international trade spokeperson, said: With each passing week, we see new figures that highlight the devastating impact Brexit is having on businesses across all four nations of the UK. Ever since Boris Johnson signed his botched Brexit agreement, businesses have faced unnecessary red tape, dodgy trade deals, skyrocketing tariffs, and untold misery. This was something Scotland did not vote for, and something Scotland will not continue to settle for. According to Sky’s Sam Coates, there was a row at cabinet this morning over net zero policies, with Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Brexit minister, saying current policies should be reviewed to cut costs for consumers, but Kwasi Kwarteng, the business secretary, disagreeing. He also says Kit Malthouse, the policing minister, called for lower taxes. Covid inquiry should cover impact of Partygate and Barnard Castle on support for lockdown rules, MPs told Downing Street is facing fresh calls to widen the terms of the Covid-19 public inquiry to cover the impact of its own lockdown breaches, including Partygate and Dominic Cummings’ trip to Barnard Castle. A grieving daughter told MPs and peers investigating the pandemic that rule breaking by the rule makers should be included in the scope of the inquiry, which is still yet to be formally established. The draft terms of reference, which are due to be finalised by the prime minister, Boris Johnson, do not include the impact of the breaches, which have led to fixed penalty notices for the PM, chancellor and numerous Downing Street officials. Rabinder Sherwood, who lost both her parents to Covid in January 2021, said: “Any rule breaking by the rule makers should be included in the scope of the inquiry.” She told the all party parliamentary group on coronavirus that while ministers were breaking the rules, her family took the “painful decision” to tell her parents why they were having to keep socially distanced. That was particularly hard for her father, who suffered from dementia. Stephen Reicher, professor of psychology at the University of St Andrews and a participant in the SPI-B group of the government’s Sage committee, said: There is no doubt that, starting with Barnard Castle, the sense of one law for them and one law for us undermined trust. Sir Geoff Mulgan, professor of collective intelligence, public policy and social innovation at University College London, where international Covid inquiries are being monitored, predicted the process could take three to four years to complete. He said it would require the chair, Dame Heather Hallett, to set up several parallel inquiries. That suggests final results are unlikely to be available until after the next general election, expected in 2024. Elkan Abrahamson, a lawyer representing the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Group, said they had not seen the amended terms of reference, which will go from the chair to the PM for his approval, making bereaved families “supplicants” rather than participants in setting the agenda. He went on: Already the openness that we’d hoped for from the inquiry seems to be ebbing away and that is a real concern. Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary, has said she could intervene over local newspaper group Newsquest’s takeover of rival Archant, PA Media reports. PA says: Last month, Newsquest, which publishes titles including the Northern Echo and Lancashire Telegraph, sealed the deal to buy the East Anglia-based competitor. Archant, which was being sold by private equity firm Rcapital, owns a number of local newspaper brands in East Anglia, including the Eastern Daily Press and Norwich Evening News, alongside a portfolio of regional Country Life magazines, and employs 760 staff. In a written ministerial statement Dorries said she was “minded” to issue an intervention notice, which would lead to the move being blocked. She has “plurality concerns” over how the merger could impact competition where the two firms operate. Keir Starmer has also said he hopes that the controversy about the Mail on Sunday’s sexist reporting of Angela Rayner leads to a change of culture at Westminster. He said: The Speaker obviously needs to be happy that the way we all treat each other in parliament is appropriate and with respect and obviously he will make his own decisions in that respect. But I think all of us have got a responsibility not just to call this out but to renew our determination to change the culture in parliament because this is awful for Angela. I’ve got a young girl and I worry about her seeing this environment. We all have to change it. Swimming pools in UK will close without energy bailout, ministers told Heating bill increases of up to 150% will lead to the widespread closures of UK swimming pools without an emergency government bailout, ministers have been told. My colleague Matthew Weaver has the story here. Starmer rejects claim he has let Partygate distract from Labour"s campaign focus on cost of living Keir Starmer has rejected claims that Labour has let Partygate distract from its campaigning on the cost of living. According to a HuffPost story by Kevin Schofield, Lisa Nandy, the shadow levelling-up secretary, complained at shadow cabinet last week that the party was focusing too much on Partygate. In the Commons last week Starmer spoke about Partygate three times: in response to Boris Johnson’s statement on the the matter on Tuesday, at PMQs on Wednesday, and in the debate on the privileges committee on Thursday. Schofield says: Nandy said there was a danger that voters would think “we’re all as bad as each other” if Labour continued to focus on Boris Johnson’s woes over lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street. She said Labour risked looking “out of touch” at a time when families across the country are struggling to make ends meet. But Schofield also says that other members of the shadow cabinet did not agree with Nandy’s point. Asked about this today, Starmer insisted that Labour’s campaign had remained focused on the cost of living. He said: When we started the campaign, we had a laser-like focus on the cost of living and we’ve maintained that throughout. Starmer also restated Labour’s call for an emergency budget (see 10.10am), saying that this was what the country needed, not a cabinet meeting. He said: The cost-of-living crisis has been staring us in the face for six months now and it’s a real problem for people struggling with their bills – and the cabinet meeting this morning isn’t going to change any of that. Johnson threatening to privatise Passport Office if services don"t improve, leak reveals The BBC has a report with more on Boris Johnson’s threat to privatise the Passport Office if services do not improve. The news was originally leaked to the Evening Standard. (See 1.14pm.) As the BBC’s Nick Eardley reports, bosses from the agency are expected to be called in for talks next week. Eardley says the PM sees this as a cost of living issue, because people are having to pay for the premium service to get their passport on time because of the delays, and he thinks privatisation could provide better value for money. Ian Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, tabled an urgent question in the Commons earlier to Boris Johnson, asking him for a statement about his trip to India. Johnson did not respond (the government decides who responds to a UQ, not the person tabling the question), and instead Vicky Ford, the Foreign Office minister, replied to Blackford. Blackford accused Johnson of not doing his job properly. He said: There is a clear convention that prime ministers have a duty to update this house following their attendance at major summits or following significant visits. This convention has been respected and followed by all prime ministers in recent years, but like on so many other matters, the only exception to that rule is the current prime minister. Following his visit last week the prime minister should have come to this house and given an update, he has once again failed to do so. Instead he chose to go campaigning for his party in the local elections, though I suspect that won’t do them much good. This prime minister failing to come before this house is by no means a one-off. He has failed to come before the house after the extraordinary Nato summit in March. There is a very clear pattern here. This is a prime minister who has no respect for the office he occupies and even less respect for this house. According to a report by David Bond in the Evening Standard, at cabinet Boris Johnson told colleagues he wanted to “privatise the arse” of bodies like the Passport Office and the DVLA that fail to provide a satisfactory service. Bond says: Boris Johnson has threatened to “privatise the arse” off the Passport Office, DVLA and other “arms-length” public bodies unless they start delivering better services. Urging his cabinet ministers to come up with creative ways to help ease the growing cost of living crisis, the prime minister also pledged to increase scrutiny of the “post-Covid mañana culture” at some public bodies which have come in for criticism for failing to abandon working practices introduced during the crisis. This morning the Times has splashed on saying holidays are at risk because of delays in processing passports. The DVLA is also having problems . No 10 plays down suggestions platinum jubilee extra bank holiday could become permanent And here are some more lines from the Downing Street lobby briefing. Downing Street played down suggestions that the extra bank holiday being held this year in honour of the Queen’s platinum jubilee could become a permanent event. The idea has been widely floated in the media. But the PM’s spokesperson said he was not aware of any plans to make the bank holiday permanent. He said each bank holiday “presents a considerable and significant cost to our economy and therefore each proposal would have to be considered carefully on that basis”. Boris Johnson has still not had a call with Emmanuel Macron, the French president, following his re-election on Sunday, the spokesperson revealed. The spokesperson did not deny a Sun report saying ministers are looking at plans to cut tariffs to make imports cheaper for consumers. The spokesperson would not comment on reports that Boris Johnson has not yet received a questionnaire from the Metropolitan police about his attendance at the party in the No 10 garden on 20 May 2020. Some fines have already been issued in connection with this, but Johnson has reportedly not been asked about it. In the Times today Steven Swinford says Johnson is “increasingly confident” that he will not be fined over this event. Sources think the Met has accepted the PM’s argument that he did not break the rules because Downing Street is his home and so he was in his own garden. No 10 says PM working on plans to make childcare cheaper as it reveals he is chairing committee on cost of living No 10 has given a fresh hint that ministers will relax the rules to allow nurseries to have fewer members of staff to help parents with costs. In a statement about today’s cabinet, where the focus was on the cost of living, the prime minister’s spokesperson told the morning lobby briefing: The prime minister said that, whilst our recovery from the global pandemic was faster than anybody previously expected, continued disruptions in the global economy, including in China where widespread lockdowns are still taking place – coupled with Putin’s continued crazed malevolence in Ukraine – meant the public was facing real pressures and that the government would continue to be on their side. He said there was more to do, including in areas like childcare, to further ease pressures for those that need it most and to get even more people into high skilled, high-wage jobs. This seemed to be a reference to plans, that have been floated before, to reduce the staff/child ratios for nurseries. As Nursery World reported last year, one plan was to allow nursery staff to supervise five children under two, rather than three, as the current rules stipulate. Downing Street said earlier that Johnson was particularly keen to find measures that would cut costs for people without requiring the government to spend more money. (See 9.17am.) Asked to give more details, the spokesperson said: I think all I can say is that this is an area where the government recognises there is more to do. It is live policy work taking place and I’m sure we’ll have more to say in the future. The spokesperson also revealed that Johnson would be personally chairing meetings of the cabinet’s domestic and economic strategy committee to finalise measures that might help people deal with the cost of living. Ministers talked through “a number of ideas” during cabinet meeting, the spokesperson said, and they would “feed into a more formal process”. I will post more from the lobby briefing shortly. At the standards committee hearing Michael Ellis, the Cabinet Office minister, also defended Priti Patel’s decision to accept a free ticket to the premiere of a James Bond movie, saying that it was relevant to her work as home secretary. These are from Insider’s Henry Dyer.