Starmer dimisses king"s speech as "exercise in economic miserabilism" Starmer said there should been a planning bill in the king’s speech. He dismissed it as “an exercise in economic miserabilism” and “an admission that his government has no faith in Britain’s ability to avert decline”. And he was particularly critical of the oil and gas bill. He explained: A bill that everyone in the energy sector knows is a political gimmick. Even the energy secretary admits it will not take a single penny of anyone’s bills. He also accused Sunak of being wrong about clean energy. They are wrong about clean energy. It is cheaper. It is British and he can give us real security from tyrants like Putin. But more importantly, they are wrong about Britain. We can win the race for the jobs of tomorrow. We can work hand in glove with the private sector and invest in the critical infrastructure. UPDATE: Starmer said: We needed an employment bill. Time and again – this bill has been promised. Time and again – it fails to materialise. When we could be scrapping fire and rehire, ending zero-hours contracts, making work pay with a real living wage and saying, unambiguously, that strong workers’ rights are good for growth. What we got instead is an exercise in economic miserabilism. An admission that his government has no faith in Britain’s ability to avert decline. Take the oil and gas bill announced today. A bill that everyone in the energy sector knows is a political gimmick. And that even the energy secretary admits will not take a single penny off anyone’s bills. I don’t know which of his seven bins, the prime minister chucked her meat tax in but this one will follow soon. Nonetheless, it’s a gimmick that tells a story. A King’s speech with no concern for the national interest, wallowing in a pessimism that says the hard road to a better future isn’t for Britain. It’s been this way for 13 years now. Early evening summary King Charles has delivered his first king’s speech, outlining the UK government’s plans for laws to create potential dividing lines with Labour before the next general election with a tough approach to criminal justice and the green agenda, but little legislation to improve Britain’s struggling public services. And here is Rowena Mason’s analysis. The two most senior civil servants in the UK exchanged messages describing those inside Boris Johnson’s Downing Street as “poisonous”, “mad” and unfit to run the nation, the inquiry into Covid has heard. Amnesty International has called on the police in London not to bow to “political pressure” to ban this Saturday’s pro-Palestinian march in the city. Johnson did say he would rather "let bodies pile high" than order another lockdown, Covid inquiry told At PMQs in April 2021 Boris Johnson categorically denied saying that he had would rather “let the bodies pile high” than agree to a further lockdown. He was responding to a question from Keir Starmer, who asked if it was true that Johnson had made the remark in late October 2020, as he agreed to a second lockdown. Dominic Cummings subsequently told a Commons committee that he had heard Johnson make the remark. But Cummings’ evidence was not enough to trigger an investigation into whether or not Johnson had lied to MPs, partly because he clearly had a grudge against Johnson and some MPs questioned his credibility. At the Covid inquiry hearing today an extract from Ed Lister’s witness statement was shown saying he heard Johnson make this remark. Lister is a highly credible witness who hasn’t fallen out with Johnson. Assuming he is right, the only defence Johnson would have against the charge that he told a direct lie to Starmer at PMQs would be timing; Starmer asked if Johnson had made the comment in October, but Lister said he heard Johnson use the phrase in September. Simon Case said he had "never seen people less well equipped to run country" than Johnson and his team, Covid inquiry told Simon Case, the cabinet secretary, described Boris Johnson’s team at No 10 as “so mad” and said he had “never seen a bunch of people less well equipped to run the country”, the Covid inquiry heard. Case made the comment in an exchange with Mark Sedwill, his predecessor, on 2 July 2020. Case also said that he had told Johnson that lots of high-quality people he had approached about working in No 10 “had refused to come because of the toxic reputation of his operation”. This is from Peter Walker. Johnson at one point proposed being injected with Covid on TV to show people it was harmless, inquiry hears At the Covid inquiry Ed Lister (now Lord Udny-Lister), who was Boris Johnson’s chief of staff in No 10, confirmed that at one point Johnson suggested he should be injected with coronavirus on TV to show people they had nothing to fear from it. Asked about the comment in his witness statement, Lister said: It was before the Italian situation had really become apparent to everybody. It was a time when Covid was not seen as being the serious disease it subsequently became. It was a moment in time – I think it was an unfortunate comment. When it was put to him that people knew at that point that Covid was deadly, Lister replied: We were still living in the forlorn hope that it wasn’t going to come – it was wrong. I fully accept it’s a comment that shouldn’t have been made, but it was made in the heat of the moment, that’s all. Lister said he was unsure exactly when Johnson made the comment. This is from my colleague Peter Walker. Covid inquiry hears how Johnson and Sunak resisted lockdown in autumn 2020, with PM considering "medieval measures" Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson pushed repeatedly against lockdown measures during the second wave of Covid in autumn 2020, with the government’s chief scientist accusing the then chancellor of using “spurious” arguments against new rules, the inquiry into the pandemic has heard. Peter Walker has the story here. Peter has posed on X two extracts from Sir Patrick Vallance’s diaries that confirm this. In one extract, from early October 2020, Vallance wrote: Very bad meeting in no.10… PM talks of medieval measures than ones being suggested. Perhaps we should look at another approach and apply different values … Surely this just sweeps through in waves like other natural phenomena and there is nothing we can do. As Simon Ridley [head of the Cabinet Office’s Covid taskforce] said final slide, PM said ‘Whisky and a revolver’. He was all over the place. CX [the chancellor] using increasingly specific and spurious arguments against closing hospitality. Both of them clutching at straws … There are really only three choices for the high prevalence areas … 1) Do a proper lockdown 2) Use military to enforce the rules 3) Do nothing and do a ‘Barrington Declaration’ and count the bodies (poor, old and BAME). When will they decide. And in another extract Vallance said: Ridley meeting – positioned PM meeting as ‘a chance to step back/but avoid making a whole load of decisions that then get undone by Cx (Chancellor)’. I asked what PM thinks objectives are ‘what he wants to achieve is a series of mutually incompatible options’. He ‘owns’ the reality for a day and then is buffeted by a discussion with Cx. Former PM Theresa May urges Sunak to "press the accelerator" on transition to net zero Theresa May, the former Conservative PM, has criticised Rishi Sunak for watering down some of the govenment’s net zero policies. Speaking in the debate on the king’s speech, she started by saying she was surprised to see a claim by the party recently, after Sunak made his net zero U-turn in September, saying Sunak was unlike previous PMs because he was tackling long-term issues like climate change. She points out that she was the PM who actually legislated to put the 2050 target for net zero into law. A different approach was needed, she said: What we need to do now is press the accelerator on transition to a green economy, not try to draw back. She said this applied to the skills agenda too. The government should be training people in the skills they would need in a green economy – by teaching gas engineers to install heat pumps, for example, she said. She said the government should be acting faster on the transition to net zero because addressing climate change was necessary to protect people. May cited this as one of three elements she felt was missing from the speech. She said she also wanted it to include further measures to tackle modern slavery. And she said she was disappointed by the failure to include a bill on reforming the Mental Health Act. (See 12.32pm and 12.37pm.) May said, on a recent visit to Cox Green school in her constituency, she had asked pupils about the issues that mattered most to them. Mental health and climate change were both priorities, she said. May’s language in her speech is surprisingly similar to what Keir Starmer said about net zero in his speech to the Labour conference. Starmer said: So when Rishi Sunak says row back on our climate mission, I say speed ahead. Speed ahead with investment. Speed ahead with half a million jobs. Speed ahead with Great British Energy. UPDATE: May said: I think in relation to the king’s speech, and the government’s programme on climate change and environmental degradation, the government is missing an opportunity. What we need to do now is press the accelerator on the transition to a green economy, not try to draw back, and I fear that despite the fact that the king’s speech says ministers will seek to attract record levels of investment in renewable energy sources, that that is not sufficiently strong in ambition from the government to make sure that they are making that transition quickly enough to ensure that we reach net zero in 2050. It’s no good waking up on January 1, 2045, and saying we’ve got five years to do something. Let’s do it now because that will be even more costly for members of the public … I also worry that we are giving some mixed messages to investors. They need to have the confidence to invest in our transition to a green economy and we need to show that the government is pressing the accelerator on that, because the best long-term decision that we can make is about climate change, because the long-term future of this country and of the people of this country depend on us dealing with climate change and environmental degradation. So I want the government to press the accelerator not to roll backwards. Rishi Sunak wanted the pro-Palestinian march in London scheduled for Saturday to be cancelled, No 10 said. At a lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said: The prime minister himself does not think it’s right for these sorts of protests to be scheduled on Armistice Day. He believes that is provocative and disrespectful. According to a Times story by Matt Dathan, the government was planning to publish its draft criminal justice bill tomorrow – but has delayed publication because several cabinet ministers are opposed to Suella Braverman’s plan to include in it her scheme to ban charities from distributing tents to homeless people in cities. Stephen Flynn, the SNP leader at Westminster, is speaking now. He started by reiterating the SNP call for a full ceasefire in Gaza. And he said he hoped MPs would get a chance to vote on this soon. One obvious option for the SNP is to table an amendment to the king’s speech motion calling for a ceasefire. That would create a problem for Labour, because many Labour MPs would want to vote for a ceasefire. Sunak says he wants to close with a reference to the armed forces, with Armistice Day coming up. They are the best of us, he says. Labour tried to make Jeremy Corbyn PM, a man who wanted to abolish the armed forces, who wanted to withdraw from Nato, and who sided with the UK’s enemies, he says. He says, above all, the king’s speech delivers change. It takes long-term decisions for a better future, he says. Sunak defends his plans on net zero. He claims Starmer is not against all oil and gas – just British oil and gas. He says the government will create the first smoke-free generation. He says he is most proud of the Conservative party’s record on education. Under his plans, people will study maths and English up to 18, he says. And he says he is particularly proud of Network North, which he says is the most ambitous scheme for transport in the north from any government. Chris Bryant (Lab) intervened. He said many people who sleep rough are army veterans or have brain injuries. Does he agree with Suella Braverman that homelessness is a lifestyle choice? And if he doesn’t, will he sack her? Sunak said homelessness among veterans was at a record low. And he said rough sleeping was down by a third from its peak. Sunak is saying very little about what is in the king’s speech. Instead he is focusing more on criticising Labour. He says the government has introduced freeports, using Brexit freedoms that Starmer would abandon. And he also claims that Labour would allow an extra 100,000 EU migrants into the UK every year. The Full Fact factchecking organisation has published a factcheck on this claim in the past. It says it is misleading. Sunak says Labour will borrow and copy anything – as Rachel Reeves showed with her book. And he claims Starmer was going to write a book but abandoned the idea – after his publishers concluded he did not have a vision. Sunak is now paying tribute to Robert Goodwill and Siobhan Baillie for their speeches, and their parliamentary records more generally. Both speeches, apparently, were “in the finest traditions of this house”. Turning to Starmer, he claims Starmer has abandoned his previous republicanism, which he says he welcomes as a U-turn. Rishi Sunak is speaking now. He started by talking about Israel and Gaza, stressing the UK’s support for Israel’s right to defend himself. He said more than 100 Britons have now left Gaza. And he said the government would “not stand for the hatred and antisemitism we have seen on our streets”. He went on: It sickens me to think that British Jews are looking over their shoulder in this country that children are going to school covering up their school badges for fear of attack. This government will do whatever it takes to keep the Jewish community safe. Starmer dimisses king"s speech as "exercise in economic miserabilism" Starmer said there should been a planning bill in the king’s speech. He dismissed it as “an exercise in economic miserabilism” and “an admission that his government has no faith in Britain’s ability to avert decline”. And he was particularly critical of the oil and gas bill. He explained: A bill that everyone in the energy sector knows is a political gimmick. Even the energy secretary admits it will not take a single penny of anyone’s bills. He also accused Sunak of being wrong about clean energy. They are wrong about clean energy. It is cheaper. It is British and he can give us real security from tyrants like Putin. But more importantly, they are wrong about Britain. We can win the race for the jobs of tomorrow. We can work hand in glove with the private sector and invest in the critical infrastructure. UPDATE: Starmer said: We needed an employment bill. Time and again – this bill has been promised. Time and again – it fails to materialise. When we could be scrapping fire and rehire, ending zero-hours contracts, making work pay with a real living wage and saying, unambiguously, that strong workers’ rights are good for growth. What we got instead is an exercise in economic miserabilism. An admission that his government has no faith in Britain’s ability to avert decline. Take the oil and gas bill announced today. A bill that everyone in the energy sector knows is a political gimmick. And that even the energy secretary admits will not take a single penny off anyone’s bills. I don’t know which of his seven bins, the prime minister chucked her meat tax in but this one will follow soon. Nonetheless, it’s a gimmick that tells a story. A King’s speech with no concern for the national interest, wallowing in a pessimism that says the hard road to a better future isn’t for Britain. It’s been this way for 13 years now. Starmer says Sunak cannot be serious PM with Braverman as home secretary pursuing her "divisive brand of politics" Starmer is now engaged in a sustained attack on Suella Braverman, the home secretary. He says the Conservative party it is “so devoid of leadership. It is happy to follow a home secretary who describes homelessness as a lifestyle choice.” He says protecting the public from extremism is “the most basic job of government”. But Braverman is using the threat posed by extremism as “legitimate terrain for her divisive brand of politics”. He says as DPP he worked with the police and counter-terrorism forces. Their job is hard enough without the home secretary using these issues as a “platform for her own ambition”. He also criticises what Braverman said about homelessness. Homelessness is a choice. It’s a political choice. UPDATE: Starmer said: We needed a King’s Speech that would draw a line under 13 years of Tory decline. A king’s speech for national renewal and a serious plan for growth. But instead we have a party so devoid of leadership, it is happy to follow a home secretary who believes homelessness is a “lifestyle choice”, and that the job of protecting us all from extremists – the most basic job of government – is legitimate terrain for her divisive brand of politics. As Director of Public Prosecutions I worked very closely with police and counter-terrorism forces and their job is hard enough already without the home secretary using it as a platform for her own ambitions. So I say to the prime minister, think very carefully about what she is committing your government to do and think very carefully about the consequences of putting greater demands on public servants at the coalface of keeping us safe. Because without a serious home secretary there cannot be serious government and he cannot be a serious prime minister.