Sunak: we can afford to cut taxes during a recession Rishi Sunak has insisted that his government can afford to cut taxes, despite the country having entered a recession, because “economic conditions have improved”. Speaking to the media, he said “our plan is working” and he can “give everyone the peace of mind that there is a better future for them and their families”. He said tax cuts were possible “because of our plan to halve inflation, which has been successful over the past year, and because economic conditions have improved. We have already been able to start cutting taxes for people.” He continued: We delivered a significant tax cut at the start of this year, cutting the rate of national insurance from 12% to 10%, now that means someone on an average earnings of about £35,000 is seeing a tax cut worth £450 that hit their payslips in January. Now that will benefit everyone in work, it demonstrates that our plan is working. And if we stick with that plan, I can give everyone the piece of mind that there is a better future for them and their families ahead, and we can all have a renewed sense of pride in the country. Sunak is in Harlow today, where he has been meeting the local police force. He told the media that he was making progress on his five key pledges. He said: We’ve clearly been through a lot over the past couple of years as a country, but I genuinely believe at the start of this year we’re pointing in the right direction. Now we’re not out of the woods yet, but across all the priorities that I set out we’re making progress. Inflation has been more than halved, the economy out-performed expectations last year, debt is on track to fall, we’ve cut the number of illegal migrants coming by a third and we’re making progress on the longest waits in the NHS. End of day summary … We are going to be wrapping up the live blog shortly. Here are the headlines … Keir Starmer has hailed Labour’s “fantastic” results in the Kingswood and Wellingborough byelections after the party secured two victories that suggest the party is on course for a majority at the general election this year. The party secured a near-record swing of 28.5 percentage points in Wellingborough and a more modest one of 16.4 points in Kingswood, both of which would give them a secure majority if repeated at a national vote. Rishi Sunak said “Midterm elections are always difficult for incumbent governments, and the circumstances of these elections were of course particularly challenging.” Sunak has insisted that his government can afford to cut taxes, despite the country having entered a recession, because “economic conditions have improved”. Speaking to the media, he said “our plan is working” and he can “give everyone the peace of mind that there is a better future for them and their families”. Labour leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, urged people to vote for the party at the next general election in order to get rid of the Westminster Conservative government. He claimed Scotland would be at the heart of a Labour-led UK government, and criticised the SNP government in Holyrood for what he described as “a culture of secrecy and cover-ups”. NatWest made its biggest annual profit last year since the 2007 financial crisis. The UK lender – which is still 35% government-owned – said pre-tax profits rose 20% to £6.2bn in the year to December. No new proposals for general-use windfarms were submitted for planning permission in England last year, despite the government’s much-vaunted relaxation of planning restrictions. A charity that has worked for 37 years for greater cohesion between different UK faith communities is expected to close down next week after the government signalled it will scrap its funding. The Inter Faith Network (IFN) is due to close after Michael Gove, the communities secretary, said he was “minded to withdraw” £155,000 of provisional funding over concerns about a trustee connected to the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). People are being hospitalised for sexual health conditions that are easily treatable in local clinics, experts have warned, after some council budgets being cut by up to two-thirds over 10 years. I wanted to say thank you so much for reading this week and all your comments while I have been sitting in for Andrew Sparrow. I’ve really appreciated them. He will be back with you next week, and I will no doubt see you around the Guardian website somewhere soon. Take care and enjoy the best weekend you can. Keir Starmer and former prime minister Gordon Brown were among mourners today at the funeral of veteran Labour MP Tony Lloyd in Stretford. Giving an address, Brown said “His mission was social justice, his life was given to public service, his cause was the people he represented. Fighting for Tony was not against any individual or any group, it was against poverty, inequality and injustice wherever he saw it.” Others at the service included Andy Burnham, Angela Rayner, Yvette Cooper, Lisa Nandy, Lucy Powell and Rebecca Long-Bailey. Conservative MP for Ribble Valley Nigel Evans also attended. Rayner said “Tony was not just a politician. He was guided by a deep sense of duty and commitment to improving society in pursuit of his socialist principles. He never lost sight of his values and he also showed incredible skill in bridging divides, uniting people and trying to find common ground while making progress. He devoted himself to championing the marginalised, the silent and the forgotten.” Lloyd died from blood cancer last month aged 73. Sky News is reporting that Miriam Cates and Danny Kruger, who are co-chairs of one of the groupings of Tory backbenchers, have issued a statement saying Rishi Sunak must “change course” after the two byelection defeats on Thursday. It reads: The results in yesterday’s byelections are unequivocal: Labour are winning because many of the people who backed us in 2019 are staying at home or voting Reform. Voters are not flocking to Labour. They want a genuine alternative to the consensus politics of the last two decades – high taxes, low security, managed decline. The government has made some positive steps to win back our lost voters. But all of this is plainly not enough. In 2019 the British people voted for change, and they haven’t seen it yet. We have many good excuses – the disruptions and distractions of Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine war – but so far, we have not delivered on the promises we made at the last election. There is still time – but our party must change course. The pair are part of “The New Conservatives” grouping, which – assuming you don’t have perfect recall of the seemingly myriad factions in the parliamentary party these days – my colleague Ben Quinn helpfully wrote about December. He said: The New Conservatives are the newest and one of the most vocal groupings, created in May 2023 and include Lee Anderson, as well as Tories gaining more prominence such as Miriam Cates. Many are in marginal “red wall” seats. Its MPs, who are thought to number about 25, are predominantly from the party’s 2019 intake. The group’s co-chair Danny Kruger has pressed the PM to deliver the Rwanda deportation plan by “unpicking” Britain from a range of international obligations. “That’s what change means, that’s why change matters” has been a recurring refrain during Anas Sarwar’s speech to Scottish Labour, and he has finished his speech with a plea for people to vote Labour in Scotland to get rid of the Conservative government in Westminster. He told delegates: “Our opponents don’t want change. They are the parties of the status quo – Scottish Labour is now the only party of change.” Music nerds klaxon: Sia’s Unstoppable has been the opening and closing music for the speech. It’s a bop. On energy policy, Anas Sarwar has said: Let me be clear, oil and gas will play a role in the energy mix for decades to come – we will not turn off the taps – but we will also accelerate the transition to net zero. We will upgrade the UK energy grid, invest in Scotland’s ports, capitalise on new technologies, and use Labour’s “British jobs bonus” to create quality supply chain jobs right here in Scotland. We will make our country the winner in the race for the next generation of clean energy jobs and cheaper energy bills – not sell off our seabed on the cheap. Anas Sarwar, the Labour leader in Scotland, says that the devolved government in Scotland has for twenty-five years mostly been a social policy government rather than an economic policy government. He describes the SNP as an “anti-business” party, and the Green party as “anti-growth”. Anas Sarwar says that a Labour government for the UK would deliver “a race to the top” rather than a “race to the bottom”, and “the most transformative change in conditions for working people for a generation.” He criticises the SNP for not making the best of devolution, saying: A quarter of a century on from when our party created the Scottish parliament, our opponents have failed to make devolution work for the people of Scotland Devolution was never meant to be about two governments fighting with each other. Devolution was always meant to be about Scottish solutions to Scottish problems. And two governments working together when in our national interest to actually deliver for Scotland. Scottish Labour will be “responsible” with public money if elected to be the Scottish government in 2026, Anas Sarwar said. He told Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow: The SNP is being reckless with your money, and Scots shouldn’t be forced to pay the price for their incompetence. Because people work hard, pay their taxes, and expect government to be responsible with their money – it shouldn’t be too much to ask. We will end the culture of financial mismanagement, we will end the secrecy, and we will open the books to public scrutiny, to restore people’s trust in our politics. We will be responsible with every penny of public money – that’s what change means and that’s why change matters. Turning his attention back to the Conservatives and London, Sarwar said “I don’t support independence. And I don’t support a referendum. But I understand why people want to run a million miles from a Tory government” He implored people to go “on this part of the journey” together to end the Conservative government in Westminster as the first step. Anas Sarwar, the Labour leader in Scotland, has attacked the Conservative government in London for being in thrall to a “right-wing crankfest” and culture wars, and promised that a Labour government would end corruption and get back money lost during the pandemic and through cronyism. He said: The Tories are so mired in scandal and division and chaos, that their MPs are too busy trying to find a way to save their own skin rather than focusing on the huge challenges facing our country. And while they seek to divide communities from each other, they also seek to divide us between haves and have-nots. They have crashed the economy – and put the UK into recession. Imagine five more years of Jacob Rees-Mogg, Priti Patel, Lee Anderson, Liz Truss, Suella Braverman and Rishi Sunak. What an unbearable nightmare. He has also been highly critical of the SNP, saying a culture of cover-up and secrecy has enveloped the Scottish government. He said that by voting Scottish Labour, Scotland would be at the heart of the next UK government. Anas Sarwar has said statehood for Palestine is “not the gift of a neighbour”. Here are the quotes from slightly earlier in the speech with have just appeared on PA: The loss of innocent life in Israel and in Gaza is an absolute travesty. On 7 October, we saw the largest loss of Jewish life in any single day since the Holocaust – it was unimaginable, unforgivable, and unjustifiable. And we were right to show our solidarity with the Jewish people, and with the people of Israel in the face of that terror. And as I have been clear, the collective punishment of 2.2 million innocent citizens of Gaza is not – never can be – a justifiable response to the horror inflicted by Hamas. Describing himself as a “proud son of Glasgow”, Anas Sarwar, the Labour leader in Scotland has introduced his children, and said he is proud to be bringing up his children there. He has criticised the Scottish government for concentrating too much power in Holyrood. He says that two years ago conference paid tribute to those in Ukraine, and says they do again. He says they also show solidarity with the people of Israel after the 7 October attack which he described as “unforgiveable”, going on to say the collective punishment of 2.2 million people in the Gaza Strip cannot be the right response. He says “the fighting must stop now”, calling for the end of fire going into and out of Gaza, the release of all hostages, the delivery of humanitarian aid, and for world leaders to work on an enduring path to a two state solution. Sarwar says a collective failure of the international community to strive for peace has led to this situation because only when there is a safe and secure Israel side-by-side with a safe and secure Palestinian state will there be peace. He says that people must separate Hamas from the Palestinian people, and separate the Israeli people from the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, and that the peaceful aspirations of the people of both Israel and Palestine are being poorly served by bad faith actors. He says there must be a zero tolerance for antisemitism and a zero tolerance for Islamophobia, and that the Labour party will always stand shoulder-to-shoulder with both communities. Anas Sarwar, the Labour leader in Scotland is opening his Scottish Labour conference speech by saying Scottish Labour is “back on the pitch and winning again” after the year they’ve had since their last conference. Sarwar has described this year’s vote as “the most important general election for a generation”. He appealed to activists to remember the goosebumps they felt when Michael Shanks was elected, and talks of watching Labour MP after Labour MP being elected and the electoral map turning red and a Labour prime minister being elected. “That’s the change we are fighting for, and the change our country so desperately needs,” he said. Rutherglen and Hamilton West MP Michael Shanks is warming up for Anas Sarwar at the moment in Glasgow at the Scottish Labour conference. He is telling conference it is great that “Labour gain” is back in their vocabulary in Scotland, has made jibes at the SNP’s leadership election and iPad expenses scandal, and joked about Ian Murray, Labour’s only other MP in Scotland, having to now share his office in Westminster after Shanks was elected in October last year. Labour’s leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, is about to address the Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow. You can watch it here. Keir Starmer said the results from the Kingswood and Wellingborough byelections – where two Labour parliamentary candidates took seats from the Conservatives – show people want change. On X, next to a clip from his BBC Breakfast appearance this morning, he said: The message from Kingswood and Wellingborough is clear – people are crying out for change. As we approach a general election, Labour will work to earn every vote, so we can deliver this change across the country. Ed Miliband has been speaking at the Scottish Labour conference in Glasgow, and said that basing the proposed new GB Energy company in Scotland would help make the country the UK’s “clean energy capital”. Saying this would be part of a “just transition” away from industries such as oil and gas, he added: “I’m old enough to remember when the SNP made this promise, seven years ago they promised a publicly owned energy company. They have failed to deliver. We will deliver on that promise.” Miliband said “We’re going to have GB Energy, a publicly owned energy company, headquartered here in Scotland investing billions of pounds. We’re going to have a British jobs bonus. We want to end the grotesque situation where we have massive offshore windfarms off the coast of Scotland but not a piece of them is built here in Scotland. We are going to change that. “We will create hundreds of thousands of jobs in the industries that will power our future – hydrogen, carbon capture and storage, floating offshore wind. These are the technologies. We are going to succeed where the SNP and the Tories have failed.” Polly Toynbee has her column today on the byelection results, arguing that the voters of Wellingborough and Kingswood said one thing with one voice: the Tory era is over. Here is a video clip of Rishi Sunak delivering his verdict on the byelection results in Wellingborough and Kingswood. Here is what prime minister Rishi Sunak had to say specifically about the byelection defeats in Wellingborough and Kingswood: Midterm elections are always difficult for incumbent governments, and the circumstances of these elections were of course particularly challenging. Now, I think if you look at the results, very low turnout, and it shows that we’ve got work to do to show people that we are delivering on their priorities and that’s what I’m absolutely determined to do, but also shows that there isn’t a huge amount of enthusiasm for the alternative in Keir Starmer and the Labour party, and that’s because they don’t have a plan. And if you don’t have a plan, you can’t deliver real change. And when the general election comes, that’s the message I’ll be making to the country. Stick with our plan, because it is starting to deliver the change that the country wants and needs. Sunak refers to the byelections as midterm, although they come right at the end of the current five year parliament, with a general election set to take place within months. David Frost has posted to social media to say that he believes it is not too late for the Conservatives to change course and still win the next election. The peer said: I will have more to say in Telegraph later, but in brief these byelections show the same story as previous ones: former Conservative voters are simply not coming out and voting Conservative. The Labour vote isn’t going up, but ours is collapsing. To get voters back we need a shift to more conservative policy, on tax and spend, immigration, net zero, public sector reform, and more. It’s late, but not – yet – too late. I mentioned earlier that Rishi Sunak is in Harlow this morning, meeting local police. As well as commenting about his party’s two byelection defeats [See 9.49 GMT], the prime minister has been speaking to the media about knife crime and policing policy. He was shown a series of more than half a dozen blades that had been confiscated by officers, and spoke about plans to increase patrols in areas affected by antisocial behaviour. Sunak said: I’ve been here in Essex talking to the police about that plan and how it’s working, and the good news is that it is working and making a real difference. Through the increased use of hotspot policing, drug testing on arrest, dispersal powers, on-the-spot fines, we’ve seen antisocial behaviour fall by up to 50% in the areas where we’ve trialled this new plan. That’s why we’re now going to roll it out across the country with more funding so that everyone can benefit from these improvements and it just shows that if we stick to the plan we can deliver a brighter future for everyone. Yesterday, home secretary James Cleverly posted to social media about plans to role out what the government calls “hotspot policing”. Keir Starmer said that he had made a tough decision to drop the party’s support for Azhar Ali in the Rochdale byelection, but he was “satisfied” with Labour’s “robust due process”. He told BBC Breakfast earlier: I did something that no leader of the Labour party has ever done before, which is to remove a candidate in a byelection where they cannot be replaced, because I was so determined to take decisive action in relation to antisemitism. It was done within days. We are giving up a Labour seat. That’s the right thing to do. But what it shows is, when there’s tough decisions to be made I take those decisions. I’ve put in place in the Labour party a robust due process exercised for every single candidate. We must continue to fight antisemitism wherever we are in organisations, in political parties. Richard Tice, fresh from Reform UK’s best ever byelection performances, has been on GB News arguing that the prime minister and the Conservative party should “step aside” and let him and his party challenge Labour at the next election. He told the broadcaster: I think people are realising the Tories are tired, that they are old and they are toxic. They’ve had the chance - they’ve blown it, frankly, they should stand aside now having messed up. My message to them is let me take on Keir Starmer and beat him. You’ve got to be optimistic. I’ve got loads of it. He added that there was no chance that Reform UK would step aside from contesting Conservative seats, as forerunner the Brexit party did in 2019. No way. [The Conservative party] had a chance before. No one believes a word they say anymore. They said that last time and we fell for it. We’re not falling for that nonsense again. No one trusts them. I’ve still got the scars on my back from last time. A week tomorrow we will be releasing the draft of our election contract with the people which will cover all of these areas in great detail, including costings. Yesterday I mentioned that the Conservatives had taken a four second clip of London mayor Sadiq Khan misspeaking during an interview and used it on social media to imply he had said that the Labour party was “proud to be both anti racist, but also antisemitic”. The social media post was widely criticised for being misleading, as the Conservatives had edited out Khan immediately correcting himself to say he was proud of the way the party was tackling antisemitism. They accompanied the four second clip with the caption “Sadiq Khan says the quiet part out loud”. Miriam Mirwitch, who is national secretary of the Jewish Labour Movement, condemned it as “cynical political point scoring [that] will only hurt British Jews like me.” This morning Calum Macdonald tried to challenge Tory chair Richard Holden about it when he appeared on Times Radio. Holden absolutely refused to engage with the argument that the party was spreading misinformation, instead saying it wasn’t the main issue, and arguing about the semantics of whether the video was “edited” or “clipped”.