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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

No 10 refuses to confirm if budget will go ahead as scheduled – as it happened

Afternoon summary

  • Downing Street is still refusing to say whether or not the budget will go ahead on 11 March as scheduled. (See 2.04pm.)

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

I’m away next week during the half-term recess, but will be back on Monday week. A colleague may be writing the blog next week, but that will depend on how busy the politics news diary gets.

Updated

Here is Newsnight’s Lewis Goodall on the moment when Boris Johnson treated his new cabinet like children, expecting them to chant back Tory election messages at him. (See 10.33am.)

It’s a Johnson party piece. He did the same thing at the first cabinet meeting after the general election. And he has tried the same trick with Tory MPs in the Commons.

And here is David Gauke, the former Tory cabinet minister who lost his seat after having the party whip withdrawn over a Brexit rebellion, on the same moment.

Updated

Downing Street has just announced two more appointments.

Lord Callanan, who was a Brexit minister until the department was wound up at the end of January, has been made a business minister.

Gillian Keegan has been made an education minister. She was a backbencher.

From Sky’s Joe Pike

The Institute for Government has been looking at how much cabinet experience Boris Johnson’s new team has. Quite a lot, it says. “Only three full members – Anne-Marie Trevelyan, Amanda Milling and George Eustice – and Suella Braverman, the new attorney general who attends cabinet - have not been around the table before,” Gavin Freeguard writes at the IfG blog.

Experience of current, new and departing cabinet ministers
Experience of current, new and departing cabinet ministers Photograph: IfG

The government reshuffle seems to be running out of steam. No 10 has just issued a press release of 25 appointments, which all involve ministers staying in the same posts.

Reshuffle latest

Earlier today Downing Street announced seven junior-level promotions, of which more than half involved women.

Amanda Sollaway has been made a business minister. She was a backbencher.

Victoria Prentis has been made an environment minister. She was a backbencher.

Rachel Maclean has been made a transport minister. She was parliamentary private secretary to Sajid Javid.

Nigel Huddleston has been made a culture minister. He was a government whip, and will continue with that role alongside his ministerial job.

Theodore Agnew was made joint minister of state at the Cabinet Office and in the Treasury. He had been a junior education minister.

Nicholas True has joined the government as a minister of state in the Cabinet Office.

Elizabeth Berridge has been made an education minister. She was a government whip in the Lords, and will continue in that role alongside her education post.

The full list of appointments is here, on the No 10 website.

Updated

No 10 still refusing to confirm if budget to go ahead as scheduled on 11 March

These are from my colleague Heather Stewart, who has been at the Downing Street lobby briefing.

Thornberry still chasing CLP nominations as midnight deadline looms

Three Labour leadership candidates, Sir Keir Starmer, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy, are guaranteed a place on the final ballot, and all five deputy leadership candidates – Angela Rayner, Dawn Butler, Richard Burgon, Ian Murray and Rosena Alin-Khan – have also got the CLP or affiliate nominations they need.

Emily Thornberry, a candidate for the leadership, is the only person still looking for CLP nominations. As of last night she had 30. She needs three more by the deadline at midnight tonight. Around 18 CLPs are supposed to be nominating today.

In an article for PoliticsHome, Thornberry has floated a new policy idea. She says the government is going to have problems in the decades ahead meeting its unfunded public sector pension liabilities, and she proposes a solution: letting people with only limited contributions (two years’ worth initially) take out 75% of their money now, but forgoing their pension when they retire.

She says this would free up money for people who need it now, as well as reducing the long-term pension liabilities. And it would be good for the public finances, she claims.

This scheme obviously comes at a short-term cost, which would have to be funded through borrowing, but there are two points.

First, there is no better time to borrow given the historic lows in interest rates. And second, even if it mean an increase in short-term borrowing, the credit agencies, investment firms and others will all see that it puts Britain on a much sounder footing in terms of our long-term fiscal health.

We would therefore have a practical measure that starts to tackle a major long-term threat to the public finances, but at the same time puts money into the pockets of millions of working people on low to medium incomes, at a time when the economy is slowing down.

Emily Thornberry.
Emily Thornberry. Photograph: Jacob King/PA

Updated

The Jewish Labour Movement has also announced its stance on the Labour leadership. It is nominating Lisa Nandy for leader, and Ian Murray for deputy leader.

Here are the results of its ballot.

And, while we’re on about Boris Johnson’s proposed bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland, my colleague Dan Sabbagh has spoken to bomb disposal experts who say the plan is flawed because the bridge would span a vast offshore munitions dump.

Updated

The leftwing TSSA transport union has announced that it is nominating Sir Keir Starmer for the Labour leadership, and Angela Rayner for the deputy leadership. Manuel Cortes, the TSSA general secretary, described them as “fantastic candidates, both of whom have made commitments to public ownership of our railways”.

Starmer has posted this on Twitter in response.

Updated

Ministers from the Scottish government and the Northern Ireland executive have criticised the plan floated by No 10 earlier this week for a bridge between Scotland and Northern Ireland, the Press Association reports.

The Scottish transport secretary, Michael Matheson, has said:

I strongly believe that if £20bn is available for investment in infrastructure in Scotland and Northern Ireland that, rather than indulging the prime minister with this vanity project, such funding should be made available to our respective governments so it could be better spent on meeting the priorities of the people we represent.

And the Stormont infrastructure minister, Nichola Mallon, has said:

I am extremely concerned that pursuit of this project, costing £20bn, will be a waste of significant money and resource that could be put to better use by addressing pressures and deliverable projects here in Northern Ireland and elsewhere.

By spending just a fraction of the reported cost of this bridge, I am of the view that we could bring significantly more benefits to people across the north by investing in infrastructure here and making a real difference to improving the lives of citizens across Northern Ireland.

Updated

Rebecca Long-Bailey's 'path to power' speech - Summary and analysis

Here are the main points from Rebecca Long-Bailey’s “Labour’s path to power” speech in Salford this morning. It was well-written and well-delivered, and John Rentoul has posted a link to the full text.

Much of what Long-Bailey said repeated points she has already made in the campaign, but here are the new or newish lines that stuck out.

  • Long-Bailey said Labour should not let the Tories present them as an establishment, “shiny suit wearing” party. This seemed a clear jibe at Sir Keir Starmer, the favourite in the leadership contest, although Long-Bailey did not make this explicit. But she did make the argument twice. In her speech she said:

In this leadership election, our party needs to exercise the greatest care in who we choose to lead us. Because the British establishment wants to put us into a box. A box that separates us from the people our party was built to represent. Well I will not be put in that box and won’t allow our party to be either.

Yes, we have to be credible to regain trust with voters but I’m not interested in the definition of credibility used by the media and chattering classes. The only credibility I’m interested in winning is that of the people.

And in her Q&A, Long-Bailey said:

We have got a government that wants to put us into a box. They want us to be viewed as the establishment. They are laying a trap for us. They would love nothing more than for us to go down the route of shiny suit wearing, not rocking the boat too much, not setting out a transformative vision, and trying to scale back our ambitions, so that they can turn round to our communities and say: ‘They’re part of the establishment.’

It is obvious why Long-Bailey is making this argument when she appears to be trailing badly behind Starmer in the contest and looking “establishment” could be seen as one of his weak points. But having an establishment, “shiny suit” image has never stopped Conservative leaders winning general elections, so the premise of her argument is questionable. And Long-Bailey may be wrong to claim that being credible with the chattering classes is not the same as being credible with the public. She seemed to accept that Starmer has credibility with the former, but the polls suggest he has more credibility with the latter too.

  • She criticised colleagues in the party who had said they would vote remain in any second referendum on Brexit instead of backing a deal negotiated by Labour. In the Q&A, talking about the problems with Labour’s Brexit policy at the election, she said:

It was also confusing and ambiguous, the final stage of our policy position, because we talked about a people’s vote as a way to resolve the conversations that were happening in our communities; we were going to give people a vote on the final deal. But then when we were asked if we were going to campaign for our own deal, our answer was: [at this point Long-Bailey put on a posher accent] “I don’t know, we will have to see what it looks like, might campaign for remain.” And that was really bad, and it confused a lot of people.

The official party policy, agreed at conference last autumn, was to reserve any decision about how to campaign in a second referendum until after a Labour government had renegotiated the withdrawal agreement. Jeremy Corbyn himself would not say how he would campaign, and eventually resolved this conundrum by saying he would be neutral. But Long-Bailey’s comment seemed aimed at colleagues such as Starmer and Emily Thornberry who were explicit about wanting to back remain.

  • She described herself as someone who was good at both details and big vision. And she said that, as a working-class woman, she was used to having to prove she was much better than middle-class men. In her speech she said:

To deliver our path to power, we need both details and big vision. I do both.

I’m a details person. I work hard. I don’t slack off. I suppose that’s the benefit of being a working-class woman, always having to work twice as hard to show you’re just as good, in fact better, than an upper-middle-class man. So yes, I do think it’s time our party had a woman leader.

  • She said she felt sad that the party had not focused more on its plans for a green industrial revolution during the election campaign. (See 11.04am.) And she gave an example of how she thought it could have helped the party win in Falmouth. (See 11.05am.)
  • She said Labour should be more robust in tackling negative coverage in the media. In her speech she said:

My leadership will be far more robust with the media ...

I’ll not only call that out, I have a plan to deal with it. I’ll ridicule the most absurd smears and lies. We won’t just rebut factual errors in stories, but provide a counter-narrative about deliberate media efforts to hold back aspirational socialism.

But a credible and effective communications strategy extends beyond just being more combative and self-confident. It must also be more creative. So I’ll set up a dedicated creative digital communications unit in the party, producing viral content that can both get around media hostility and speak directly to voters.

This implies that Labour hasn’t tried this before. It has, repeatedly, including employing people to focus on digital media, although admittedly there is always room for improvement.

  • She said Labour should support a mass trade union membership drive and back workers in every dispute and strike against exploitative bosses. She said:

We aren’t just a different team of politicians in Westminster, alternating power with the Tories. Our party was born out of a movement in communities like mine and many of those we lost in the election.

To win again, we need to look and sound like it. And it’s our members and our trade unions, on the frontline in workplaces and communities, who will make that a reality.

That’s why under my leadership, Labour will back workers in every dispute and strike against unfair and exploitative employers. And we’ll launch a mass trade union membership drive, supporting hundreds of thousands of young activists who have been inspired by our party to become active trade unionists in their workplaces.

  • She implied that she does not see a case for keeping on Diane Abbott, John McDonnell or Corbyn in any frontline roles in Labour. She said:

I’ve learned so much from Jeremy, John and Diane. They helped our party and our movement rediscover its heart and soul. We owe them so much and I thank them for their huge efforts. History will be much kinder to them than today’s media consensus and we mustn’t retreat from that politics.

But they have done their bit and it is time for a new generation to take us forward.

  • She quoted Tony Blair approvingly. She said:

In his introduction to the 1997 manifesto, Tony Blair wrote that our party was the “political arm of the British people”. That is what we must become. I believe I can chart the course to get us there.

Rebecca Long-Bailey.
Rebecca Long-Bailey. Photograph: Darren Staples/Getty Images

Updated

Last night Jake Berry announced that he was leaving the government. He had been the Northern Powerhouse minister, but Boris Johnson wanted him to move to the Foreign Office and Berry refused because he said the foreign travel meant he would not see enough of his three young children.

Berry’s portfolio has been handed to Simon Clarke, who has moved from the Treasury to be a minister in the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, although it is not clear whether or not Clarke will call himself the Northern Powerhouse minister. He says he’s in charge of levelling up.

Berry was one of the 10 ministers who used to attend cabinet without being a full member. Clarke won’t do that, which could be seen as a downgrade, although the PM has taken a deliberate decision to reduce the number of of cabinet non-member attendees from 10 to four, because it was felt that their numbers were getting out of hand.

Rather than going to the pub (see 11.51am), Julian Smith, the former Northern Ireland secretary, has been visiting a school in his Skipton and Ripon constituency. It turned out the pupils hadn’t been keeping up with the news.

Julian Smith, who was sacked as Northern Ireland secretary yesterday, was doorstepped by Sky News this morning. Asked about his future plans, he replied:

I think my future plans involve things like going to the pub and I’m now going to my constituency.

I wish the new cabinet and new secretary of state all the best of luck.

Julian Smith.
Julian Smith. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Boris Johnson addressing a meeting of his new cabinet this morning.
Boris Johnson addressing a meeting of his new cabinet this morning. Photograph: Pool/Reuters

Updated

Jackson Carlaw elected new leader of Scottish Conservatives

Jackson Carlaw has been elected the new leader of the Scottish Conservatives.

Carlaw, who had been filling the role on an interim basis since Ruth Davidson stepped down last August, comfortably defeated his rival, Michelle Ballantyne, the party’s social security spokesperson at Holyrood by 4,917 votes to 1,581.

Carlaw promised to offer voters a “clear, focused, ambitious alternative to the SNP”, which will include a refreshed approach to the union that would be “positive and forward-looking, not lazy and historical”.

Insisting that he would be “an ambassador for Scotland to the UK government”, Carlaw said he would have no problem speaking up against Boris Johnson where necessary.

During his leadership campaign, Carlaw, who has served as an MSP since 2007, signalled that he wants to put forward a more populist policy agenda, to dovetail with Johnson’s plans for the UK party, and win over blue-collar voters disillusioned with the SNP and Labour.

Jackson Carlaw following his election as the Scottish Conservatives’ new leader this morning.
Jackson Carlaw following his election as the Scottish Conservatives’ new leader this morning. Photograph: Robert Perry/Getty Images

Updated

Q: If the UK goes into recession, how would that affect your plans?

Long-Bailey says the economy is vulnerable because the economic model is broken.

She refers to the film The Big Short. That shows how people have not learned lessons from the financial crash, she says.

She says government should invest more in the UK. It is too unequal, she says. She says the green industrial revolution would spread power.

She says people think of collective ownership as an obsession. But it is not, she says. It is about spreading power.

Q: What would you replace the House of Lords with?

Long-Bailey says she does not support the Lords, because it is the only unelected chamber in Europe.

There are some great Labour peers, she says. But a second chamber should be democratically accountable, she says. It should be replaced with an elected senate outside of London.

That would be one step towards restoring faith in politics, she says.

And that’s it.

I will post a summary shortly.

Updated

Q: How much would your policy on freedom of movement affect the wages of workers?

Long-Bailey says the UK will be out of the single market. She says she wants an immigration system based on values, not on targets.

She says she is worried EU nationals could be facing deportations.

And she says Labour has a moral duty to oppose the far right, and to make the positive case for immigration. She says she is a child of immigrants. She is proud of that, she says.

She says the impact of immigration on wages is “negligible”. But she says communities are right to be angry about how services are not working for them.

That’s not an immigration problem, she says. She says that is because the Conservative government has starved public services of resources.

Q: Do you think it was a mistake backing the election to take place? And what would you do to stop a no-deal Brexit at the end of this year?

Long-Bailey says she would rather not have had the election. But the party was not in a good place. Many people in Labour communities saw the party as one trying to overturn the referendum. And remain supporters did not like the party’s stance either, she says.

She says it did not help that people in the party were saying different things.

And she says it was “really bad” that Labour could not even say it would campaign for its own Brexit deal.

She says Labour needs to scrutinise the government, and make sure it does not water down standards.

And she says businesses will need support. They have been preparing for the worst, she says. But smaller businesses do not have the resources to prepare, especially firms in the supply chain. Labour should be demanding the government support these firms, she says.

Long-Bailey's Q&A

Rebecca Long-Bailey is now taking questions.

Q: This room isn’t full. Are you worried that your campaign is not going as well as you hoped?

Long-Bailey does not accept this. She says she has got some of her finest supporters in the room this morning.

It is a long campaign, she says. And she did not have a campaign ready to go. She was concentrating on trying to win the election.

She says she thought members would go through a grieving process. But she is standing to tell people that their ambitions are not wrong.

Q: Do you only see a path to power outside parliament?

She says Labour will only get into power if it has a strong membership. She wants to have a million members. And she thinks the party needs a more robust media strategy.

The government wants Labour to be seen as the establishment, she says. It would like Labour to go down the route of “shiny suit wearing”, so they can tell Labour voters the party is unrepresentative.

  • Long-Bailey says Tories want to portray Labour as an establishment, “shiny suit wearing” party.

She says parliament has to have a role in giving power away. She wants the nations and regions to be given far more power.

She says they also need to define what the role of the government is. She supports a written constitution, so that every decision a government makes should be based on how much it improves people’s lives.

UPDATE: This picture helps to explain the question about the room not being full.

Updated

Long-Bailey is now winding up.

When we win the next general election, I want you to be able to say that you stared defeat in the face last time. You felt the pain. But you picked yourself up and were part of a new path to power than runs through social justice, delivering a new, green economy, uniting our people, and empowering them to realise their hopes, dreams and aspirations.

Because not only can we do that, it’s the best way to win.

So, let’s empower our movement to show that big change is possible through a democratic revolution that delivers aspirational socialism and a green industrial revolution.

That’s our path to power. Let’s take it together.

Long-Bailey says she can do details and big vision.

To deliver our path to power, we need both details and big vision. I do both.

I’m a details person. I work hard. I don’t slack off. I suppose that’s the benefit of being a working-class woman, always having to work twice as hard to show you’re just as good, in fact better, than an upper-middle-class man. So yes, I do think it’s time our party had a woman leader.

Updated

Long-Bailey cites Falmouth as an example of a place where Labour should have promoted its green industrial revolution more effectively.

Our green industrial revolution would have transformed Falmouth’s fortunes - but we didn’t get that message out. Alongside local businesses, the community and energy experts, we developed plans to expand Falmouth’s historic docks, which are a big part of the town’s identity. We worked out how we’d use public investment to crowd in private capital to create marine technology jobs and floating offshore wind.

We should have given our activists in the town a detailed vision to sell on the doorstep. The new, high-skill, high-tech jobs wouldn’t just benefit those working in the docks. Those extra salaries would be spent supporting local businesses, helping revive the high street. The whole town could be renewed, and through the docks that help define its identity and give it pride and purpose.

Updated

Long-Bailey turns to the need for a green industrial revolution. She says she is “sad” that this did not feature more in the party’s campaign during the general election.

The green industrial revolution could have been for us what the NHS was to the 1945 Labour government, our huge, era-defining project. And it still can be. In fact, it must.

Because our green industrial revolution can bring people together. It unites young people, who want to fight for our planet’s survival, with workers in every community, from the largest cities, to our nations, towns and villages, who will see new green jobs and lower bills, and the whole country proud to be world leaders in combating the climate crisis.

Long-Bailey says Labour has to tell a “concrete story” about how this plan would help communities.

The green industrial revolution will never take off if it’s something done to people rather than done with them.

Updated

Long-Bailey says Labour has to tell a credible story about how it will help people improve their lives.

My socialism isn’t just a moral socialism – an outrage at the injustice done to others. It’s the socialism of the majority, where everyone can live better lives together. I believe building that majority for change is a socialism that wins.

So our path to power requires us to speak an everyday language to people simply going about their normal lives. We have to understand that people want a better life for their children – that’s aspiration – but we can only secure that together – that’s socialism.

Updated

Long-Bailey says Britain needs a democratic revolution.

Westminster feels as distant to many people as Brussels. We need a democratic revolution to break the hold of Westminster and the City over our politics, and show people that they can and will have the power to achieve what they want to achieve.

Six of the 10 poorest regions in northern Europe are in the UK, because for too long the fate of our regions has been in the hands of people who only visit them for a photo op in a hi-vis jacket. So power needs to be closer to people geographically, with meaningful new powers and funding devolved to local level to grow local economies, invest in communities and build council homes.

We spoke about the economy in the general election, but we didn’t have anything to say to people who’d lost trust with democracy. And after the Iraq war, the expenses scandal and the austerity lie that we’re all in it together, who can blame them? So to follow our path to power, we will champion a democratic revolution. And just the first step would be scrapping the House of Lords and creating an elected senate representing our regions and nations, to scrutinise how every law impacts inequality, the environment and our people’s wellbeing.

Updated

Long-Bailey says she would be more “robust” with the media.

And my leadership will be far more robust with the media. Journalists have a vital role to play in our society. We should respect their work – and look to ways to free them from government or corporate influence. But let’s be honest: large sections of the media represent vested interests. Much of the press is owned by billionaires, so it’s no surprise they support the Tories and monster Labour.

I’ll not only call that out, I have a plan to deal with it. I’ll ridicule the most absurd smears and lies. We won’t just rebut factual errors in stories, but provide a counter-narrative about deliberate media efforts to hold back aspirational socialism.

But a credible and effective communications strategy extends beyond just being more combative and self-confident. It must also be more creative. So I’ll set up a dedicated creative digital communications unit in the party, producing viral content that can both get around media hostility and speak directly to voters.

Updated

Long-Bailey says she wants to empower members. The least they can do is give them open selections, she says.

She says she has heard the criticism about how the party should be focusing on getting rid of Tory MPs, not Labour ones. But having empowered members will allow the party to get rid of Tory MPs, she says.

Long-Bailey says she thinks she is the only candidate to have worked out a path to power. It has four elements.

To win again, Labour has to look like the party of the workers, she says. She says under her leadership it will back workers in every strike and every dispute against unfair employers.

She says it will fight any further Tory attempt to restrict the unions.

She says she has been wearing a “love unions” badge this week, because it is the love unions week. She says she was the only candidate on Newsnight wearing the badge.

In her speech Long-Bailey has just quoted Tony Blair. In his introduction to the 1997 he said that the Labour party was the political arm of the British people, she says. She says he was right.

Long-Bailey has tweeted a link to extracts from her speech.

Rebecca Long-Bailey's speech on Labour's path to power

Rebecca Long-Bailey, the Labour leadership candidate, is delivering a speech in Salford. There is a live feed at the top of the blog.

According to the advance briefing from her team, she is going to set out a path to power for Labour. Her team says it has four elements.

1) Improve Labour’s messaging with “an everyday language” of aspirational socialism to sell policies and principles

2) Empower our movement to reconnect with voters in the red wall and beyond

3) Stir up a democratic revolution to “break the hold Westminster and the City over our politics, and show people that they can have the power to achieve what they want to achieve”

4) Use the green industrial revolution to unite Labour’s heartlands, from Blyth to Brixton

And if you want to know what Sajid Javid is up to this morning, the former chancellor is at a pensioners’ fair in his Bromsgrove constituency.

Boris Johnson tells new cabinet to 'deliver for the people'

Sky News has just broadcast some footage of Boris Johnson addressing his new cabinet.

We’re here to deliver for the people of this country. They have elected us to serve them and this government has to get on with delivering the people’s priorities, and in the next few years we must get on with our basic work. And you know what it is? We are going to cut crime, we are going to tackle homelessness, we are going to tackle waiting lists in our NHS.

At that point Johnson launched into his familiar primary school teacher routine. “How many hospitals are we going to build?” he asked.

“Forty,” his ministers chanted back at him. No one was brave enough to say a more accurate figure would be six.

Johnson then asked the same question about how many more police officers the government was recruiting (20,000, they told him) and how many more nurses (50,000, they told him - although arguably 30,000 is a more accurate figure). He also asked how many extra buses the government was providing, but only some of his ministers seemed to know the answer (announced in his statement to MPs on Tuesday) - 4,000.

Johnson went on:

All those things we want to achieve, but of course they won’t make any difference in themselves. This is about improving the quality of everybody’s life if possible.

Boris Johnson addressing his new cabinet.
Boris Johnson addressing his new cabinet. Photograph: Sky News

In an interview on the Today programme this morning Salma Shah, a former adviser to Sajid Javid, said it would have been “incredibly detrimental” to him if he had allowed No 10 to appoint his advisers. She explained:

I think Sajid rightly understood that not having his own political advisers would be incredibly detrimental to his decision-making power.

You cannot have a minister that does not appoint their own special advisers because they cannot appoint anyone else.

They are the only people in a government department that are the minister’s responsibility and chosen by them.

She also played down suggestions that, as a backbencher, Javid would seek to cause problems for Boris Johnson. She said:

I think the thing you have to remember about him as a person is he is non-confrontational. He is not someone who is going to rock the boat for the sake of his own ego.

Sajid Javid leaving his home in London this morning.
Sajid Javid leaving his home in London this morning. Photograph: Simon Dawson/Reuters

Rishi Sunak won't be a No 10 puppet as chancellor, says housing secretary

In an interview this morning Robert Jenrick, who kept his job as housing secretary, denied that Rishi Sunak, the new chancellor, would be a “puppet” because No 10 is not letting him appoint his own advisers. When this suggestion was put to him, Jenrick said:

That’s completely untrue. I know Rishi Sunak well and he is one of the most talented people in politics today.

He is going to be a fantastic chancellor. He brings with him a great deal of experience from the private sector, he’s been an excellent minister in my department, and now at the Treasury.

He has been heavily involved in the preparations for the budget in March and I think he is going to hit the ground running.

Robert Jenric.
Robert Jenric. Photograph: Tolga Akmen/AFP via Getty Images

Ministers have been arriving at No 10 for the first meeting of the new cabinet. Here are some of them walking up Downing Street.

Alok Shama, the new business secretary.
Alok Shama, the new business secretary. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA
Thérèse Coffey, who kept her job as work and pensions secretary.
Thérèse Coffey, who kept her job as work and pensions secretary. Photograph: Simon Dawson/Reuters
Matt Hancock, who kept his post as health secretary.
Matt Hancock, who kept his post as health secretary. Photograph: Simon Dawson/Reuters
Amanda Milling, the new Conservative party chairman who sits in cabinet as minister without portfolio.
Amanda Milling, the new Conservative party chairman who sits in cabinet as minister without portfolio. Photograph: Simon Dawson/Reuters
Rishi Sunak, the new chancellor (left), and Stephen Barclay, the new chief secretary to the Treasury.
Rishi Sunak, the new chancellor (left), and Stephen Barclay, the new chief secretary to the Treasury.

 Photograph: Alberto Pezzali/AP

Here is my colleague Graham Russell’s round-up of how the papers have covered Sajid Javid’s resignation.

Arlene Foster urges new Northern Ireland secretary to 'revisit' pledge affecting historic investigations

Arlene Foster, the first minister of Northern Ireland and DUP leader, told the Today programme this morning that Brandon Lewis, the new Northern Ireland secretary, should “revisit” the scope of the historical investigation unit that was proposed in the power-sharing deal negotiated by his sacked predecessor.

Under the “New Decade, New Approach” deal (pdf) between the parties and the UK government that led to the restoration of the power-sharing executive, the UK promised to “within 100 days, publish and introduce legislation in the UK parliament to implement the Stormont House agreement to address Northern Ireland legacy issues”.

The Stormont House agreement (pdf), which was agreed in 2014 but never implemented in full, promised:

Legislation will establish a new independent body to take forward investigations into outstanding Troubles-related deaths; the Historical Investigations Unit (HIU). The body will take forward outstanding cases from the HET process, and the legacy work of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (PONI). A report will be produced in each case.

Unionists fear this will lead to former soldiers and police officers facing fresh investigation over matters for which they thought they had been cleared.

Foster told Today:

[What was] originally mooted in the Stormont agreement does need to be revisited because a lot of matters have changed since then, not least the fact that the chief constable put all of the so-called state killings into the historical investigation unit, so there are great difficulties in that - not least that 90% of those who lost their lives in Northern Ireland were killed by paramilitaries, terrorists if you will.

There is a need for balance in everything we do here in Northern Ireland.

Asked if she would be asking Lewis to review the terms of the “New Decade, New Approach” deal, Foster said:

I had already written to the secretary of state Julian Smith a number of weeks ago saying to him it is very important that the victims take the lead in all of these issues and that there is a co-design of any legislation so they are at the heart of dealing with the matters of the past.

It is very important that the victims are at the fore. I hope Brandon Lewis will listen to the voices of the victims. That is something I will certainly be saying to him.

Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s first minister.
Arlene Foster, Northern Ireland’s first minister. Photograph: Lorraine O’Sullivan/Reuters

Walking into Downing Street, Mark Spencer, the chief whip, was asked by reporters if Sajid Javid had been forced out of the cabinet. As the Press Association reports, Spencer replied “No”, before adding: “It’s new a government.”

Mark Spencer, the chief whip, outside No 10 this morning.
Mark Spencer, the chief whip, outside No 10 this morning. Photograph: Peter Nicholls/Reuters

Boris Johnson to chair first meeting of new cabinet after reshuffle

Good morning. Boris Johnson will chair a meeting of his new cabinet this morning and, while it is expected to discuss the government’s plans for a new post-Brexit immigration system, many of the attendees - like the rest of Westminster - will probably spend just as much time mulling over the implications of the events that led up to yesterday’s shock resignation of Sajid Javid as chancellor. The papers this morning are full of analysis - here is a take from my colleague Heather Stewart; I will post links to some others later - but, roughly speaking, the move raises four big questions about the future of British politics.

1) Does this mean Boris Johnson will now abandon the fiscal rules announced during the election, allowing him to borrow even more than planned for spending on infrastructure and public services? Dominic Cummings, his chief adviser, is thought to be angling for this, and yesterday No 10 was vague about whether the government was still committed to those fiscal rules (which were already seen as a loosening from the Philip Hammond era). The rules were drafted when the Tories were expecting to win a small majority, and the scale of Johnson’s victory in December means the pressure to deliver for new Tory voters in the north is much stronger than it was.

2) Does this mean Johnson is emasculating the Treasury? That certainly seems to be the intention, and yesterday one commentator said the plan to effectively merge No 10 and the Treasury into a more cohesive unit amounted to the “most significant development since the creation of the devolved parliaments in 1999”. But most prime ministers try at one point to curtail the powers of No 11, and most of them fail. The Treasury may prove to be more institutionally resilient than Cummings imagines, and even if the new chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is more firmly under No 10’s line management, he stills heads a department stuffed with hundreds of clever officials who are professionally trained to tell politicians truths they don’t want to hear.

3) Does this mean Johnson is getting more like Donald Trump? In some respects, because the reshuffle had all the hallmarks of a powergrab, and the appointment of Suella Braverman as attorney general has gone down badly with defenders of the judiciary. But even though Johnson’s preferred model for leadership is probably Emperor Augustus, cabinet government still very much applies.

4) Ultimately will this reshuffle leave Johnson politically stronger or politically weaker? At this point it is impossible to tell. Some Tory MPs must be unhappy about the way Javid has been treated, but if they are, they have not yet been saying so in public. Johnson is so powerful at the moment that he can more or less do whatever he wants, but that won’t last forever and in the end the reshuffle will be judged by whether or not it delivers for the Conservative party.

Here is our overnight story about the reshuffle.

And here is a graphic from last night about the reshuffle. It features the 10 ministers who were allowed to attend cabinet before the reshuffle. No 10 has now drastically slimmed down those numbers and, in addition to the full cabinet, there will be only four extra attendees: Stephen Barclay, chief secretary to the Treasury; Jacob Rees-Mogg, leader of the Commons; Mark Spencer, the chief whip; and Suella Braverman, the attorney general.

Cabinet changes
Cabinet changes

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Boris Johnson chairs a meeting of the new cabinet.

10am: Rebecca Long-Bailey, the Labour leadership candidate, give a speech in Salford.

1pm: Downing Street lobby briefing.

Also, today is the final day for candidates for the Labour leadership and deputy leadership to get the CLP or affiliate nominations that they need to make it onto the final ballot. Emily Thornberry is the only candidate who still has not hit this threshold, but three more CLP nominations today would get her over the line.

As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary when I wrap up.

You can read all the latest Guardian politics articles here. Here is the Politico Europe roundup of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’s top 10 must-reads.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

Updated

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