Afternoon summary
- Donald Tusk, the European Council president, has said he has cancelled meetings so that he can focus on the EU renegotiation because talks are in a “fragile” state.
Talks on #UKinEU settlement a fragile political process. I cancelled all my obligations to meet EU leaders & EP to secure broad support
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) February 10, 2016
I am in a process of intensive talks on my proposal for UK settlement. Press statement after #CoRplenary: https://t.co/j1bFiowmtl. #UKinEU
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) February 10, 2016
- An ICM poll has shown growing support for the Out camp since the draft EU renegotiation was published. This is from Martin Boon’s write-up.
David Cameron returned from Europe with a package of proposals in hand, confident that he had secured enough to convince voters that remaining in the EU is the right course of action.
It was hard to find many newspaper headline writers who agreed. “It stinks” said The Sun. The Daily Mail suggested that his “capacity for self-delusion is breath taking” and even the Mirror gave a qualified critique. Only the FT had something nice to say, talking of “tangible progress” that the PM had made.
Tangible progress is not, however, what he got from the electorate. Yougov immediately polled the highest support for Leave in two years, with 45% opting to leave and only 36% stay in (equating to a 56% vs 44% victory for Leave).
Our latest poll confirms a shift toward Leave, with 42% opting for it, and 41% for Remaining In. Excluding Don’t Knows, the narrowness of the Leave lead on this poll is insufficient to translate into a ‘real’ lead, with the two sides neck and neck (50% vs 50%). Last week we had 52% for Remain In, and 48% for Leave.
- Marina Wheeler, Boris Johnson’s wife, has published an article criticising David Cameron’s EU renegotiation deal. (See 3.11pm.) Johnson himself has still not said whether he will vote for or against Britain leaving the EU, although it is generally expected that he will back Cameron and reject Brexit.
- Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has accused David Cameron of presiding over a housing crisis. Speaking at PMQs he said:
Shelter estimates that the measures in the Housing Bill will lose 180,000 affordable homes over the next four years. You are actually overseeing a very damaging housing crisis, it’s pricing out people from buying, it’s not providing enough social housing, therefore many people are forced to rely on the private rented sector.
Cameron rejected Corbyn’s claim, and he used the PMQs exchanges to describe some of the government’s housing initiatives. He told Corbyn:
To listen to Labour when in the last five years we built more council houses than you built in 13 years. Where were you when that was going on? Thirteen years and an absolutely hopeless record on housing. What we’re doing is an £8bn housing budget that will provide 400,000 new affordable homes, a target to build a million homes during this Parliament, getting housing benefit down so we can spend money on housing, and having a strong economy that can support the housing we need.
- Cameron has said the new funding arrangements for Scotland must be agreed in a “fair and reasonable way”. The SNP should abandon its “grievance agenda”, he said. Speaking at PMQs after Angus Robertson, the SNP’s leader at Westminster, claimed the Treasury’s plans could cost Scotland £3bn, Cameron said he wanted the “fiscal framework” talks, which will determine how grants for Scotland are calculated once Scotland gets new tax-raising powers, to come to a fair conclusion. He also said:
No-one is keener on agreement than me. I want the Scottish National Party here and in Holyrood to have to start making decisions, which taxes are you going to raise, what are you doing to do with benefits. I want to get rid of frankly this grievance agenda and let you get on with a governing agenda and then we can see what you’re made of.
- Cameron has defended the government’s stance on tariffs on Chinese steel. At PMQs he was challenged by the Labour MP Nic Dakin as to why Sajid Javid confirmed that the government blocked EU moves to impose higher tariffs on Chinese steel. Cameron replied:
We have repeatedly stood up for UK steel, including by supporting anti-dumping measures in the EU, but that is not enough. We need to get behind public procurement for steel, and that is what we are doing. We need to get behind reducing energy bills for steel, and that is what we are doing.
- Cameron has mocked Labour’s stance on Trident. Referring to the shadow defence secretary Emily Thornberry, he told MPs:
It takes quite a talent in a shadow defence secretary to insult Spitfire pilots and our brave submariners all in one go. Another week, another completely ludicrous Labour position on defence. I think the last word should go to the honourable member for Bridgend [Labour MP Madeleine Moon], and thank you Twitter for this one, who as she came out of the PLP meeting tweeted this: ‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh my god, oh dear, oh dear, need to go to rest in a darkened room’. I expect she’ll find the rest of her party will be there with her.
- A Conservative MP, William Wragg, has revealed that he has had to move back in with his mother and father because he cannot afford to buy a house. As the Press Association reports, Wragg said he had become part of the so-called “boomerang generation” while he saves for a deposit. The 28-year-old former primary school teacher has a salary of £74,000, nearly three times the national average. He is entitled to Commons expenses to cover the cost of a London flat, but must fund his own main home. Wragg told ITV’s The Granada Debate that he was “paid extremely well” but had to move home with his parents in the North West or face being trapped in a rented flat.
I am part of that ‘boomerang generation’ myself. In a few years hopefully I will have saved up enough for a deposit. I know exactly what it is like. I have complete empathy with people in that position. There is no getting away from the fact we face a severe challenge on housing in this country.
- Senior figures in Scotland’s official pro-EU campaign have promised to run a positive, apolitical campaign in an effort to avoid the divisive and negative atmosphere that marred Scotland’s independence referendum two years ago. As Severin Carrell reports, Scotland Stronger in Europe unveiled a non-party-political, broad-based advisory group in Edinburgh on Wednesday, chaired by the Muslim academic Professor Mona Siddiqui, in a clear effort to distance itself from the more polarised debate taking place in England.In a direct reference to the “Project Fear” label attached to the anti-Scottish-independence group Better Together, Scotland Stronger in Europe’s chief spokesman, John Edward, said the pro-Europe campaign would describe itself as “Project Cheer”.
- Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, has said there is a patriotic case for supporting EU membership. Speaking at the launch of the Lib Dem campaign to keep Britain in the EU, he said:
People who want to leave do not own our flag. Patriots love our country. Nationalists hate their neighbours. It is the British spirit that helped bring everyone together. We must not let people pretend that it is the British spirit that tears people apart.
- Graham Brady, the chair of the Conservative backbench 1922 committee, has said he expects around 100 Tory MPs to vote for leaving the EU. In an interview with the New Statesman he said:
I’ve always thought that a clear majority of Conservative members of parliament are deeply unhappy about the shape of the current European Union. And probably a clear majority would have a preference of leaving the EU as it is today. I suspect that roughly 100 will declare that they’re campaigning for Britain to leave. But many more will be very sympathetic to that objective.
Brady also said that, if Britain voted to leave the EU, Cameron should remain as prime minister.
When we vote to leave the European Union I think it is very important that we have a period of stability. I think it would be hugely valuable to have an experienced team in place to deal with the renegotiation, I think it’s actually very important that the prime minister should stay.
- Outgoing Waitrose boss Mark Price is to join the government as trade and investment Minister, it has been announced. As the Press Association says, the supermarket chief executive will replace Lord Maude, the veteran Conservative who is ending a three-decade-plus frontbench career in mid-March. Price has been made a life peer and will take up the role in April.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
The Labour MP Mary Creagh, who held various posts in Ed Miliband’s shadow cabinet and who tried unsuccessfully to get enough nominations to run for the party leadership last year, has been elected chair of the Commons environmental audit committee.
All MPs were able to vote in the contest and Creagh got 258 votes, beating Labour’s Geraint Davies, who received 159 votes.
Creagh will replace Labour former minister Huw Irranca-Davies, who is leaving parliament to run in May’s Welsh assembly elections.
Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, is giving evidence to the Commons European scrutiny committee. I won’t be covering the hearing in full, but I will post any hightlights.
Sir Bill Cash, the committee chairman, starts by asking how the EU agreement proposed by Donald Tusk, the European Union president, will be legally binding.
Hammond says it will be binding. Nothing in it depends on treaty change.
Boris Johnson's wife criticises Cameron's EU renegotiation
If Boris Johnson is looking a reason as to why he should not back David Cameron’s EU renegotiation, he need only ask his wife. Marina Wheeler has just written a lengthy blog, also published on the Spectator website in a shortened form under the headline: “Why David Cameron’s EU deal is not enough.”
Wheeler is a human rights lawyer who has just taken silk (become a QC), and so one would have to be particularly foolish to assume that she lets her husband tell her what to think. Still, the intervention is bound to make people wonder whether there is some Johnson household operation going on. Wheeler is not known for publishing articles criticising government policy.
Her argument focuses on the European Charter of Fundamental Rights. In a nutshell, she says that it is now being used by the European Court of Justice to enforce rights in England contrary to the wishes of parliament. She does not back leaving the EU, but she does say Cameron should have used the renegotiation to address the problem.
Here’s an excerpt.
In English courts, however, another picture has been emerging. Take the case of ‘NS’, an Afghan asylum seeker who arrived in the UK seven years ago. Given that he had come via Greece, where he had been arrested, the UK sought to return him there under the Dublin Convention. But he argued that the treatment of asylum seekers in Greece amounted to ‘degrading’ treatment, contrary to Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights. He also sought to invoke the Charter of Fundamental Rights — which, according to Messrs Blair, Miliband and Clarke, should have been legally impossible.
This was referred to the Court of Justice in Luxembourg which ruled (in effect, and after some domestic backsliding) that the British opt-out had no legal force and the Charter of Fundamental Rights applied in the UK in precisely the same way as in any other member state. Since then, the English courts have increasingly been urged to recognise and give effect to new Charter-based rights in areas of law as diverse as employment disputes, immigration and asylum claims.
So where are we now? Mr Justice Mostyn has put it well. In 1998, the Human Rights Act incorporated large parts of the European Convention on Human Rights — but not all of it. Some parts were deliberately missed out by Parliament. Yet the Charter, he said, ‘contains all of those missing parts — and a great deal more’. In spite of Blair’s endeavours, he said, ‘it would seem that the much wider Charter of Rights is now part of our domestic law’. Moreover, he said, it ‘would remain part of our domestic law even if the Human Rights Act were repealed’.
Which raises an interesting question. The Tusk proposals suggest that the government does not intend to use this ‘renegotiation’ to reassert any form of Charter opt-out or control over its scope. So why repeal the Human Rights Act while the Charter, with its far wider panoply of rights, remains ...
Now, when Britain is debating its relationship to the EU, we should state our position afresh. Here is an opportunity to restore a measure of constitutional coherence. Let us not pass it by.
PMQs - Verdict from the Twitter commentariat
Here are some tweets showing what political journalists made of PMQs. Almost everyone seems to agree that it was David Cameron’s day.
From the Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire
Easy win for Cameron at #PMQs. Corbyn should've skewered him on the housing crisis, dissecting dishonest answers. He didn't
— Kevin Maguire (@Kevin_Maguire) February 10, 2016
From Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh
Corbyn really needs help with asking sharper, shorter #PMQs. Cam vulnerable on housing but breezed through it
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) February 10, 2016
From the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush
#PMQs: Cameron finds his way past Corbyn's 4-5-1: https://t.co/TpNkLD2dpP pic.twitter.com/3VkOyDlKz4
— The Staggers (@TheStaggers) February 10, 2016
From the Telegraph’s Asa Bennett
#PMQs snap verdict - PM saw off Corbyn's questions with ease, taking it as a chance to boast of his housing agenda. JC's qs still too slow.
— Asa Bennett (@asabenn) February 10, 2016
From the Daily Mirror’s Jason Beattie
My snap verdict on #pmqs Corbyn showed venom but did he sting?https://t.co/NfAO25K3BV pic.twitter.com/SebuEW50Jb
— Jason Beattie (@JBeattieMirror) February 10, 2016
From the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman
Having said Corbyn getting better & more confident at #PMQs in this blog pre-match https://t.co/RGUY3MPgJE, not sure this was great session
— Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) February 10, 2016
From the Birmingham Post’s Jonathan Walker
Corbyn: How will you help this young woman who wrote to me? Cameron: We'll help by doing this, and this, and this, and this, and this #PMQs
— Jonathan Walker (@jonwalker121) February 10, 2016
From the Northern Echo’s Rob Merrick
Lobby colleagues in agreement....genuine disbelief that Corbyn could be that bad and fail to exploit such obvious open goals #pmqs
— Rob Merrick (@Rob_Merrick) February 10, 2016
The Labour MP Madeleine Moon has tweeted about being quoted by David Cameron at PMQs. (See 12.26pm.)
Heard I was mentioned in PMQs. Nothing to do with me- I'm still in my darkened room...
— Madeleine Moon (@MadeleineMoon) February 10, 2016
Senior Labour sources said Corbyn wore the unions badge “because he loves the unions” but also in support of ♡unions week and in protest against the trade union bill.
PMQs - Verdict
PMQs - Verdict: Labour MPs will probably feel quite despondent about that. Housing should be a strong subject for the party, and earlier I said that Jeremy Corbyn did not quite nail it. On reflection, it was worse than that. David Cameron saw him off quite easily.
Corbyn can do well at PMQs when he articulates a grievance with passion and sincerity, and when David Cameron has not much to say in response. But Corbyn has never shown much skill at asking follow-ups, and once Cameron starts to engage with his questions, and with the issues Corbyn is raising, he finds it relatively easy to get the upper hand. Today Corbyn started with a relatively open question that allowed Cameron to give a 60-second round-up of all his housing initiatives. It’s true that home ownership is falling (as Corbyn said) and it’s true for many people the prospect of being able to buy a home now seems an impossibility. But Cameron knows this as well as anyone, and he does have policies which he says are addressing this. In key respects they are flawed, and there are particular worries about the future of social housing, but Corbyn failed to make that case and the abiding memory of the exchange is Cameron going on about what he could do to help Rosie.
As usual, some of Cameron’s claims were partial. He is right to say that some families were claiming housing benefit worth £100,000 under Labour, but, according to one account, there were only five. And Cameron was right about Labour not building council homes, but that is because social housing spending was going on housing association homes.
But at least Cameron had policies to promote. Another problem for Corbyn was that he was attacking the government over housing without voters having a particularly clear idea of what he might do differently. Opposition leaders often do well at the despatch box when they can say to the PM ‘Why won’t you back our [popular/sensible policy X]?’ and the PM is unable to reply. There is a Corbyn housing agenda - he set it out during the leadership campaign here (pdf) - but he has done little to publicise it since September. He might find it helpful thinking about how to use PMQs to generate news about Labour policy.
(Good news about Labour policy. All the headlines that do come out of PMQs about Labour policy are bad ones, generated by Cameron and his backbenchers often very effectively.)
Updated
Labour’s Diana Johnson asks Cameron to support Hull being city of culture in 2017.
Cameron says he does support that. He says the poet Stevie Smith came from Hull, and that sometimes it is important to consider what it it is like to be Not Waving but Drowning.
And that’s it.
I’ll post a full verdict shortly.
Andrew Mitchell, the Conservative former international development secretary, asks about Syria. Can Cameron say what more the government can do to promote the political peace talks?
Cameron says countries like Russia need to recognise the need for a moderate Syrian opposition to be at the table. Otherwise it will just be Assad and Daesh - the worst possible outcome.
Julian Lewis, the Conservative chair of the Commons defence committee, urges Cameron to have the vote on Trident soon.
Cameron says it will be held when it needs to be held. But the government is committed to Trident. He quotes Lord Hutton, the former Labour defence secretary, criticising the “abject futility” of his party’s Trident position.
Labour’s Clive Efford says the Football Supporters Federation is thinking of calling for mass walkouts over ticket prices. Will supporters get a guaranteed seat on club boards.
Cameron says he will look at this. Some clubs are putting up prices very steeply.
John Nicolson, the SNP MP, says he attended a tribunal hearing from a constituent with Dwarfism who received no money, despite only being able to climb stairs on all fours. Does Cameron think these tribunals are fair?
Cameron says he has dealt with cases like this, and as the parent of a disabled child, he had to fill in disability living allowance forms. He says it is important that the tribunal system is independent.
Cameron says Terry Wogan was one of the great icons of this country. You did not have to be a TOG to admire him.
The SNP’s Joanna Cherry asks for an assurance that the government will not consult on the proposed British bill of rights during the purdah period for the Scottish elections.
Cameron says the government will consider the timing of this carefully.
Cameron says becoming an apprentice should not rule out doing a degree, or getting a degree-level qualification. Opportunities for learning and earning are better than ever, he says.
Victoria Atkins, a Conservative, asks Cameron if he agrees that the United Nations panel decision on Julian Assange was ridiculous.
Cameron agrees. This was absurd. It was Assange who arbitrarily detained himself by seeking refugee in the Ecuadorial embassy,
Referring to Emily Thornberry, Cameron says it it quite something for a shadow defence secretary to insult Spitefire pilots and Trident submariners at the same time. He quotes Madeleine Moon’s tweet after hearing Thornberry at Monday’s PLP.
Oh dear oh dear omg oh dear oh dear need to go rest in a darkened room
— Madeleine Moon (@MadeleineMoon) February 8, 2016
Snap PMQs verdict
Snap PMQs verdict: The housing crisis, especially in London, probably goes quite some way to explaining why Jeremy Corbyn’s politics are so popular with some young people, but he never quite nailed it in this exchange. His last two questions were the best, when he deployed forcefully the Shelter decent home standards figures and allowed himself to sound passionate and angry, and at this point Cameron was on the defensive. But, generally, Cameron made a pretty good fist of defending his record. Instead of constantly trying to change the subject to the economy, he engaged properly with Corbyn’s questions. Corbyn’s first, open question allowed Cameron to give a mini-broadcast on his housing policies, and quite cleverly he kept going back to “Rosie” to explain the impact of government initiatives in personalised terms.
Updated
Corbyn says Shelter thinks 180,000 affordable homes will be lost in coming years. People are forced to rely on the private sector. The Tories recently voted against a motion saying homes had to be fit for human habitation. There are 11m people who are private renters. How many of those homes do not meet the housing standards.
Cameron says his government has built more council homes than Labour. Labour had a hopeless record on housing.
Corbyn goes back to the question about how many people are in homes that do not meet the decent home standard. One third of those homes is the answer, he says. Millions are struggling to get the homes they deserve. Too few homes are being built, he says. Young people cannot move out. There is a housing crisis. But we need to address it now, he says.
Cameron says homelessness is less than half the peak it was under the Labour government. You need a strong economy, he says. The economy is growing and wages are growing. He wants people to be able to buy their own home.
Updated
Corbyn says just one home has been built for every eight sold under his government. People are finding it hard to find somewhere to built. The cuts in housing benefit are putting people in supported housing at risk. What is the estimate of this on supported housing?
Cameron says an £8bn housing budget will build more affordable homes. Housing benefit has been cut; it was under control. Some families were getting housing benefit worth £100,000 in London. He says the government supports supported housing schemes. But social rents are being cut. That could help Rosies.
Corbyn says housing providers think nearly half of supported housing providers could close. This is very serious. Presumably Cameron does not want the elderly and people with mental health problems to be made homeless. So will he stop those cuts?
Cameron says Corbyn is quoting from an opinion poll with a very small sample. The government supports supported housing. Every penny spent on housing subsidy cannot be spent on new houses. Rosie wants a country where you can afford to buy a home. That will not be possible if the government keeps spending more and more on housing benefit.
Corbyn says Rosie lives in London. It is very expensive. Home ownership has fallen by 200,000 under Corbyn. Cameron’s record is one of failure under housing. He said council homes sold would be replaced like for like. Is that happening?
Cameron says one council home was built for every 170 council homes sold under Labour. He says his government will ensure two homes are built in London for every one sold.
Jeremy Corbyn also pays tribute to Harpham, a former miner. He says Harpham represented the steel industry. He spoke to his widow yesterday. How would they like him to be remembered? He reads a message from Harpham’s widow who says his bravery was formed during the miners’s strike.
He has a question on housing, from Rosie in her 20s. MPs laugh, referring to Rosie Winterton, the Labour chief whip. This Rosie does not have as good housing as Winterton, he says. She says she works hard but has to live at home. She is thinking of moving, or leaving the countries. What is Cameron doing to help people suffering from unrealistic house prices and uncapped rents.
Cameron jokes, when you get a letter from the chief whip, that spells troubles. He mentions help to buy ISAs, tax cuts, the extension of the right to buy, and help to buy. If Rosie is not earning that much, shared ownership might make a real difference. He recognises building more homes is important. We have to deliver for Rosie, he says.
Mims Davies, a Conservatives, backs what Cameron said about Harpham. She says housing is the number one issue in her constituency. Does Cameron agree that help to buy ISAs are the right way to encourage saving and promote home ownership?
Cameron does agree, of course. He says 250,000 first-time buyers have opened one. People are also buying council homes, he says, quoting figures.
David Cameron starts by pay tribute to Harry Harpham, the MP who died last week from cancer. While he was only in the Commons for a short time, he quickly became popular, Cameron says. And he carried on working while ill.
How Jeremy Corbyn is preparing for #PMQs: https://t.co/RGUY3MPgJE
— Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) February 10, 2016
SNP takeover at #pmqs ! Mike Weir, Joanna Cherry & John Nicolson on order paper, plus usual 2 from @AngusRobertson
— James Millar (@PoliticalYeti) February 10, 2016
This is intriguing.
Really looking forward to @NicDakinMP's question to Cameron at #PMQs today
— Tom Blenkinsop (@TomBlenkinsop) February 10, 2016
Cameron at PMQs
PMQs starts soon.
Here is the order paper with the names of MPs guaranteed to get a question.
MPs on the order paper for PMQs pic.twitter.com/rvj1hvJa1O
— PARLY (@ParlyApp) February 10, 2016
Ukip have taken Jose Manuel Barroso’s comments about the “emergency brake” (see 9.12am) and put them in a campaign video.
Theresa May, the home secretary, has used a written ministerial statement to announce the establishment of a joint fraud taskforce. She said:
The taskforce will make it much more difficult for fraudsters to operate by improving intelligence sharing and close the loopholes which they exploit. It will help protect individuals and businesses from becoming victims of fraud by increasing public awareness and put in place interventions to support those who have been a victim. It will develop a much richer understanding of how fraud happens, and what can be done to stop it.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
As for the rest of the papers, here’s the PoliticsHome list of top 10 must-reads, and here’s the ConservativeHome round-up of today’s politics stories.
Britain’s second biggest union has said that it could urge its members to vote to leave the EU.
Unison won’t back the Labour party’s drive to keep Britain in the bloc and may not decide what to recommend to its 1.3 million public sector workers until days before a June referendum.
In a further blow to Alan Johnson, who is leading Labour In for Britain, Jeremy Corbyn’s spokesman said that the party would not spend “anything like” the permitted £4 million total on a campaign to stay.
Mr Corbyn, who has previously advocated leaving the EU, reluctantly agreed not to scrap Labour’s pro-EU campaign body run by Mr Johnson. However, the former home secretary has been left to raise funds directly from donors and unions after receiving only a small start-up donation from Labour HQ.
Mr Osborne argues that global turbulence makes it even more important to run a budget surplus as a precaution against “tough times”. However, with the cost of public sector borrowing at record lows in much of the developed world, there is no evidence that the markets would penalise the chancellor if he took longer to hit his fiscal targets.
Nor would the political cost be high, at least in the short term. An opposition that has castigated the chancellor for excessive austerity cannot complain if he eases up; and cabinet colleagues are hardly likely to criticise ...
This is no time to launch a fresh burst of fiscal austerity. Nor should Mr Osborne be tempted to resort to gimmicks that flatter the deficit, in pursuit of an arbitrary target. The main downside of tying fiscal policy to such a precise timetable is that it creates incentives to postpone worthwhile investments, and to introduce tax policies that raise money now while deferring costs to a later date. Mr Osborne must not let this skew his planned reforms of pensions taxation.
Instead, he should keep fiscal policy on a steady course and be ready to explain any delay in hitting his self-imposed target to parliament.
They will not find the answer in what Margaret Thatcher thought, because I can join those who testify that her views varied according to whether she was in or out of office. They will have an interesting time if they consult thousands of constituents, but they will generally find the same division of instincts they feel themselves.
They are left with two ways of making their decision. For those who owe their advancement to high office to the choices of a remarkably successful Prime Minister, or their seat in Parliament to his skill in winning elections, they might consider that they have done pretty well out of his judgments and give him the benefit of the doubt.
But for others, they should cast aside any residual starry-eyed enthusiasm for European unity, which is faltering, or for national independence, which can be an illusion, and decide for themselves on the basis of cold facts, practical thinking and the serious risks involved.
The proportion of parents who would be “very upset” if their offspring married someone of a different political persuasion has more than doubled in eight years, a YouGov survey shows.
Among Labour parents it is up from 4 per cent to 10 per cent while Tory supporters expressing horror at the prospect of a Labour son or daughter-in-law has risen from 2 to 6 per cent.
Twenty-eight per cent of Labour supporters say they would be unhappy if their son or daughter married a Tory. In 2008, 19 per cent of Labour voters were against a Tory in the family, suggesting that two election defeats and six years under a Conservative prime minister is taking its toll on tolerance.
Leftwingers launch new campaign for Britain to remain in the EU
You may already be confused by the number of EU campaign groups in the market, but today a new one is launched - led by leftwingers who want to make a progressive case for staying in the EU.
It is called Another Europe Is Possible and it is holding a launch rally in East London tonight. Here’s its website, and here is a video explaining its aims.
Caroline Lucas, the Green MP who is speaking at tonight’s event, said that it should not be left to big business to make the case for the EU.
We need new voices in the debate and a more inspiring case for a ‘remain’ vote – one that’s about people, not just profits.
The many social and environmental benefits of Britain’s EU membership must get a fair public hearing, alongside financial and economic arguments.
Whether it’s free movement – which gives all of us the chance to live and work in any one of 28 countries – or the cross-border rules protecting our rights at work, there is much about the EU to celebrate.
Like Westminster, EU institutions are not perfect. The EU must become more democratic, and more accountable to the citizens of Europe. But to secure these changes, we need to stay in the EU and fight for meaningful reform. Another Europe is Possible – but only if we make it so. That’s why I’m excited to be part of this campaign.
The Labour MP Cat Smith, the shadow minister for women and a prominent Corbynite, is also supporting the group. She said:
I don’t think the EU is everything it could be. It could be so much better. I am worried about TTIP and competition laws that threaten our NHS and how we can’t introduce subsidies to save our struggling steel industry.
But I believe as workers and as consumers, and for the environment, we should be part of the EU. At the moment it operates too much in the interests of big business, not ordinary working people. I would like to see an EU where workers come first, not big money.
And Richard Murphy, the tax campaigner whose call for “people’s QE” has influence Jeremy Corbyn’s economic thinking, is also supporting the group. He said:
The EU’s the worst economic grouping we could be involved in except for all the rest, which are much worse still.
The EU parliament has been way ahead of the game in demanding reform to hold big business to account for its tax abuse. Why give that up?
No organisation in the world has done more to crack open tax haven secrecy than the EU. That’s a lot to lose.
The speakers at tonight’s rally also include the SNP’s Stephen Gethins, Plaid Cymru’s Hywel Williams and representatives from Syriza UK, Friends of the Earth and the NUS.
Francis Maude, or Lord Maude as he became after the election, is to stand down as a trade minister shortly, Sajid Javid, the business secretary, has told the Commons business committee this morning. Javid said:
He has not resigned yet. What he has said is that he plans to leave in the coming weeks. It is not a surprise to me or the prime minister and others. We knew at some point he would want to leave.
Maude, 62, first became a minister in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher and he served as a minister under both John Major and David Cameron, including posts in the Foreign Office, the Treasury and the Cabinet Office.
Here is Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, on Jose Manuel Barroso’s Newsnight interview.
Former EU Commission President admits PM's EU deal won't bring down migrant numbers. Dave's disastrous deal unravels https://t.co/7cIK9NLsbr
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) February 10, 2016
According to the BBC’s Norman Smith, government sources are setting a mid-February deadline for resolving the junior doctors’ strike.
Govt sources say #juniordoctorsstrike must be resolved by mid February or new contracts imposed
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) February 10, 2016
My colleague Matthew Weaver is covering the junior doctors’ strike here, on a separate live blog.
There’s a nice self-deprecatory tweet from Andy Burnham this morning.
I think I can safely say that I know how @HillaryClinton is feeling this morning.
— Andy Burnham (@andyburnhammp) February 10, 2016
Although it is not entirely self-deprecatory; I haven’t noticed Hillary Clinton this morning posting a tweet saying she knows what it feels like to be Andy Burnham.
David Cameron claims that the “emergency brake” Britain has obtained as part of his EU renegotiation, the mechanism that will allow the UK to stop EU migrants getting full in-work benefits for up to four years, will help to reduce migration. But increasingly this seems to be a minority view and last night Jose Manuel Barroso, the former European Commission president joined Labour’s Alan Johnson and many others in saying Cameron was wrong.
Barroso was on Newsnight and he was asked if the “emergency brake” would discourage migrants from coming to the UK. He replied: “No. Frankly not.”
It was labour market conditions in the UK that would determine future levels of immigration, he said.
But, overall, he defended the renegotiation, saying that he wanted Britain to remain in the EU and that the plans were a “creative and intelligent” compromise that “could work”.
The renegotiation is expected to be finalised an an EU summit starting a week tomorrow. As you can see from the diary, politicians are increasingly focused on the looming EU referendum.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Sajid Javid, the business secretary, gives evidence to the Commons business committee.
10.30am: Nicky Morgan, the equalities minister, gives evidence to the Commons women and equalities committee on the gender pay gap.
10.45am: Yvette Cooper, chair of Labour’s refugee taskforce, gives a speech on the refugee crisis.
12pm: David Cameron faces Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs.
2.15pm: Stephen Crabb, the Welsh secretary, and Tata Steel give evidence to the Welsh affairs committee.
2.30pm: The Conservatives David Campbell Bannerman MEP and Steve Baker MP open an afternoon conference, The Good Life after Brexit, to be addressed by anti-EU speakers from all main parties including Nigel Farage, Liam Fox, David Davis, John Redwood, Ian Paisley, Graham Stringer, and Dan Hannan
3.15pm: Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, launches the Lib Dem Remain campaign.
3.30pm: Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, gives evidence to the Commons European scrutiny committee on the EU renegotiation.
After PMQS I will probably be focusing on the Good Life after Brexit conference, but before then I will be covering all the breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on@AndrewSparrow.
I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it 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 direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
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