Afternoon summary
- The murder of former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was a “blatant and unacceptable” breach of international law, even though the probable involvement of the Putin government came as no surprise, Theresa May has said. Cameron has said that Britain does not rule out imposing further sanctions on Russia in retaliation.
PM doesn't rule out further sanctions. Comes after inquiry report on killing of Alexander Litvinenko
— Nick Eardley (@nickeardleybbc) January 21, 2016
David Cameron says UK's relationship with Russia will be with "clear eyes and a very cold heart"
— Nick Eardley (@nickeardleybbc) January 21, 2016
- Neale Coleman, a senior member of Jeremy Corbyn’s team, decided to stand down after a controversial proposal to ban some companies from paying out dividends was drawn up without his full knowledge, according to senior Labour party sources. An unnamed shadow cabinet source told the Press Association that MPs in the party were very concerned about Coleman’s departure. The source said:
The feeling is total dread. It’s a cold shiver down the spine of every moderate because Neale was key in making it work, if it was ever going to. If he’s gone, and then [chief of staff Simon] Fletcher goes, the lunatics will have the keys to the asylum and I genuinely fear for our party’s future.
- The government has set out which public services face new thresholds on strike action, to be introduced in the trade union bill going through parliament. As Frances Perraudin reports, following a consultation by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, ministers announced that strike action in the fire, health, education, transport, border security and nuclear decommissioning sectors would require the support of at least 40% of all those entitled to vote in the relevant ballot.The rules would apply to ongoing industrial disputes with junior doctors and London Underground workers, although the ballots for strike action in both cases would have easily passed the threshold.
- The TUC has said that unions will have to pay £11m upfront, and then £26m over the next five years, to comply with the laws in the trade union bill. The figures are set out in the bill’s impact assessment published today.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
It looks as if the Tories have finally got round to reading the John McDonnell speech (see 3.43pm) too. Greg Hands, the chief secretary to the Treasury, put out a statement about it saying:
Now we know the truth: Labour is planning another debt-fuelled spending spree and a huge tax bombshell on the businesses that have helped to drive Britain’s recovery from the economic mess they left behind.
Labour’s policy for at least £33.5bn of extra spending each year is also profoundly irresponsible and confirms that they are a threat to our economic security. It is clear that they have learned absolutely nothing.
The Tories have got the £33.5bn figure by taking McDonnell’s statement in the speech saying Labour would “end the current programme of spending cuts” and interpreting that as a £33.5bn spending commitment.
And here’s Matthew Elliot, chief executive of Vote Leave, on David Cameron’s speech.
The establishment is clearly lining up behind those who want to stay in the EU at all costs. Big banks and big corporates do well out of the status quo in the EU but it is the UK’s smaller businesses who get hit the hardest. 95% of UK businesses don’t even trade with the EU but all of them still have to deal with the damaging stream of rules and regulations from Brussels.
And this is from Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, on David Cameron’s speech.
The prime minister is calling on businesses to step up and join the campaign to remain within the European Union. I call on him to step up and make the case himself and not hide behind businesses. He needs to lead, not follow.
Liz Bilney, chief executive of Leave.EU, has issued this response to David Cameron’s speech.
The fact that the prime minister is begging for international corporations to stick their noses into our democratic process only shows how little he and the elite care for ordinary British citizens. This referendum is about our needs, not theirs.
The prime minister’s only spoke of economic reasons for remaining, none of which which are dependent on our membership of the EU. His negotiation will do nothing to solve the migration crisis, the steel crisis, the flooding crisis or whatever the next inevitable EU crisis may be. Only through Britain regaining control of its laws, its borders and its taxes can we begin to avoid those EU crises and solve their problems we inherit.
John McDonnell's speech - Summary
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, delivered a speech to the Co-operative conference in Manchester this morning. The full text is here. My colleague Rowena Mason wrote up the main news story in the speech - proposals to extend employee share ownership - overnight, but there was some other material in the speech worth flagging up. Here are the other key points.
- McDonnell said Labour was actively drawing up plans to save billions by limiting tax reliefs. This was an idea that Jeremy Corbyn floated during his leadership campaign. McDonnell said work on these plans was underway.
We can’t pretend state spending is the answer to everything. There are clear limits on what can be achieved here. But we can make the system work far better, and distribute the burden more fairly.
My colleague Seema Malhotra is currently looking at the current system of so-called “tax expenditures” – the different get-outs and reliefs provided by the tax system.
A thicket of different schemes has grown up, costing the taxpayer £110bn a year. Some of this will be justified. But some of it will not be. We’ll look at whether we need to simplify the system so it is fairer to everyone and encourages the growth a fair and prosperous economy.
- McDonnell said that one of Labour’s problems at the election was that it did not talk enough about the future.
The charity Nesta published a fascinating piece of research recently, showing how “future-focused” the different party manifestos were in last year’s election.
The Tories talked relentlessly, overwhelmingly about the future. Labour, strikingly, did not.
We cannot allow that to happen again. We cannot be small ‘c’ conservatives.
- McDonnell said Labour governments in the past (and not just New Labour) did not do enough to question the structure of capitalism.
Capitalism, it was argued during the long boom after the Second World War, had been successfully tamed. It was no longer the brutal struggle depicted by its early critics.
Government intervention and the welfare state had smoothed its rough edges. Private property in production was no longer sacrosanct and giant corporations effectively planned and managed large chunks of the economy.
Government’s main task was to redistribute from a growing economy. Rising equality would follow.
Deeper questions of ownership, control, and democracy were left to one side.
Labour governments, Old and New, thought and worked like this.
So the post-war boom saw rapid economic growth and falling inequality under Old Labour governments.
New Labour, meanwhile, oversaw a decade of rapid growth, and restrained the growth of inequality.
Both approaches involved a compromise with the reality of capitalism in their day.
Their success, however, meant deeper questions about the economy were left unasked by the mainstream of Labour.
And that, in turn, left Labour governments unprepared for system-wide crises.
- He said Labour should learn from the party’s tradition of localism and decentralisation.
There is a long labour movement tradition of decentralisation and grass-roots organisation. But it has been somewhat hidden by the success of the alternative.
This radical tradition has deep roots in our collective history. From RH Tawney, GDH Cole and the guild socialists, back to the Rochdale Pioneers, the Society of Weavers in Fenwick, Ayrshire, and even further back to the radicals of the English Civil War.
With the stress on self-organisation and on-the-ground solutions to problems, this tradition stressed the need to organise not just to win the state.
Even in the successes of the state, however, we can see this tradition at work. Take the NHS, the crowning achievement of Labour’s greatest government.
But it was modelled on and inspired by the medical benefit fund in Tredegar – Aneurin Bevan’s home town. This was a fund set up by a local initiative to provide medical treatment to the local community. It was a hugely successful scheme.
Bevan said, when asked about his plans as Health Minister, that what he was doing was “extending to the entire population of Britain the benefits we had in Tredegar for a generation or more. We are going to ‘Tredegarise’ you.”
There is a thread within the labour and radical movement of self-organisation, running right back even before the Chartists to those early organisers for democracy against “Old Corruption”.
- He praised Labour councils for their innovative response to spending cuts.
Nicola Sturgeon has today written to David Cameron, asking him to agree to a multi-million pound city deal for Aberdeen “as a matter of urgency”.
The first minister also confirmed that the Scottish government would fund the deal on a 50:50 basis, as it did with a similar deal for Glasgow.
Sturgeon writes: “Given the current situation in Aberdeen, with significant private sector job losses announced in recent weeks by the oil and gas industry, it is vital that government sends a strong and unequivocal signal that it is fully supportive of the region’s position as a global oil and gas hub. The city deal provides a good opportunity to signal our respective governments’ support for the region.”
George Osborne announced that he would be formally considering city deal investments (originally Nick Clegg’s notion to give English cities further powers, if you remember him) for Aberdeen and Inverness in his 2015 budget.
But, as usual, choreography is all and with the Holyrood election campaign now underway, there’s stiff competition to be seen to be championing the beleaguered north-east.
Cameron's Davos speech - Summary and analysis
Here are the main points from David Cameron’s speech and Q&A at Davos.
- Cameron said that he was “not in a hurry” to get an EU deal by February. He said that he would like to wrap up his EU renegotiation by the time of the EU summit in February, but that he would wait if he could not secure the right terms at that point. “If there isn’t [a good deal], I’m patient,” he said.
I very much hope that we can, with the goodwill that is clearly there, reach an agreement at the February European Council. I would like that. I want to confront this issue, I want to deal with it, I want to put that question to the British people in a referendum and go out to keep Britain in a reformed European Union. If there’s a good deal on the table, I will take it and that’s what will happen.
But I do want to be very clear. If there isn’t the right deal, I’m not in a hurry. I can hold my referendum at any time up until the end of 2017. And it’s much more important to get this right than to rush it.
Does Cameron really mean this? In truth Cameron is in a hurry. He does want the renegotiation to be concluded soon because he wants to hold the referendum in June or September, and June would have the advantage of being before a possible summer migration crisis. But Cameron could perhaps stretch the process out a little bit beyond Friday 19 February (the final day of the EU summit scheduled for next month). There has been speculation that a second summit could be held later that month to finalise the deal. Cameron seems to be floating the idea of a delay in the hope of marginally increasing pressure on his EU counterparts to compromise. (They are fed up with this, and want it over soon too.)
This is from my colleague Rafael Behr.
This is PM's effort at poker face. No10 *really* want deal soon. https://t.co/621Oanu9bu
— Rafael Behr (@rafaelbehr) January 21, 2016
- Cameron said there would still be many “imperfect” things about the EU even if he got the reform package he wanted.
Even if I’m successful in getting this reform package and holding this referendum, and Britain decides to stay in a reformed Europe, at no stage will you hear me say ‘That is perfection, this organisation is now fixed’. There are many things that are imperfect about the European Union today and there will be many things that will be imperfect about the European Union even after this negotiation ... The reform will not be finished.
This seemed to be a pre-emptive strike against the Eurosceptics who will claim when his renegotiation is over that it has been worthless. It is also a statement of the obvious.
- He urged business to start campaigning now for Britain to stay in a reformed EU.
I hope that business, and NGOs and other organisations won’t hold back. I would say don’t hold back right now, even though the question isn’t settled. I think that if business backs my reforms, if you want to see the competitive Europe, if you want to see the flexible Europe, if you want to see a Europe where you can be in the eurozone and win or out of the eurozone and win, I would argue get out there and support those things. I think it is important that with this, which is such a massively important generational question for Britain and for Europe, the sooner you can start to look at your own businesses and come up with examples and ideas about the benefits, and the problems, that there are with Europe, the more that you are able to help to explain and set the context for this vitally important question.
This illustrates the extent to which Cameron is already focusing on the EU referendum campaign, as if the renegotiation is in practice concluded.
- He said Britain could have “the best of both worlds” in a reformed EU.
To British people I would say there is the prospect of the best of both worlds. And let me explain what I mean by that. Britain’s membership of the European Union is already different from that of many other countries ...And by the best of both worlds I mean that we will be in the single market, and benefiting from that, but not in the single currency. That we will be benefiting from being able to travel and move around Europe, but we will maintain our own borders.
This sounded like Cameron road-testing his main referendum campaign message.
Updated
Cameron says he 'not in a hurry' to get EU deal by February
Q: If there is no deal on welfare curbs, will there be no deal?
Cameron says he wants progress in all four areas he has identified. The welfare curbs are essential, he says.
He says his call for EU migrants to have to wait four years to get full access to the welfare system was in the Conservative manifesto. If there are alternatives, he will look at them, he says. But this issue needs to be addressed.
And that’s it. The speech and Q&A are over.
The most interesting point was probably Cameron declaring that he is “not in a hurry” and that, if he does not get offered a good renegotiation deal in February, he is prepared to wait.
If there’s a good deal on the table, I will take it.
But if there isn’t the right deal, I’m not in a hurry. I can hold my referendum any time up until the end of 2017.
Recently EU figures have been sounding increasingly certain about the prospect of a deal being done in February. Last week Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, said he was “quite sure” of a deal in February.
Today Cameron was modestly recalibrating expectations, perhaps in the hope of that this might put a little bit more pressure on his EU partners to grant concessions.
I will post a full summary shortly.
Updated
Q: What do you say to people who think holding a referendum is dangerous?
Cameron says he believes in democracy, and in putting this decision to the people.
Q: [From Roland Rudd, chair of Business for New Europe] People agree with your reform agenda. But don’t we need to stresss the common values European have too?
Cameron agrees.
Britain is a country with incredible connections and relations with other EU countries. We believe in democracy, tolerance and rights, and we are better able to promote those values together.
At EU council meetings he remembers that it is an organisation of countries that used to fight each other.
He says there are strong security arguments for the EU too. Look at Russia and Crimea, or Daesh; there is a strength and safety in numbers, working together against “these foes”.
It is not just a matter of solidarity. Now we have proper sharing of passenger information in Europe. We can find out where someone brought a ticket, and with what credit card. That information makes us safer.
Q: No one at Davos wants to see Brexit. But doesn’t this show out of touch people are here?
Cameron says he gives the same speech here as he would give in a Conservative club in rural Britain.
Cameron says that, as in business, if you have problems to resolve, you should have a strategy to resolve them.
Cameron's Q&A
Cameron is now taking questions.
Q: Would you compromise on your plans? The French prime minister criticised your welfare plans?
Cameron says he has made good progress. Are we there yet, as his children say on a journey. No. But everyone is working hard to get this done.
He is not happy with what is on offer now. The crucial thing is whether there is a good deal in February.
If there isn’t a good deal, “I’m patient.”
Cameron says he thinks Britain can have “the best of both worlds”, being in the single market, but not in the single currency; being able to travel in Europe, but not having open borders with EU countries.
That is a huge prize. That is a prize worth fighting for, a prize worth negotiating for.
And if necessary it is a prize worth waiting for, he says.
Cameron says, if offered 'a good deal' in February, he will take it
On timing Cameron says he very much hopes he can get an agreement at the European Council in February.
If there’s a good deal on the table, I will take it.
But if there isn’t the right deal, I’m not in a hurry. I can hold my referendum any time up until the end of 2017.
Cameron says he hopes politicians will pay a big role. And he hopes to play a big role himself.
But he wants businesses to get involved too. If they support his ideas for a reformed EU, they should go out and say so.
Cameron says, even if Britain does stay in a reformed EU, he will not argue that that amounts to “perfection” and that “it’s fixed”.
There will still be a case for reform, he says.
And he will never say Britain could not succeed outside the EU. Britain is the fifth biggest economy in the world.
The question is not whether Britain could succeed outside; it is how would Britain best succeed.
Being in a single market of 500m people will best for Britain, he says.
Cameron says his demands are “not outragreous asks”.
They would answer the concerns Britons have about Europe, he says.
Fourth, Cameron says he wants reforms to EU rules affecting migration and welfare.
The pressures affecting the UK from migration “have been too great”. Net migration is running at 330,000 per year.
That is the issue. “It is not a concern about race or colour or creed ... It is the British people’s number one concern,” he says. And they are not being unreasonable.
He says he supports the idea of free movement. But the interaction of the UK’s welfare system with free movement has put great pressure on the UK. That is why he wants EU migrants to have to wait four years before they can get in-work benefits.
At the moment a nurse can train in Bulgaria and come to the UK to do manual work and still get more because of in-work benefits. That is not right, he says.
Third, Cameron says he wants to get Britain out of the idea of “ever closer union”. Britain will never be comfortable with that, he says.
Cameron is now running through his four EU renegotiation demands.
First, he wants the EU to be more competitive, he says.
Second, he wants to ensure the EU works for countries outside the euro. He wants the eurozone to succeed. But the EU will probably have more than one currency for ever, and so there should be fair rules for those outside.
Last year the eurozone countries wanted to use money from an EU-wide fund to solve a eurozone crisis. That was “completely unacceptable”, he says.
Cameron says for years Britain has been drifting away from the EU.
Successive politicians have promised referendums on Europe, but have not delivered them.
There needs to be democratic support for Europe, he says.
David Cameron is speaking now.
He starts by saying that the UK economy is growing, and that he has cut the deficit, which was 11% when he became prime minister, by two thirds.
And he has a mandate to deliver reform in Europe, he says.
Updated
David Cameron's speech at Davos
David Cameron is shortly due to give his speech at the Davos World Economic Forum. I will be covering it here.
For a full account of today’s events at Davos, do take a look at our separate Davos blog.
Theresa May, the home secretary, will soon be making a Commons statement about the findings of the public inquiry into the killing of Alexander Litvinenko.
I will be covering that statement on our separate Litvinenko live blog.
That means this blog will go on hold for a bit. I will post again here after 12.30pm.
Here is the full text of John McDonnell’s speech in Manchester.
I will be posting more from it later.
On the subject of its Momentum, Jon Lansman, its founder, has an interesting article at Left Futures looking at the issue of how Jeremy Corbyn can exert his will in the parliamentary Labour party when so few MPs are enthusiastic Corbyn supporters.
The answer involves “taming MPs” and “a few casualties” (ie, deselections), he wrote.
It does require taming MPs. That is nothing new, every Labour leader does it somehow. It’s what the whips are there for but we all understand why Jeremy’s experience means that is not his way. Jeremy must do it not with the carrots and sticks he offers but by ensuring accountability to the members. That will require rule changes which will be opposed by those who want him to fail but not by anyone who believes in democracy. It is not about deselecting MPs because all party members, on left and right, respect MPs who respect them, who think for themselves but are also prepared to justify the decisions they take, and who work hard alongside their local activists.
There may be a few casualties just as there are every year when members select their council candidates, but they will be the exception not the rule. No-one suggests that is a problem with councillors because it is accepted that party members have a right to choose their candidates.
Momentum divided over role of non-Labour members
Jeremy Corbyn supporters in the grassroots Momentum group are in dispute over its direction - in particular the role that non-Labour party members should be allowed to play.
Last night, one of the largest Momentum groups in the country -Lambeth - overwhelmingly passed a motion disagreeing with proposals from its national leadership that will restrict decision-making to Labour party members.
The statement, proposed by Stuart King, who has been active in Left Unity, says:
Lambeth Momentum welcomes the setting up of a broad based National Committee, meeting on 6 February, as a first step to establishing democratic structures in Momentum. However we are deeply concerned at the attempt to narrow democracy in Momentum by excluding of non-Labour Party activists from any say in the organisation that they have been building.
The Lambeth group dislikes the idea of having a “second class” membership in which non Labour party members are banned from officer posts, and from being regional delegates or national committee members, warning it will lead to the departure of many activists who support Corbyn but are not yet convinced they need to join Labour.
It passed by 40 to 4 votes, according to sources present at the meeting.
It follows on from reports of a wider dilemma within Momentum about how far to accommodate non-Labour party members. The Times (paywall) reported that Jon Lansman, who was closely involved in Corbyn’s leadership campaign, differs from younger organisers in wanting to limit key roles to Labour party members.
There have been rumours that the Commons vote on Trident could come as early as next week.
But in the Commons Chris Grayling, the business secretary, has just announced the Commons business for the next two weeks, and Trident did not get a mention.
(The government can change the business timetabled for the Commons at very short notice, but that is unusual.)
McLoughlin suggests EU referendum could delay Heathrow runway decision yet again
Patrick McLoughlin, the transport secretary, took part in an LBC phone-in this morning, and hinted that the decision over whether or not to build a third runway at Heathrow might be delayed again.
Originally the decision was due before the end of last year, but last month Downing Street said it would be put off until the summer.
But McLoughlin suggested the EU referendum could lead to a further delay.
Asked when there would be a decision, he relied:
I hope later this year. We have said we would hope to move some way by the summer of this year.
But he went on:
There’s lots of other things which are going on in the political spectrum - if there’s a referendum this summer, and the like. But I would hope by the summer of this year we will be able to make progress.
Jack Dromey, the shadow policing minister, has put out this statement about the crime figures.
Police recorded crime is rising and some of the most serious crimes have soared to the highest levels in years. There has been a major increase in knife crime, up 9%, a 27% rise in violent crime and a 36% increase in sexual offences. Reported rape is the highest since 2003.
Today’s figures do not even include online crime. Crime is changing and has moved online in recent years. The ONS has estimated that were such crimes to be included, the total number of recorded crimes would nearly double.
Just as on-line crime and fraud is soaring, so too are the demands on a depleted police force to keep the country safe from terrorism and tackle child sex exploitation and abuse.
The Tories have slashed police officers by 17,000 and broke their promise to the public to protect frontline officer numbers. Now we see the biggest increase in recorded crime in a decade. The first duty of any government is the safety and security of our citizens. The biggest cuts to any police force in Europe is letting the British people down.
Here is the Office for National Statistics summary of the crime figures. And here are some extracts.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW) shows there were an estimated 6.6 million incidents of crime covered by the survey in the year ending September 2015. This latest estimate was not significantly different compared with the previous year’s.
There was a 6% increase in police recorded crime compared with the previous year, with 4.3 million offences recorded in the year ending September 2015. Most of this rise is thought to be due to a greater proportion of reports of crime being recorded in the last year, following improved compliance with national recording standards by police forces.
Improvements in recording of crime are thought to have particularly affected some categories of violent crime recorded by the police. There was a 27% rise in violence against the person offences (an additional 185,666 offences) which was largely driven by increases within the violence without injury sub-group (up by 130,207 offences; a 37% increase). The CSEW estimate for violent crime showed no significant change compared with the previous year’s survey.
There were also increases in some of the more serious types of police recorded violence, including a 9% rise in offences involving knives or sharp instruments and a 4% increase in offences involving firearms. Such offences are less likely to be prone to changes in recording practices though there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that a tightening of recording procedures may also be contributing to some of the increase in some forces.
Sexual offences recorded by the police continued to rise with the latest figures up 36% on the previous year; equivalent to an additional 26,606 offences. The numbers of rapes (33,431) and other sexual offences (66,178) were at the highest level since the introduction of the National Crime Recording Standard in the year ending March 2003. As well as improvements in recording, this is also thought to reflect a greater willingness of victims to come forward to report such crime.
The full ONS statistical bulletin, with all the details, is here (pdf).
My colleague Alan Travis has the headline figures from the crime statistics.
Crime in England/Wales rose 6% in 12 months to September according ot police figures - inc 9% rise in knife crime & 36% rise in sex offences
— Alan Travis (@alantravis40) January 21, 2016
Crime survey of England and Wales - different yardstick - shows apparent 6% fall which Office of National Stats says not significant change
— Alan Travis (@alantravis40) January 21, 2016
McDonnell to say Labour would promote employee share ownership
Here is Rowena Mason’s preview story about John McDonnell’s speech.
And here’s an extract.
On Saturday, Labour’s leader, Jeremy Corbyn, proposed barring companies from distributing dividends unless they paid the living wage and putting in place salary curbs to stop bosses being paid many times more than workers.
In an attempt to help workers have a greater say over their workplaces, McDonnell’s speech will make an argument in favour of more cooperative ownership as the old economic strategies “have run their course”.
He will say the state has achieved a lot, from the NHS to the welfare system, but there is a “long labour movement tradition of decentralisation and grass-roots organisation …
“There is a thread within the labour and radical movement of self-organisation, running right back even before the Chartists to those early organisers for democracy against old corruption.”
He will say deep “questions of ownership, control, and democracy” have been left to one side under previous Labour governments but the party must look at radical ways of “changing the rules of the game”.
“Our problem today is that we must learn to think systemically about the kind of economy we want,” he will say. “And where our opponents now warn and threaten about the terrors ahead, we must present a positive case for the future we all want.
David Cameron is at the World Economic Forum in Davos today, and he is going to give a speech in which he will urge business leaders to support Britain staying in a a reformed European Union. His spokeswoman has said he will remind business leaders that “many of the reforms we are seeking are things that they have called for” in terms of improving competitiveness. She told journalists he would address:
How do we make sure that the EU - which we joined for the single market benefits and the benefits to business - continues to work for them and, indeed, work better for them?
The speech comes as the debate about whether Britain should remain in the EU or leave intensifies ahead of next month’s EU summit, where it is expected that Cameron’s EU renegotiation will be finalised, allowing him to name the date for the referendum in the summer or early autumn.
In other developments:
- Number 10 has said that Cameron will hold a cabinet meeting soon after the EU summit that is due to finish on Friday 19 February, the BBC reports. This has become a key issue for the Out campaign because cabinet ministers opposed to staying in the EU will not be able to speak out until after that meeting has been held. Some have been worried that Cameron might delay it by a few days, allowing him to make the case for his renegotiation over the weekend without his opponents being free to respond.
- The Vatican has intervened in the debate, coming out in favour of Britain staying in the EU. If Britain were to leave, “we would see it as being something that is not going to make a stronger Europe”, the Vatican’s foreign minister Archbishop Paul Gallagher said.
I will be covering the EU debate in more detail as the day goes on.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Crime figures are released.
9.35am: The findings of the public inquiry into the death of Alexander Litvinenko are published. Later Theresa May, the home secretary, will give a statement on this in the Commons. My colleague Matthew Weaver is covering this story on a separate Litvinenko live blog.
10.30am: John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, gives a speech in Manchester. He will says Labour is examining ways to give workers a greater right to own shares in the companies where they work.
1.15pm: David Cameron gives a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
As usual, I will also be covering 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.
