Afternoon summary
- Theresa May, the home secretary, has been strongly criticised by business, campaign groups and opposition parties after giving an uncompromising speech saying that mass immigration is unsustainable and proposing measures to limit asylum applications. Simon Walker, director general of the Institute of Directors, said
We are astonished by the irresponsible rhetoric and pandering to anti-immigration sentiment from the Home Secretary. It is yet another example of the Home Secretary turning away the world’s best and brightest, putting internal party politics ahead of the country, and helping our competitor economies instead of our own.
The myth of the job-stealing-immigrant is nonsense. Immigrants do not steal jobs, they help fill vital skill shortages and, in doing so, create demand and more jobs. If they did steal jobs, we wouldn’t have the record levels of employment we currently do.
Maurice Wren, chief executive of the Refugee Council, said:
The home secretary’s clear intention to close Britain’s border to refugees fleeing for their lives is thoroughly chilling, as is her bitter attack on the fundamental principle enshrined in international law that people fleeing persecution should be able to claim asylum in Britain.
Labour and the SNP condemned it too. (See 4.18pm.) In an analyis, the Guardian’s Alan Travis said it marked “a new low in the politics of refugees and migration”.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
In his speech to the Conservative conference Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, said that the new contract for hospital doctors was not intended to lead to them working longer hours, or being paid less.
We are not asking junior doctors to work longer hours - that wouldn’t be safe.
Nor is it our intention to cut doctors’ pay - and it is utterly irresponsible to try and scare people into believing we are.
Cameron's afternoon interviews - Summary
David Cameron has been giving another round of interviews for broadcasters, embargoed until 5pm. The Press Association’s Andrew Woodcock was listening in. He’s filed the best quotes, and here are the key points.
- Cameron quashed suggestions that changes to the EU’s freedom of movement rules could be back on the agenda for his renegotiation. Theresa May’s speech made some observers think this might be happening. (See 12.18pm.) But, when asked if freedom of movement was on the agenda, he replied:
At the moment, we are getting a lot of migration from Europe because we’ve created more jobs than the rest of Europe put together. But when people come and work in Britain, they are also getting access instantly to something like as much as £10,000 of in-work benefits in the first year.
You do have people training in skilled professions – perhaps even nursing – in south-east Europe and then coming here and working in an unskilled profession. That’s not in those countries’ interests and not in our interests and that’s why changing these welfare rules is such a key part of my negotiation.
What is on the agenda is the welfare changes that are necessary to stop us having an unnecessary draw of people to the UK. But the idea that British people can go and live and work in another European country or European people can come and live and work in Britain, that is part of our membership of the European Union.
We will bring under much better control the number of people coming here if we address these welfare issues.
- He said it was uncertain what a vote to leave the EU would mean in practice. Those campaigning for Britain to leave the EU would have to explain what an out vote meant. Asked if an out vote would mean Britain leaving the EEA (European Economic Area), he replied:
That will be something that those campaigning to leave the EU will have to explain. I hope to be on the side of staying in a reformed Europe. That’s what my negotiation is about. I can’t define for you what `out’ means, because that’s not my preferred option. If it were to become my preferred option, I’d have to explain to you exactly what it meant.
- He confirmed that Boris Johnson would be offered a cabinet job when he stood down as London mayor. He said he was “looking forward to Boris finishing his time as Mayor and coming into my team in Number 10”. It was made clear that this meant a cabinet job.
- He said he disagreed with criticism of Theresa May’s speech from the Institute of Director (which said it was “astonished by the irresponsible rhetoric and pandering to anti-immigration sentiment from the Home Secretary”) and from the Daily Telegraph (where James Kirkup wrote a response saying the speech was “awful, ugly, misleading, cynical and irresponsible”.) He said:
I read the speech and thought it was a good speech, a thoughtful speech about how we need to control immigration, but also a bigger picture speech about how we cope with the breakdown in order in so many parts of our world, and how we have to help people – for instance – fleeing Syria, and the countries closest to that country.
- He claimed that, under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour now believed there should be no limit on immigration.
- He defended the government’s decision to have a relationship with Saudi Arabia, saying it was important for security reasons.
We have a relationship with Saudi Arabia, and if you want to know why, I will tell you why. It’s because we receive from them important intelligence and security information that keeps us safe. The reason we have the relationship is our own national security. There was one occasion since I’ve been prime minister where a bomb that would have potentially blown up over Britain was stopped because of intelligence we got from Saudi Arabia.
The speech from Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, was light on substance, but it did contain at least one good joke I hadn’t heard before.
Now, I hold not one but two jobs in government.
You know what they say “if you want a job done well ask a busy man”.
You might also say “if you want two jobs done well ask a busy woman.”
Here’s the verdict from Greg Hust, the Times’s education editor.
It's all very well for Nicky Morgan to tell Tory conf she will root out poor education where ever it lurks, but how? Speech light on policy
— Greg Hurst (@GregHurstTimes) October 6, 2015
For Nicky Morgan to say she wants excellence everywhere in education is an aspiration not a plan
— Greg Hurst (@GregHurstTimes) October 6, 2015
Leader of the House of Commons, Chris Grayling, has warned the Conservatives to be “very cautious and careful” that the debate around the EU referendum does not cause long term damage to the party.
Speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative party conference in Manchester, Grayling said:
We need to be watchful to make sure, as a party, that our long-term future isn’t impacted by the referendum process. We’ve got to be very cautious and careful about that. I also think that we need to recognise frankly that we have different opinions in our party. There are people who will want to leave, there are people who will want to stay, and there are people who are unsure until they see the result of the renegotiation. … it needs to be done with respect for each other.
Grayling, who served as justice secretary until the post-election reshuffle, added that the party needed to learn lessons from the political consequences of the independence referendum in Scotland and the resulting emergence of “a non-conventional division of opinion”.
We need to be very supportive of the renegotiation process the prime minister is going through because at the end of this we are one team. We need to go on as one team in government up to 2020 and we need to win in 2020,” said Grayling. “The way we conduct ourselves over the next two years is fundamentally important and will have a longer term impact on our politics.”
When asked what he was expecting from Cameron’s renegotiation efforts, Grayling said: “The United Kingdom needs to be a sovereign nation able to look after its own national interest, no more and no less.”
Here is some reaction to Theresa May’s speech earlier.
From Andy Burnham, the shadow home secretary
Theresa May once famously warned her conference about being the Nasty Party. Today, it sounded like she forgot her own advice. In her desperation to boost her stock amongst the Tory faithful, the Home Secretary delivered a misleading and narrow-minded speech which fails to provide any real answers to the challenges we face.
Labour shares the Home Secretary’s concerns about the under-cutting of wages and stands ready to work with her on securing new EU rules to prevent it. But to claim against the weight of evidence that the economic benefit of migration is ‘close to zero’ is to pander to the right-wing of the Tory Party. People look to the Home Secretary to provide balance and leadership on these difficult issues but she has signally failed to do that today.
This isn’t the first time that people have heard Theresa May talk tough on immigration so they will be entitled to take today’s overblown rhetoric with a pinch of salt. She promised to get net migration down but it has risen to record levels on her watch and nothing she has announced will change that.
On the refugee crisis, it is clear that the Home Secretary continues to refuse to face to the scale of what is unfolding in Europe. While she is right to stay outside any formal EU quota scheme, she should still be offering help to our neighbours who are struggling to cope.
And this is from Stuart McDonald MP, the SNP’s immigration spokesman
This may have been a speech to the Tory conference but Theresa May’s dog-whistle rhetoric was clearly designed to pander to a UKIP audience in the increasingly bitter battle to succeed David Cameron.
It was about as inflammatory and divisive a speech a Home Secretary could make. Theresa May’s whole approach to her job is to pull up the drawbridge and put her fingers in her ears – deliberately conflating immigration with asylum and completely ignoring the evidence.
According to George Parker in the Financial Times today, Tory ministers “are under instruction to use the expression ‘common ground’ in preference to ‘centre ground’” when talking about how they went to represent the majority.
The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg has helpfully posted a link to Margaret Thatcher’s Keith Joseph memorial lecture in which she explained why the difference mattered. She said:
As Keith used to remind us, it is not the centre ground but the common ground — the shared instincts and traditions of the British people — on which we should pitch our tents. That ground is solid — whereas the centre ground is as slippery as the spin doctors who have colonised it.
Isabel Hardman has a lovely blog at Coffee House about how some female Tory MPs are unhappy about how they are being asked to serve as “arm candy” for David Cameron when he is walking around the conference centre. Cameron, or his minders, seem to be worried about him being photographed alone, and so he tends to have an MP alongside him as he makes the very short walk, for example, from the Midland hotel to the conference centre.
Here’s an extract from the blog.
The new MPs were called in last week to be briefed about the importance of this job of walking alongside the boss (what a strange job MPs do), and told that they were on a three-line whip to attend the Prime Minister’s speech, too (though they are currently a very grateful and loyal intake who would be unlikely to miss it).
But this exciting opportunity to be pictured with the prime minister doesn’t seem to have quite enthused some of those who have had to walk around with him so far. ‘I didn’t get into parliament to be a bit of f***ing arm candy,’ mutters one.
And here is an example.
Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, told the conference in his speech that under Labour disability benefits treated the disabled as “passive victims” and that his reforms were designed to change this.
Let me start with sickness benefit.
This is Labour’s last great legacy.
Almost half of people on ESA [employment and support allowance] have been on the benefit for more than 2 years.
This is despite the majority of ESA claimants saying that they would like to work.
The ESA has Labour’s essential mistake at its heart – that people are passive victims.
Of course if you treat people as passive that’s what they’ll become.
It’s no wonder, when the system makes doctors ask a simplistic question: are you too sick to work at all?
If the answer is yes, they’re signed off work – perhaps for ever.
So we look to change the system – and the assumptions that underpin it.
Conservatives philosophy is rooted in human nature – not in Utopianism or in empty pity but in the yearning of people to make a better life for themselves and their children.
That’s why we don’t think of people not in work as victims to be sustained on government handouts. No, we want to help them live lives independent of the state.
In his speech to the conference this morning Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative candidate for London mayor, said that if elected, he would give residents in London a new power to demand a rethink of proposed controversial developments. He told the conference:
Many Londoners are instinctively suspicious of new development. And I don’t blame them. Too often they have no say, no control, over what is built in their backyard. When a new development is proposed for their community, it is often ugly, out-of-proportion, out-of-keeping - and it is simply dumped on them, with no thought as to the effect it will have on their area. There’s no case for ignoring local opinion. Yes we need to build more, but we also need to build well.
If I am elected mayor, I will ensure that local communities can vote, to require the mayor to call in significant developments. I believe passionately in giving communities a voice, and making that voice decisive. I want to make direct democracy a London reality.
Here’s a Guardian video with an extract from Boris Johnson’s speech.
Osborne's interview - Summary
Here are some of the top lines from Katharine Viner’s interview with George Osborne.
- Osborne signalled that Boris Johnson will get offered a cabinet job when he stands down as London mayor. He said:
He’s been a brilliant mayor. I think he’s going to be a fantastic member of the Conservative team. Obviously it is David Cameron’s decision who form a government, but I would be very surprised if Boris Johnson wasn’t part of it.
- He suggested that Johnson had not raised his concerns about the tax credit cuts with Osborne personally. Journalists were briefed overnight that Johnson would use his speech today to suggest the cuts were too harsh. When it was put to him that Johnson did not support them, Osborne replied: “So I read. Not from ...” When it was put to him that Johnson had not said anything to him about this directly, Osborne did not demur.
- Osborne said he considered himself a progressive.
To paraphrase Benjamin Disraeli, we live in a progressive country where change is constant. And for Conservatives the challenge is not to be the people who resist change or oppose change, but to make sure that change fits with the character of the nation ... I think Conservatives succeed and we’re in government and we win the trust of people when we are progressives and we use Conservative means to deliver those progressive ends.
Asked to define what being a progressive meant, he replied:
It’s basically advancing social justice, opportunity, equality of opportunity.
- He said that compassion could not be measured “by the size of your welfare bill”.
I don’t think you measure compassion and opportunity simply by the size of your welfare bill. The welfare bill has gone up and up and up. It squeezes out other spending we could have on our health service and our education system. It has frustrated opportunity where it has got the incentives wrong ... I’m absolutely determined to deliver what I consider a very progressive policy which is sound public finances.
- He said he considered himself a feminist - but not necessarily in the way the Guardian might use the term. Asked to clarify, he replied:
I think the struggle for female equality has been one of the great struggles of the last 100 years or so. The Conservative party has played its part in that struggle. But, is the job done? Not at all.
- He said that he found Dr Dre, the music producer and one-time member NWA, “incredibly interesting and intelligent” when they met in Downing Street several years ago. Osborne seen NWA at the Brixton Academy many years earlier. Describing the Downing Street meeting, Osborne said:
He is incredibly interesting and intelligent. He’s a guy who’s built an incredible music business. He has not had an unblemished career, let’s be clear. He built up the Beats Music headphone business, he sold it to Apple, so, given where he started off in life, he has been incredibly successful.
Updated
Here is Alan Travis’s story about Theresa May’s speech. And here’s how it starts.
A major drive to limit the right to claim asylum in Britain has been announced by the home secretary, Theresa May.
Outlining her “tough new plan for asylum”, May made clear that she preferred to offer asylum and refuge to people affected by war and oppression, rather than rewarding the wealthy and the fit who could make it to Britain.
Her view was immediately condemned by the Refugee Council, which described the proposals as “thoroughly chilling”.
May’s plan to limit the right to claim asylum in Britain – 25,000 did so last year – was coupled with her strongest language yet to defend the renewal of her target to get net migration numbers below 100,000, and the continued inclusion of overseas students in that figure in the face of strong opposition from her cabinet colleagues.
My colleagues Alberto Nardelli and George Arnett have been fact checking some of the claims in Theresa May’s speech. They are not impressed.
Here’s an excerpt.
May’s boldest claim is that “while there are benefits of selective and controlled immigration, at best the net economic and fiscal effect of high immigration is close to zero”.
The statement is based on a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. The report, published in 2013 and using data from 2007-09, does state that the net fiscal effect of migration in the UK is negligible.
However, there are important details in the data that suggest May’s presentation of this statistic on its own is misleading.
Q: You don’t think much of Jeremy Corbyn.
Osborne says Corbyn is a symptom of Labour’s problem, not the cause.
Q: Is it time for the Tories to have another female leader?
Osborne says he is sure the Tories will have great female leaders again.
Some of the new female MPs are really impressive.
Q: Do you consider yourself a feminist?
Yes, but not in the way the Guardian might see it, he says.
There is much more to be done in the cause of women’s rights, he says.
And that’s it. I will post a summary soon.
Osborne says Johnson likely to get government job after he stops being London mayor
Q: What is the best thing about having Boris Johnson back in parliament?
Osborne says Johnson gave a brilliant speech.
He says he expects Cameron to give him a job in government when he stops being mayor.
Q: He does not support you on tax credits.
So I read, says Osborne, implying Johnson has not raised the matter with him directly.
Q: Is Johnson your main rival?
Osborne says Cameron beat the odds and gained a majority. He has a mandate to lead for the whole parliament.
Q: But what about the next parliament?
Osborne says the Tories have a strong team. They are going places, and are a source of ideas. Often it is the opposition that is the source of new ideas. That is not the case now.
Osborne says he was brought up in London, and thought that, if it was not happening inside the circle line, it did not matter.
Having a seat in Cheshire has changed his thinking, he says. For a Londoner, it was striking being somewhere where the road signs did not always point to London.
Q: Are northerners more plain speaking than other people?
They are more direct, says Osborne.
He says he attended a Northern Powerhouse reception outside the conference centre last night. It was not just for party figures. It attracted a range of people from Manchester. That is unusual for a conference event, and it shows how much support there is for the idea.
David Cameron was not there, Osborne says.
Q: Is that because he does not like the north as much as you. He said Yorkshire people hate not just everyone else, but each other too.
Osborne says, after Cameron said that, various Labour leaders came out to say he was right.
Osborne says he hopes to see a new devolution deal in the north east soon, on Teeside or Tyneside.
The Nissan plant in the north east produces more cars than Italy, he says.
Q: Is the Northern Powerhouse concept as significant as it sounds?
Osborne says he pushed the idea in a speech in Manchester about a year ago. Over the last year there has been “incredible progress”. This has “transformative” potential. The north/south divide is a huge problem, and he does not know if this will solve it. But it is worth trying.
At Guardian fringe, @KathViner is going a bit Yorkshire. Asks Osborne if Northern Powerhouse is "more clout than dinner". #yorkshire
— Robert Hutton (@RobDotHutton) October 6, 2015
Updated
Q: What about young people? According to one study, in most areas of the country they cannot afford to buy a home.
Osborne says he agrees this is a problem. He wants more building on brownfield sites. And he supports right to buy for housing associations tenants. Right to buy is a progressive policy, he says.
Osborne says the Tories voted against the introduction of tuition fees.
Now it is one of the votes he is least proud of. The Tories should have supported the idea.
As a result of tuition fees, and the increase agreed by the coalition, the amount of money going into universities is increasing. And more people from poor backgrounds are going to university.
It is “profoundly unfair” to expect people who do not benefit from university to pay tax so that others can benefit from a university education. A previous generation of Labour politicians were prepared to make this argument. Now the Tories are doing so.
Q; Is it time to cut pensioner benefits?
Osborne says when he put the pension age up that was the most unpopular thing he had done. But now people accept the case for that move.
Q: Do you agree with Jeremy Hunt that tax credit cuts give an important cultural signal, about how we need to work as hard as the Chinese.
Osborne says Hunt felt he was misinterpreted. He was talking about the country’s overall performance. We have 1% of the world’s population, 4% of its economy and 7% of its welfare.
Q: But you are including countries with no welfare at all.
Osborne says he wants to retain public support for welfare.
When he came to power, some people were getting £80,000, £90,000 or £100,000 in housing benefit. It takes 24 families paying tax to pay for a housing benefit bill of £100,000, he says.
Q: You says nine out of 10 families will be better off as a result of the government’s changes overall. But that leaves one family out of 10 worse off. Have you got a plan for them?
Osborne says the overall settlement is a good one.
He is elected to take decisions. The “easiest thing in the world” would be to avoid decisions, he says.
Osborne says you do not measure compassion by the size of your welfare bill
Q: How do you square that with the tax credit cuts? What do you say to people who say this will be your poll tax?
Osborne says you do not measure compassion by the size of your welfare bill.
He says sound public finances is a “very progressive policy”.
Spending on tax credits was out of control.
When he became chancellor nine of out 10 families were getting means-tested benefits. That is now down to six out of 10 families. The latest cuts will take it down to five out of 10.
Q: Do you consider yourself a progressive?
Yes, says Osborne.
He thinks the Conservatives win when they are progressive. They can achieve progressive ends by conservative means.
Q: What does being progressive mean?
It means believing in opportunity, in equality of opportunity.
That is why academies are so important. Conservatives should not accept low standards in schools, he says.
The academy programme is a brilliant example of a Conservative progressive policy.
Updated
Q: I was out of the country for years, and when I came back this year your image had changed. What happened?
Osborne says, regarding his weight, he realised he had to diet. More generally, he had a conscious effort to get out of the Treasury and communicate. Until then it had been possible just to stay in the Treasury.
In 2012 people felt things were not working. So he started visiting “incredible projects”, like one at the Manchester station. An incredible new railway station has been built.
Q; It is not just because you want to be PM?
Osborne says he has a big job to do. He wants to extend opportunity.
George Osborne interviewed by Katharine Viner
George Osborne, the chancellor, is being interviewed at a fringe meeting by Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief.
Viner starts by asking Osborne about his revelation at the weekend that NWA at the Brixton academy was the best gig he has ever been too. It was the coolest thing he has done, he says.
Q: And you said your favourite poem was This Be The Verse, by Philip Larkin. It starts: “They fuck you up, your mum and dad.”
Osborne says that Larkin has a blunt, sardonic humour. But that is not how he feels about his parents.]
Q: And you said you liked The Young Ones. That seemed a savage critique of the Thatcher government.
Osborne says satirists should make fun of the government. Steve Bell, the Guardian’s cartoonist is here. This morning he depicted Osborne coming out of the backside of the prime minister. It is great that we have this tradition of freedom of speech.
Chancellor George Osborne tells Tory supporters he had Dr Dre round for tea at Downing Street pic.twitter.com/e4VrqDDRgp
— Sam Lister (@sam_lister_) October 6, 2015
Updated
Boris Johnson's speech - Verdict from the Twitter commentariat
This is what political journalists are saying about Boris Johnson’s speech on Twitter.
Last year Theresa May and Boris Johnson both gave speeches back-to-back, and the consensus was that May’s was much more impressive. Judging by Twitter, Johnson has decisively run the rematch, and also rekindled interest in his leadership prospects.
So, does anyone still think Tory leadership race is a foregone conclusion? Still think Boris is finished? Anyone?
— James Kirkup (@jameskirkup) October 6, 2015
Boris the best-received speaker in the hall and still the most popular politician in the country - don't write him off. #cpc15
— George Eaton (@georgeeaton) October 6, 2015
Quite brilliant speech by Boris Johnson this. Very funny, very zone Nstion, very Eurosceptic.
— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) October 6, 2015
Boris's speech just superb: focus on social justice, lining up boast after boast. Compassion, humour, killer facts. Hope Cameron takes note.
— Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) October 6, 2015
Humour, vision and optimism in this speech from Boris, as well as neat positioning on EU. A reminder of what a formidable politician he is
— James Forsyth (@JGForsyth) October 6, 2015
Job done for Boris. Managed to combine humour with a proper political vision. His EU red line of immigration control v significant too
— James Forsyth (@JGForsyth) October 6, 2015
Boris is certainly the Tories' first choice as jester - but as prime minister ahead of Osborne? On the evidence of that speech, not sure
— Jonathan Freedland (@Freedland) October 6, 2015
That was not just the best speech of this conference, it was Boris' best ever speech. And I've heard from lots of em.
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) October 6, 2015
He's back in the ring. Boris is funny, serious, packing punches for bankers and social justice in a quick one-two jabs and with some reach
— Torcuil Crichton (@Torcuil) October 6, 2015
Boris needs more polish but that's the best and most grown up speech he has given at a story conference. Game on...
— Tim Shipman (@ShippersUnbound) October 6, 2015
This is a delightful speech from Boris but personally think it could do with even more heft and vision than he's put in.
— Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) October 6, 2015
But what this speech shows is that leadership contest will be do you want leader who makes Conservatism exciting or do you want safe guy
— Isabel Hardman (@IsabelHardman) October 6, 2015
Boris' speech one of the best conference speeches I've ever heard. Hall in raptures, plays brilliantly outside, packed with detail.
— Stephen Pollard (@stephenpollard) October 6, 2015
Hacks at Tory conference saying Boris's speech is brilliant. Listening to it on the radio, it sounds like random incoherent nonsense.
— Julia Hartley-Brewer (@JuliaHB1) October 6, 2015
Here’s a good point about the Boris Johnson speech.
Boris now openly mocking George Osborne. He used to do this to Dave. Has switched targets
— Jack Blanchard (@Jack_Blanchard_) October 6, 2015
Johnson says Tories believe the best about Britain
Johnson says Tories believe the best about Britain.
just as Labour has missed the lesson of that election victory in May
because it wasn’t just about rejecting Miliband and Salmond and Sturgeon and all the other fishy characters
it was because they believe that if they stick with us then this country could be on the verge of something great
and they see the difference between Tories and the extreme left
the extreme left is always willing to believe the worst about this country and its history and its institutions
it is we Tories who are always ready to believe the best about the British people, what we stand for and what we can do
and that is why I am a Conservative, a one-nation conservative
And that’s it. His speech is over.
Johnson talks about the protest he encountered outside the conference hall yesterday.
As I came into the conference area yesterday we had to go through a kind of Khyber pass with protestors on either side hurling eggs and water bombs
perhaps some of you had the same experience
were we intimidated?
no
will we give up our plans to take this country forward?
no
Will we surrender to the hard-left agitators – supported by Jeremy Corbyn – who believe in these tactics and want to divide this society?
No
In fact I drew only one conclusion – that we need to do more to encourage sport in schools, because they managed to miss their target with every projectile
Here is the footage.
Johnson says a third runway at Heathrow would be “short-termist and environmentally disastrous solution”.
Johnson claims Osborne is copying his ideas
Johnson says he has cut council tax by 27%.
And he claims the government is copying his ideas.
and it is wonderful now to see the London agenda being rolled out across the country
- fiscal devolution, with our great English cities free to spend the business rates they raise
- a new National Living wage
- pooling pension funds (as we have done with Lancashire) to create a half billion pound sovereign wealth fund for infrastructure
- new rules on strike ballots to stop hardworking people being held to ransom by a tiny minority
in fact the only type of crime currently going up is the theft of City Hall policies – a crime I entirely condone
Johnson lists some developments in London under his mayoralty.
We have upgraded the tube so massively that it is carrying 25 per cent more passengers than when I was elected - every day
and that is because we have cut delays by more than 50 per cent
we are delivering Crossrail on time and on budget, the biggest engineering project in Europe
we have not only staged the world’s greatest ever Olympic games but we have secured a sensational physical legacy at the Olympic park in Stratford
so that London is now the only Olympic city to have found a long term private sector future for all 7 sporting venues
to say nothing of the new V and A and the first ever Smithsonian museum outside the USA;
Johnson says poorest have gained most in life expectancy in London
Johnson says even life expectancy has increased under the Tories.
and let me give you this final knock-out point, for all those who think inequality has increased
there is one simple way in which we have a more united society – and that is in our ability to spend more time on this earth in good health with our families
just since I have been mayor, life expectancy has gone up in London by 18 months for women and 19 months for men –
and there are parts of the Harrow Road where life expectancy at birth is now 97
I don’t know what monkey glands or royal jelly they apply in the Harrow road but
you live longer under the Tories, my friends
and yet the most extraordinary and counter-intuitive statistic is that it is the poorest who are seeing the biggest gains, so that the gap in average life expectancy between rich and poor has diminished from about five years when I became mayor to about 3 years today
and of course it is disgraceful that there is still a gap at all; but that is social justice, that is progress
Updated
Johnson says one nation policies help the poor the most.
the point I make to our crusty friends outside is that it is actually sensible one nation policies in London have been disproportionately beneficial for the poorest
If crime hits the poorest hardest – and it does - then it follows that is the poor who have most to gain from falls in crime
If you are poor in London, you are more likely to send your kids to a school where the air is polluted
if you are poor, your kids are 40 per cent more likely to die or be seriously injured in a road traffic accident
if you are poor your kids are far more likely to die in a domestic fire
and so if you reduce all those evils as we have, in the last eight years
– crime down almost 20 per cent,
– murder rate down 50 per cent,
– air pollution down 20 pc for NOX and 15 pc for particulates,
– deaths on the road down 40 per cent,
– deaths from fire down 50 per cent
then you are doing something for fairness and for social justice
And he includes a reference to the tax credits cut.
and we must ensure that as we reform welfare and we cut taxes that we protect the hardest working and lowest paid
the retail staff, the cleaners, who get up in the small hours or work through the night because they have dreams for what their families can achieve
Johnson warns about growing inequality.
shared language, shared cultural assumptions
shared confidence in our political institutions
These are the ties that unite our society – and yet they are not powerful enough on their own
if the economic gap between us is allowed to grow too big
and even though I am still just about the only politician to speak out in favour of bankers
I say we one nation Tories cannot ignore the gulf in pay packets that yawns wider year by year
In 1980 a chief executive of a FTSE 100 company earned about 25 times the average pay – the average pay – of his or her employees
What do you think the multiple is today? 130 times; and there are some who pay themselves 780 times
and again I believe that people will accept this, but only on certain conditions
only if they feel that this dynamic, entrepreneurial, high-reward capitalist system is actually helping to take everyone forward…
We will accept it
if and only if they pay their taxes – rich corporations and individuals
if and only if those firms are paying their employees decently – and it is great that a giant retailer like Lidl is paying not just the minimum wage but the London Living Wage
People do not object to immigration in itself, he says.
I speak as the proud great grandson of a Turk who fled his country in fear of his life
to Wimbledon for some reason
(and who was then assassinated by his political opponents – a fate I intend to avoid)
It is about who decides; it is about who is ultimately responsible; it is about control
and you will loosen the bonds that should unite society if people feel that their elected politicians have abdicated their ability to control those things that ought frankly to be within their power
Johnson says Britain needs a new deal with the EU, “helping to restore trust in parliament by making sure that new laws affecting the British public are made by people the British public can kick out at elections.”
Johnson says Jeremy Corbyn should come to witness a citizenship ceremony.
where people from around the world queue to have a selfie – not with me, but with a picture on an easel
of the queen
not because of who she is or what she has done in the last 63 years – extraordinary record of service though that is
but because of what she represents – the continuity of the great free institutions of this country
the ideas that she incarnates:
of our democracy and of the sovereignty of the crown in parliament
Johnson congratulates the Tory MPs Justine Greening and Jane Ellison for their campaigning against female genital mutilation, a vice that has been tolerated for too long in the name of political correctness
And he embarks on an elaborate rugby metaphor.
I speak as someone whose happiest formative afternoons were spent as a tight head prop – the guy on the right
and apart from grunting and heaving the crucial thing you have to do as a tight head – in fact just about the only thing you have to do apart from grunting and trying to stop the other guy sticking his fingers up your nose
is to bind on tightly and correctly – in my case to the hooker
(insert joke here, as Jeremy Corbyn’s autocue would say)
and it is the rugby scrum that provides a metaphor for my political beliefs
because our lives are really a gigantic collective effort
in which one person’s bulk makes up for another person’s slightness of stature
and where everyone is so tightly bound together that one person’s forward progress drives another person’s forward progress
and that is the society we need – not just a big society, but a united society
where the different elements are bound together by an irreducible set of values
democracy and freedom and equality under the law
Johnson says the Tories “believe in using capitalism to deliver social and economic progress.”
Johnson says he is fundamentally opposed to this sort of politics.
They have the same ruthless methods as the old colonialists that they purport to despise
in that they believe in divide and rule
Where there is a grievance, they foment it; where there is sectarianism, they take sides
Where there are racial or religious or ethnic divisions their instinct is always to play them up
And of course there is one conflict they relish above all others, and that is economic class war
the belief that you can exalt the poor and the needy by bashing the wealth creators
imposing punitive taxation
and in the words of John Macdonnell, an avowed Marxist who is seriously putting himself forward as the man to run the economy
fermenting – sic – the destruction of capitalism
and I know there is a generation of young people
who can’t remember communism and
who think it might be a good idea to ferment anti-capitalism as if it were some fruity alcopop
and so I say to all those £3 corbynistas – we tried that;
We tried fermenting anti-capitalism in the soviet union; we have tried brewing it in Britain in the 1970s and in many other parts of the world
and the result has been the kind of toxic moonshine that sends you blind
give that hooch a miss
And he mocks Labour.
(I’m taking the quotes from the text issued by the Tories. I’m sorry there is no punctuation. They left it all out, and I don’t have time to correct their English.)
We won because the British people did not trust Ed Miliband to manage the economy
and so it is unbelievable now to see the Labour party has been piratically captured
in a kind of social media twitstorm by what Harold Wilson once called a small group of politically motivated men
and I know these people, my friends
they are the London Labour party
trots and militants with vested interests and indeed interesting vests
They are the people who idolise Hugo Chavez and toast the revolution in taxpayer funded vintage burgundy
and I know them because we have fought and beaten them twice
Johnson pays tribute to the “persistence and the calm and the patience of David Cameron”.
Boris Johnson's speech
Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, is speaking now.
He knew when the Tories would win the election, he says.
It was not when Labour produced the Edstone - “the heaviest suicide note in history”.
It was when he found shopkeepers switched straight from Labour to the Tories, because they did not trust Ed Miliband on business. That night he texted the prime minister to say, ‘Mate, we’re going to win this thing.”
Theresa May' speech - Snap verdict
Theresa May’ speech - Snap verdict: That wasn’t really a conventional conference speech at all. It was a heavy-duty lecture that combined an ambitious attempt to alter conventional thinking on immigration with a detailed set of policy proposals on asylum. It was also, by any conventional measure, very rightwing. It is hard to think of anything that Nigel Farage would disagree with (although Farage would never marshal an argument in such a disciplined way).
Yet Farage would have pushed the argument one stage further, and said that because Britain needs to control immigration, it needs to leave the EU. May did not say that, but she did say levels of immigration from the EU are unsustainable and the speech will fuel speculation that she is moving into the out camp.
Or, as the Spectator’s James Forsyth says, there could be an alternative explanation.
Either May knows that freedom of movement is back in UK EU renegotiation or this speech is her dabbling with Brexit. Big potatoes either way
— James Forsyth (@JGForsyth) October 6, 2015
Either way, this was an important and revealing speech.
Updated
Here is May’s peroration.
We will also need to have more control of immigration overall. It’s often said – usually by advocates of open-door immigration – that Britain is by definition a country of immigrants. In fact, compared to the countries of the New World and compared to the countries of Europe with their shifting land borders, we have until recently always been a country of remarkable population stability. The people who have moved here down the generations have played a massive part in making this country what it is – but we need our immigration system to continue that British tradition of gradual, moderate, sensible change.
That is how, as a country, we have always been able to show great responsibility to the people who need our help in their darkest moments: the country that accepted the Huguenot Protestant refugees from France, the Jews escaping the pogroms of Russia and the persecution of the Nazis, the Asians of Uganda expelled by Idi Amin.
We have a proud history of relieving the distressed and helping the vulnerable – whether it’s through our military, our diplomacy, our humanitarian work or our support for refugees, let us continue this tradition. Let Britain stand up for the displaced, the persecuted and the oppressed. For the people who need our help and protection the most, let Britain be a beacon of hope.
May says next year she will publish “this country’s first ever annual asylum strategy, which will set out where our help will be targeted – and how we will crack down on those who abuse it”.
She says she will set up a register for people who want to take in refugees.
In Britain, we will make sure that councils get the help they need to deal with people as they arrive. I know the whole country was proud of the generosity of spirit shown by the British businesses and families who offered to shelter Syrian refugees in their own properties this summer. So to help turn these acts of humanity into reality, we’ll establish a register of people and organisations that can provide houses for the settlement of refugees. We’ll develop a community sponsorship scheme, like those in Canada and Australia, to allow individuals, charities, faith groups, churches and businesses to support refugees directly. And we’ll use the aid budget and other funds to take the pressure off local services and make sure councils have the money they need.
She says what she proposes amounts to a new deal.
What I’m proposing is a deal: the fewer people there are who wrongly claim asylum in Britain, the more generous we can be in helping the most vulnerable people in the world’s most dangerous places. And my message to the immigration campaigners and human rights lawyers is this: you can play your part in making this happen – or you can try to frustrate it. But if you choose to frustrate it, you will have to live with the knowledge that you are depriving people in genuine need of the sanctuary our country can offer. There are people who need our help, and there are people who are abusing our goodwill – and I know whose side I’m on.
May says she wants a new definition of refugee status.
In the longer term, I want to work with other countries in Europe, and the United Nations, to review the international legal definitions of asylum and refugee status. Because there is a huge difference between a young Syrian family fleeing the tyranny of ISIL or Assad, and a student who claims asylum once he has been discovered overstaying his visa, or a foreign criminal about to be sent to a prison in his own country.
We will also – for the first time – invoke what is known as the ‘Spanish Protocol’ of the Amsterdam Treaty, which allows EU member states to treat any asylum claim by a citizen of another EU country as automatically inadmissible. It sounds crazy, but in the last five years, there have been 551 asylum claims in Britain from people from other EU countries – like Poland and Spain. All but a handful were turned down – but they cost over £4 million to the British taxpayer. So we will end this absurdity, creating space in our asylum system to help people who really need our protection – and saving taxpayers’ money.
May threatens 'retaliatory measures' to countries that do not cooperate with Britain's asylum policy
May says Britain will take a tougher approach to countries that do not cooperate with Britain’s new asylum policy.
For the first time we’ll distinguish between vulnerable people resettled from their region and those who claim asylum after abusing the visa system or having travelled to get here through safe countries. If you’ve spurned the chance to seek protection elsewhere – but we cannot return you to that safe country and you still need refuge – you’ll get the minimum stay of protection and you won’t have an automatic right to settle here. But for those who really need it, we will offer a longer stay of protection. Humane for those who need our help, tough on those who abuse it.
Sometimes, it isn’t the individual person who holds up their deportation but their home country’s government. In the absence of specific identification documents – which are often destroyed by the individual themselves – some countries deny the nationality of their citizen and refuse to take them back. This happens in thousands of cases every year. So from now on, we will use alternative documentation – copies of which exist for anybody who first entered the country on a legal, biometric visa – as proof of the individual’s identity. If any foreign governments refuse to recognise these documents – which, in many cases, they helped to producein the first place – we will take retaliatory measures. The message will be clear – if other governments don’t play by the rules, there will be consequences.
May proposes a new approach to asylum.
We do need a new British approach and we do need a new international approach with nation states working together. An approach that combines hard-headed common sense with warm-hearted compassion. An approach with strict new rules for people who abuse the system in Britain, and greater generosity for people in parts of the world where we know they need our help.
So, wherever possible, I want to offer asylum and refuge to people in parts of the world affected by conflict and oppression, rather than to those who have made it to Britain. I want us to work to reduce the asylum claims made in Britain, and as we do so increase the number of people we help in the most troubled regions.
So we’ll introduce strengthened ‘safe return reviews’ – so when a refugee’s temporary stay of protection in the UK comes to an end, or if there is a clear improvement in the conditions of their own country, we will review their need for protection. If their reason for asylum no longer stands and it is now safe for them to return, we will seek to return them to their home country rather than offer settlement here in Britain.
'Not in 1,000 years' - May rules out a common EU asylum system
May rules out adoping a common EU asylum system
These problems have led some people to say we need a new approach, a new European approach that would involve a common immigration and asylum policy. To those people, I have a very clear answer. Not in a thousand years. We’re not seeking to regain control of our borders with one hand, only to give it away with the other.
This gets probably the largest round of applause in the speech so far.
May says asylum system is flawed
May says the asylum system is flawed.
The trouble is, the asylum system was abused for years. Under Labour it was just another way of getting here to work. In 2002, there were more than 84,000 applications for asylum. This alone constituted 49 per cent of net migration to Britain. And we ended up with a backlog of nearly half a million cases.
We now have much more control in the system than we’ve had for a long time – even with Syria, there were just over 25,000 applications last year, which was only eight per cent of net migration – but in truth the whole way in which we manage asylum is not right for the modern world.
The system is geared towards helping those most able to access it, and sometimes manipulate it, for their own ends – those who are young enough, fit enough, and have the resources to get to Britain. But that means support is too often denied to the most vulnerable, and those most in need of our help.
At the moment, the main way people claim asylum here is when they’re already in Britain. That fails on three counts. First, it encourages vulnerable people to take dangerous and illegal journeys to get here, often by putting themselves at the mercy of gangs of human traffickers and people smugglers. Second, instead of helping those in greatest need, it rewards the wealthiest, the luckiest and the strongest. Three quarters of asylum seekers in Britain are men and the vast majority are in their twenties. And third, it means people abuse the system by claiming asylum when their visa ends or by making spurious legal appeals to stay in the country for as long as possible. More than half of all asylum claims fail, and three quarters of people denied asylum appeal their decision in the courts.
May says mass immigration has undermined public support for offering asylum to refugees.
May appears to criticise Germany for saying it will accept almost 1m asylum seekers.
When the German Government, motivated by compassion and decency, said they expected to receive 800,000 asylum seekers this year, it prompted hundreds of thousands of people to try to get to Germany. Some of these people were refugees coming directly from Syria or the camps in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, but many – in fact, up to half of them – were migrants from other parts of the world.
So reducing and controlling immigration is getting harder, but that’s no reason to give up. As our manifesto said, ‘we must work to control immigration and put Britain first’.
Level of immigration from the EU is unsustainable, says May
May says the level of migration from the EU is unsustainable.
The numbers coming from Europe are unsustainable and the rules have to change. At the moment, for example, workers coming to the UK on very low salaries can claim over £10,000 on top of their salary in benefits – which makes the UK a hugely attractive destination. This is not good for us – or for the countries those people are leaving.
That is why the PM is right to target the amount we pay in benefits for those coming to the UK to work, and put these arrangements on a sensible basis.
But immigration has still gone up. That is partly because of student visas, she says.
We welcome students coming to study. But the fact is, too many of them are not returning home as soon as their visa runs out. If they have a graduate job, that is fine. If not, they must return home. So I don’t care what the university lobbyists say: the rules must be enforced. Students, yes; over-stayers, no. And the universities must make this happen.
May says immigration can be controlled.
Neither is it true that, in the modern world, immigration is no longer possible to control. The experience of the last five years is that where the Government has the political will to reduce immigration, it can do so. We rooted out abuse of the student visa system, and the numbers went down. We reformed family visas, and the numbers went down. We capped economic migration from outside the EU, and – despite the growing economy – the numbers remained stable. Overall, after my first two years as Home Secretary, net migration – which had reached 320,000 in 2005 – fell to 154,000.
May says mass immigration is also unnecessary
May says mass immigration is also unnecessary.
Even if we could manage all the consequences of mass immigration, Britain does not need net migration in the hundreds of thousands every year. Of course, immigrants plug skills shortages and it’s right that we should try to attract the best talent in the world, but not every person coming to Britain right now is a skilled electrician, engineer or doctor. The evidence – from the OECD, the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee and many academics – shows that while there are benefits of selective and controlled immigration, at best the net economic and fiscal effect of high immigration is close to zero. So there is no case, in the national interest, for immigration of the scale we have experienced over the last decade.
May says immigration cannot always be managed
May says immigration cannot always be managed.
Now I know there are some people who say, yes there are costs of immigration, but the answer is to manage the consequences, not reduce the numbers. But not all of the consequences can be managed, and doing so for many of them comes at a high price. We need to build 210,000 new homes every year to deal with rising demand. We need to find 900,000 new school places by 2024. And there are thousands of people who have been forced out of the labour market, still unable to find a job.
May says building a cohesive society 'impossible' when immigration too high
Here is the key message that May released overnight.
While we must fulfil our moral duty to help people in desperate need, we must also have an immigration system that allows us to control who comes to our country.
Because when immigration is too high, when the pace of change is too fast, it’s impossible to build a cohesive society. It’s difficult for schools and hospitals and core infrastructure like housing and transport to cope. And we know that for people in low-paid jobs, wages are forced down even further while some people are forced out of work altogether.
May says there is a limit to the amount of immigration any country should take
May says the Syrian crisis has sparked a wider debate about immigration.
Some people have argued that we’re on the verge of a ‘great age of migration’, in which national governments are powerless to resist huge numbers of people, travelling the world in search of a better life.
But people on both extremes of the debate – from the anti-immigration far right to the open-borders liberal left – conflate refugees in desperate need of help with economic migrants who simply want to live in a more prosperous society. Their desire for a better life is perfectly understandable, but their circumstances are not nearly the same as those of the people fleeing their homelands in fear of their lives. There are millions of people in poorer countries who would love to live in Britain, and there is a limit to the amount of immigration any country can and should take.
Updated
May says Britain has agreed to take 20,000 Syrian refugees over the course of this parliament.
But that is not the best way to help, she says.
The best way of helping the most people is not by bringing relatively small numbers of refugees to this country, but by working with the vast numbers who remain in the region.
Britain is spending £1bn in and around Syria on aid, she says.
May defends RAF drone attack that killed two British jihadis in Syria
May defends RAF strikes in Syria, and the recent drone attack that killed two British jihadis.
To those who question the morality of RAF strikes against terrorists in Syria – and we recently heard those opinions expressed in Parliament – I say these people have taken the conscious decision to make themselves our enemies. They plan to attack our country and kill our citizens. And they need to know – even if they are British nationals – that if they plan to do harm to this country, if they want to take the lives of British citizens, we will make sure that they have no place to hide.
May says there is no easy solution to the war in Syria.
But that does not mean Britain should do nothing. We must work to get the states that sponsor the different armies and militias around the negotiating table. We must do what we can to support friendly states and moderate elements within other states in the region. And – because of the clear threat they pose to Britain’s national security – we must take action against ISIL not just in Iraq but in Syria too.
May now turns to Syria.
Islamic State (she calls it Isil) is engaged in systematic murder, she says.
More than 600,000 Syrians are taking refuge in Jordan, a country that before the conflict had a population of little more than six million. There are more than one million finding respite in Lebanon, which previously had a population of just over four million. By the end of the year, the United Nations believes there will be a further 1.7 million Syrian refugees in Turkey.
These people are fleeing a civil war that exceeds even the other conflicts of the Middle East in its barbarism, brutality and bloodshed.
Bashar al Assad’s forces are committing war crimes on an industrial scale, deliberately targeting civilians and poisoning their own citizens with chemical weapons. ISIL – the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – is engaged in a programme of ethnic cleansing, mass murder of enemy soldiers, systematised rape and sexual violence, kidnappings and murder.
May begins by paying tribute to PC David Phillips, the Merseyside police officer killed earlier this week.
Theresa May's speech
Theresa May, the home secretary, is speaking now.
She begins by thanking Lady Helic, the Tory peer from Bosnia who was an adviser to William Hague, who introduced her.
Updated
Gove says ex-offenders should be seen as 'potential assets'
Michael Gove, the justice secretary, focused on the need to improve prisoner rehabilitation in his speech to the conference. Here’s an extract.
We should never define individuals by their worst moments.
None of us - none of us - would want our identity and our future determined by our worst moments.
And we should not compel those who have made mistakes to live lives forever defined by those mistakes ...
My inspiration as I consider what our reforms to criminal justice should be is Winston Churchill.
The man who was, perhaps, our greatest prime minister was also a truly great Home Secretary.
He argued that there should be “a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if you can only find it, in the heart of every man.”
Giving every individual the chance to reflect in their heart on the wrong they have done - and to change for the better - will be at the heart of our prison reform programme.
Critical to that is recognising that we should not treat prisoners as society’s liabilities who we keep warehoused - out of sight and out of mind - while they do their time. We should see them as potential assets - people who can contribute to society and put something back.
Prison should offer offenders the chance to get the skills and qualifications which they need to make a success of life on the outside. When so many come into custody illiterate and innumerate it would be a crime if we didn’t get them reading and writing when they are in our care.
Far too often at the moment those sent to prison spend their sentences in pointless enforced idleness rather than purposeful and constructive activity. That has to change.
Here is the Spectator’s James Forsyth’s take on the speech.
Gove making the case 4 giving criminals a 2nd chance in distinctly Tory language. The aim is the same as Roy Jenkins, but the idiom is Tory
— James Forsyth (@JGForsyth) October 6, 2015
It was also telling what Gove left out.
Michael Gove has finished his keynote speech. Mentions of Human Rights Act: Nil. #cpc15
— John Hyde (@JohnHyde1982) October 6, 2015
Michael Gove has finished his keynote speech. Mentions of legal aid: Nil. #cpc15
— John Hyde (@JohnHyde1982) October 6, 2015
In his speech James Timpson said about 14 years ago he visited a prison in Warrington. He met a prisoner who was due to be released who was bright and interesting. He gave him his card, and told him to get in touch after he was out because he could offer him a job. Subsequently Timpson took him on, and he is still with the firm today.
That encouraged him to recruit more employees from jails, he said.
I recruited some absolutely incredibly personalities. And at that stage I also recruited some people who quickly found their happiness elsewhere - it didn’t work out.
But he was determined to get to 10 ex-offenders. When he reached that number, he got his area managers together and told him what they had done. They approved, he said. And some of them revealed that they had previous convictions which they had had to lie about. So, after that, the firm decided to carry on hiring ex-offenders.
James Timpson, who runs the Timpson shoe repair business, has given a speech and he spoke about how the firm contributes to prisoner rehabilitation by hiring offenders to work in its shop. They can make very good employees, he said.
There are more details about how the firm hires prisoners here, on the Timpson blog.
I will post some quotes from the speech shortly.
(I’ve taken down an earlier post which said it was Edward Timpson, the children’s minister, speaking. James is his brother. They look similar.)
Here’s a Guardian video showing Owen Jones meeting Conservative members at the conference.
In his morning interviews David Cameron backed the main message in Theresa May’s speech this morning about the dangers of mass immigration.
But, according to the Times (paywall), Cameron is no longer supporting her on another aspect of immigration policy.
[May’s] tough rhetoric comes as The Times can reveal that David Cameron has abandoned support for Mrs May over her insistence that overseas students continue to be included in the government’s net migration target. George Osborne, the chancellor, and Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, have pressed for the removal of students from the figure, claiming that the current inclusion risks penalising universities and damaging Britain’s reputation abroad.
Excluding students from the target figure would make it easier for the government to meet its goal of reducing net migration from a record high of 330,000 this year to 100,000 by 2020. Yet Mrs May — regarded as the leading female contender for the Tory party leadership — believes the public would see it as “fiddling the figures”, further undermining credibility on the government’s handling of immigration. Aides insisted that Mrs May’s speech was not intended as a riposte to her rivals.
Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, has put out a statement about what Theresa May and David Cameron have been saying about immigration. (See 9.54am.)
What destroys cohesive society more than anything is whipping up fear and mistrust. David Cameron and Theresa May are encouraging division and hatred, encouraging a society that blames all its problems on those on the outside.
We must end this Conservative obsession with denigrating immigrants, which pitches community against community. Britain is socially, culturally and economically richer for our outward looking, tolerant approach. We unashamedly welcome the contribution immigrants make to our country.
David Cameron's morning interviews - Summary
David Cameron spent more than an hour this morning giving six radio and TV interviews. Here are the main points.
- Cameron claimed that Jeremy Hunt had been “widely misquoted” yesterday in relation to his comments saying the tax credit cuts would help to teach the British to work as hard as the Chinese.
As for what Jeremy Hunt said, I think he is being widely misquoted. And that’s why he himself went out again said, ‘Let me be clear, what we are talking about is making sure Britain is one of the success stories in our world and making sure that we help people to get work and provide for themselves and their families’.
Cameron is wrong to say that Hunt was “misquoted”. Hunt has not disputed that his words were accurately reported. What Cameron meant was that Hunt had been misinterpreted. Hunt himself issued a statement saying that he had been misinterpreted, and that he was not suggesting that people did not work hard. But, given that his original comments did suggest this, one might argue that, if he were misinterpreted, it was his own fault. Alternatively one might argue that he is simply retracting what he said because it proved embarrassing. You can read all the quotes in our story and decide for yourself.
- Cameron signalled that he might try to get the Commons to vote to back air strikes against Islamic State (Isis, or Isil as Cameron calls it) in Syria without the official support of Labour. He told Today:
Would I like to go further and make sure Britain plays a part in what is happening against Isil in Syria? Yes I would, and I think it would be the right thing for us to do. I can’t put a timescale on the vote because it is perfectly clear to me we have to got back to the House of Commons when there is a greater consensus across the House of Commons for that action.
Cameron says he thought Jeremy Corbyn, the new Labour leader, would not back him in any circumstances. “I don’t think, frankly, he sees what the Isis risk is,” Cameron said. But he suggested that some Labour MPs might support him regardless of what Corbyn said.
I hear a number of people who say they wish they had voted a different way on the chemical weapons issue.
- Cameron reaffirmed his opposition to allowing prisoners to vote. Speaking in advance of a ruling on this issue in France, which seems to back the British position, he said:
I haven’t changed my view at all. What’s happening today is a court case about a situation in France. Our own law has been tested recently and our supreme court opined that our law was right and that prisoners shouldn’t have the vote, and that’s my view ...
I’m very clear. Prisoners shouldn’t get the vote. It is a matter for the British parliament. The British parliament has spoken. The supreme court in Britain has spoken. So I’m content to leave it there.
- He said generous in-work benefits were “an additional draw” for EU migrants coming to the UK. This prompted this tweet from the BBC’s Dominic Casciani.
PM just told @BBCr4today welfare is a migration pull factor. My report from ages ago on the lack of evidence: http://t.co/26zxJvsyf2
— Dominic Casciani (@BBCDomC) October 6, 2015
- He ruled out reviewing the tax credit cuts.
These are fair changes, I think they are well designed, and I think we should continue with them.
He also said he did not accept there was growing concern amongst Tory MPs about cuts.
To say there’s growing hostility inside the Conservative party is going against the facts.
- He defended plans to withdraw child benefit from parents whose children persistently truant. As the Press Association reports, at present, non-payment of the £60 civil penalty in England for parents whose child misses school leads to it being doubled to £120 after 21 days and subject to prosecution after 28, but 40% still fail to pay and many do not end up in court because councils do not press legal action. The government has announced plans to take unpaid fines directly out of child benefit. Explaining the measure, Cameron said:
The point about this is about children: we all know the evidence that if you don’t attend school regularly you get a less good education, you get worse results, as a result your job prospects are much much worse and as a result your life chances - the opportunities you have to make the most of your talents - are severely reduced. That is why school attendance is so important.
These penalties are only imposed where someone has been fairly persistently truant and they can’t resolve this issue with the school. What we are saying today is where those fines aren’t paid, they should be taken out of a parent’s child benefit to make sure the signal is absolutely clear that it’s your duty as a parent to get your children to school every day. That is a very strong positive message to send out and I think on behalf of taxpayers who fund this child benefit, it is quite right to say to people: yes, child benefit is your right but with that right come some responsibilities.
- He said Corbyn’s policies were “worrying” and a threat to security. Asked about Corbyn speaking at a protest meeting in Manchester last night, he said:
It is a free country; he can go where he likes and say what he likes and I’m not going to restrict his movements. What is more worrying is what he is saying which is that he wants to put up taxes, which would wreck economic security, he wants to give up nuclear weapons, which would wreck our national security. So it is not a very edifying message.
- He rejected claims that Boris Johnson and George Osborne were at war. Johnson will reportedly use his speech to accuse Osborne of stealing his policies. Asked about this, Cameron said:
That’s great that Boris is coming up with good ideas and we are applying them in the rest of the country, and I dare say some of the ideas we are coming up with in the rest of the country, Boris does in London. There isn’t tension. This isn’t a Blair/Brown situation where everyone is at each other’s throats. Boris, George and I all work very closely together, we get on well together and I think you can see that.
- He rejected claims that George Osborne was his “chosen successor”. Asked about this, he said:
It’s not for me to choose a successor. We have a system where Members of Parliament vote and choose two candidates and then members of our party vote and choose the eventual winner. That’s how my successor will be chosen. It’s certainly not a coronation and it’s not my choice.
- He said he “wont’t be tempted” to stand for a third term as prime minister.
- He said he was annoyed by claims that he was a jinx on English sports teams.
That annoys me so much. That’s nonsense. Who was prime minister this summer when we won the Ashes, thank you very much? I was prime minister when we had the best ever haul of Olympic medals. I always support England and we don’t always win. Shock, horror, surprise. I shouldn’t let these things annoy me but I was there on the great night when Mo Farah won gold twice. I’ve witnessed some great sporting triumphs. There is no curse.
I’ve taken the quotes from the Press Association and from PoliticsHome.
Updated
David Cameron leaving the #r4today studio after his interview this morning pic.twitter.com/I43vvwH1KG
— Mary Ann Sieghart (@MASieghart) October 6, 2015
Cameron also said that the interview was “frank”.
"Wide ranging....and frank"...says Cameron but was it difficult? No
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) October 6, 2015
Robert Hutton, who wrote an excellent book about journalese, offers this translation of “wide-ranging”.
Cameron caught on mic at end of @BBCr4today interview: "That was wide-ranging." What could he mean? pic.twitter.com/DyGH5uU3kK
— Robert Hutton (@RobDotHutton) October 6, 2015
That seems accurate. Cameron has done six interviews now this morning. There was not a stand-out news line, but some of the answers were good. I’ll post a summary soon.
Q: In Anthony Seldon’s biography defence figures, like Lord Richards, are quoted criticising you. It is said you thought acting in Libya was in the national interest, when it was not?
Cameron says Lord Richards has written to him saying he does not recognise some of the quotes in the book.
Libya under Gaddafi was a threat, he says. Gaddafi supplied semtex to Republicans in Northern Ireland, he says. For all he knows that might still be in use.
And that’s it. The interview is over.
Afterwards Cameron was heard saying, when he thought the microphone was off, “that was wide-ranging”.
Q: Are you building a consensus in parliament for bombing Islamic State in Syria?
Cameron says the UK is already involved in the fight against Isis in Iraq. He would like to go further, he says. But he would need to put that to the Commons.
He says some Labour MPs now accept they took the wrong view on the Syria vote in 2013.
Q: Would you go ahead even if the Labour leader opposed?
Cameron says Jeremy Corbyn does not accept the need for action against Isis.
Q: Why are you willing to let President Assad stay in power in Syria?
Cameron says nothing has changed. He thinks Assad is a butcher. Assad cannot play a part in Syria’’s future, Cameron says.
Q: But Philip Hammond says he does not care if Assad remains as titular head of state for three months or longer.
Cameron says Assad cannot play a part in Syria’s future.
Q: So how long can he stay?
Cameron says they have not even started discussing this. And the Syrian people would not accept him staying.
Q: Are you making progress with your EU renegotation?
Yes, says Cameron. In Brussels people are sitting down and looking at the option.
In the summer the Eurozone countries drew up a plan that would involve spending British money. Cameron says he stopped that. That illustrates why reform is needed, he says.
Q: Looking back at your decision to veto the EU treaty, do you regret burning bridges with EU leaders?
Cameron says he does not accept that he did burn bridges.
This Friday is his birthday, he says. He is spending it with Angela Merkel who is coming to Chequers to discuss the renegotiation.
Q: Do you agree with what Theresa May is saying about mass immigration making it impossible to build a cohesive society?
Cameron says she is saying it makes it much harder, and he agrees with that.
Q: She is saying it makes it impossible.
Cameron accepts that. He says Britain has a good record of integrating migrants. But that government has to control mass immigration. He lists measures that have been taken.
The welfare system needs to be made less attractive to immigrants, he says.
Q: EU leaders won’t budge on freedom of movement.
Cameron says at the moment people can come to the UK and claim benefits worth thousands of pounds. People who train as nurses in countries like Greece are coming to the UK to do other jobs because the system is attractive.
Q: George Osborne said yesterday on this programme that 9 out of 10 families would be better when other measures are taken into account alongside the tax credit cuts. So one family in 10 will lose out?
Osborne says the IFS figures are misleading, because they do not take into account factors like the free childcare.
Q: Isn’t it un-Conservative to take tax credits away from people who work?
Cameron says the tax credits bill went up enormously. Yet in-work poverty went up too.
Q: Would Mrs Thatcher have done this?
I don’t know what she would have done, says Cameron.
Q: Minimum wage is not the same as tax credits. They benefit two different groups.
That is a mistake, says Cameron.
That was the Labour assumption - that just giving people extra money would help them out of poverty.
He says the government wants to address the causes of poverty.
David Cameron's Today interview
David Cameron is on Today now. Mishal Husain is interviewing him.
Q: You are now governing without the Lib Dems. What do you want the hallmark of the Cameron years to be?
Cameron says he wants to be known for rescuing the economy, and for providing economic security, for people at work and for people in retirement too.
A good government would be one that delivers economic security, and delivers national security, he says.
A great one would be one that tackles some of our deep-seated social problems, he says.
He says he is passionate about the health service. That is why he wants it working on a full seven-day basis.
Problems in the care system, in prisons, and with entrenched poverty need tackling. We need better schools, and childcare, and we also need to address drug problems, he says.
Here are some highlights from David Cameron’s morning interviews so far.
On Jeremy Hunt’s comments about tax credits
Cameron says he read top line of Hunt story and thought "what's going on here?", but read full quote and not as reported @lbc
— Graeme Demianyk (@GraemeDemianyk) October 6, 2015
Cameron: "We are a hard-working country. We are not missing a work ethic. Where we're falling behind America is on productivity." @bbc5live
— Graeme Demianyk (@GraemeDemianyk) October 6, 2015
Tax credits
Cameron defending tax credit cuts: "People will earn more and keep more of their money. They are fair changes." @bbc5live
— Graeme Demianyk (@GraemeDemianyk) October 6, 2015
On immigration
Britian shd be proud that it is a multi national, multi ethnic democracy - David Cameron
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) October 6, 2015
Cameron tells @EamonnHolmes that he agrees with Theresa May on immigration that "the levels have been too high."
— Jason Farrell (@JasonFarrellSky) October 6, 2015
On his successor as prime minister
"I am halfway through this job" - David Cameron tells @EamonnHolmes, talking of doing "two terms for 10 years"
— Asa Bennett (@asabenn) October 6, 2015
Asked if he could be tempted to stay on, Cameron says "No, as I see it I'm half-way through the job ... two terms, ten years." @SkyNews
— Graeme Demianyk (@GraemeDemianyk) October 6, 2015
Cameron won't lay a bet on his successor as he's not a gambler. "I didn't inherit the habit." @SkyNews
— Graeme Demianyk (@GraemeDemianyk) October 6, 2015
By “his” he meant his father, who did used to bet, he told Sky.
On Jeremy Corbyn’s visit to Manchester last night
Cameron on @SkyNews on Corbyn rally in same city: "It's a free country. I can't place restrictions."
— Graeme Demianyk (@GraemeDemianyk) October 6, 2015
On the school truancy changes
David Cameron asked if his children have ever skipped school: ‘no they haven’t played truant.’
— Ned Simons (@nedsimons) October 6, 2015
I notice on @GMB the prime minister avoided answering whether he every played truant himself.
— Ned Simons (@nedsimons) October 6, 2015
On sport
Cameron says his sporting "curse" is "nonsense": "Who was the PM when we won the Ashes? During the Olympics medal haul?" @lbc
— Graeme Demianyk (@GraemeDemianyk) October 6, 2015
David Cameron has just told Radio 5 Live that he thinks the government should continue with the tax credit cuts.
David Cameron is just winding up an interview on LBC. Here is where he has been sitting.
The PM doing an early morning turn on the wireless at #cpc15 pic.twitter.com/n8RFahouC3
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) October 6, 2015
David Cameron is doing a round of interviews this morning from the Conservative conference. I have heard three already, and mostly they have been pretty dull, but two lines have emerged.
- Cameron has said that Jeremy Hunt was “widely misquoted” yesterday when he said that the tax credit cuts will help the British to learn how to work as hard as the Chinese. (Hunt’s words are quoted in the Guardian splash. He is not claiming they have been inaccurately reported. You can read them yourself and decide if they have been misinterpreted.)
Tuesday's Guardian front page - Hunt: welfare cuts encourage harder work #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers #cpc15 pic.twitter.com/qBQrVkoawA
— Nick Sutton (@suttonnick) October 5, 2015
- Cameron has said he agrees with the claims Theresa May is making in her speech today about immigration. As the Guardian reports, she will say that mass migration of the past decade is no longer sustainable and is threatening Britain’s cohesion.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.10am: David Cameron is interviewed on the Today programme.
10.30am: Session on home affairs and justice, with speeches from Michael Gove, the justice secretary, and Theresa May, the home secretary.
11.50am: Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, speaks.
1pm: George Osborne is interviewed by Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, at a fringe event.
2.30pm: Session on education, health and work and pensions, with speeches from Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, the work and pensions secretary, and Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary.
If you want to follow me or get in touch on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
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