Early afternoon summary
- Nick Gibb, the schools minister, has come unstuck after he tried to answer a grammar question for 11-year-olds. As the Press Association reports, Gibb was subjected to a ticking off after he apparently failed to differentiate between a preposition and a subordinating conjunction. Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s World At One, Gibb was tackled by presenter Martha Kearney over concerns among parents that Sats tests for primary school children were too prescriptive and risked putting them off reading. “Let me give you this sentence: ‘I went to the cinema after I’d eaten my dinner’. Is the word ‘after’ there being used as a subordinating conjunction or as a preposition,” Kearney asked. “It’s a preposition,” Gibb replied confidently, only for Kearney to shoot back: “I don’t think it is. In this sentence it is being used as a subordinating conjunction.” Gibb protested: “’After’ is a preposition. It can be used in some contexts as a word that co-ordinates a sub-clause.” He added: “This isn’t about me. This is about ensuring that future generations of children - unlike me incidentally, who was not taught grammar at primary school - we need to make sure that future generations are taught grammar properly.”
- Coalition air strikes have helped reduce Islamic State forces in Syria and Iraq to their lowest levels for two years, the defence secretary Michael Fallon has told cabinet. Around 600 fighters with the terror group have been killed over the past month, bringing the total deaths to around 25,000, said Downing Street.
- An Opinium poll for the Evening Standard has shown Khan extending his lead over Zac Goldsmith. Khan is now nine points ahead on first preference votes.
- Doctors’ leaders have accused the Government of being in “denial” over the funding crisis facing the NHS. As the Press Association reports, claiming that the NHS is fully-funded is a “fantasy”, the British Medical Association (BMA) said. The doctors’ union said the health service was facing “cuts and efficiencies” despite ministerial claims of increased spending. Speaking at an urgent meeting called by doctors’ leaders to discuss the “funding and workforce crisis across the UK health service”, Dr Mark Porter, chairman of council at the BMA, said the government had “put the squeeze” on hospitals, general practice and doctors. He said:
It is a health service with a revenue larger than the GDP of many countries but which would struggle to get a credit rating - which suffers from debt, but is crippled by denial.
The chancellor speaks of a ‘fully-funded’ NHS but has come up with less than a third of the extra £30bn in England alone that he admits it needs.
Stop and reflect on that for a moment. A government claiming to increase resources while the mathematically competent can see that it’s all cuts and efficiencies.
His claims are fantasy, but so too are his solutions. He says we just need to be more efficient. So much more efficient that £22bn worth of work that we do apparently won’t exist, or won’t cost anything, in four years’ time.
That’s all from me for today. I’ve got to wrap up early to do some election planning.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
Diane Abbott, the shadow international development secretary and a key ally of Jeremy Corbyn’s, has told the BBC that even if there were a leadership challenge, Corbyn would win easily.
If Labour held leadership contest @jeremycorbyn wd still win with 60% support of members says @HackneyAbbott
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) May 3, 2016
She also said the party was making “steady progress” towards the 2020 election.
Labour under @jeremycorbyn is making "steady progress" towards 2020 elex says @HackneyAbbott
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) May 3, 2016
Thursday’s elections will be analysed primarily in terms of what they say about the state of the political parties. But, as my colleague John Harris reports in his latests Anywhere but Westminster video, in some places people standing for election are giving up on parties altogether.
Open Democracy has published a long interview this morning with Norman Finkelstein, the American academic and political activist who says that the image of Israel superimposed on a map of the US, which was part of the “transportation” Facebook post that led to the Labour MP Naz Shah being suspended from the party, was taken from his website. He says he is surprised it caused so much outrage.
Here’s an extract.
I’m not adept enough with computers to compose any image. But I did post the map on my website in 2014. An email correspondent must have sent it. It was, and still is, funny. Were it not for the current political context, nobody would have noticed Shah’s reposting of it either. Otherwise, you’d have to be humourless. These sorts of jokes are a commonplace in the U.S. So, we have this joke: Why doesn’t Israel become the 51st state? Answer: Because then, it would only have two senators. As crazy as the discourse on Israel is in America, at least we still have a sense of humour. It’s inconceivable that any politician in the U.S. would be crucified for posting such a map.
(At a colleague points out, in controversies of this kind it is worth remembering that what matters is not just what gets said, but who says it.)
No 10 lobby briefing - Summary
Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing.
- Number 10 hinted that the government will make further concessions on unaccompanied child refugees after suffering a defeat in the Lords on this last week at the hands of the Labour peer Lord Dubs. MPs rejected a Dubs amendment to the immigration bill saying the UK should take in 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees from Europe, but peers passed an alternative amendment saying the government should admit an unspecified number. The bill will return to the Commons next week. Rather than just say the government would oppose the new Dubs amendment, the prime minister’s spokeswoman said:
We would expect that amendment to come back to the Commons next week. Therefore there’s a bit of time for the government to be thinking about that and how we make progress on the immigration bill ... As on any bill, it is quite sensible that you consider how you take it through the House and how you get it onto the statute book.
The government is under pressure to compromise because an increasing number of Tory MPs seem minded to back the Dubs amendment. Sir Eric Pickles, the former communities secretary, has become the most senior figure to say he could side with Dubs on this issue.
- Downing Street defended the rules used to stop former ministers and officials taking private sector jobs that create a conflict of interest. The Daily Mail has splashed today on a story saying that scores of former ministers and civil servants are getting jobs in the sectors they used to regulate. Asked about this, the spokeswoman said: “The procedures in place have been strengthened to make sure that ministers and civil servants cannot benefit unfairly from their time in government.”
- The spokeswoman says she was not aware of any “specific discussions” to invite Bill Clinton to come to the UK to campaign against Brexit. The Times reports today that a Clinton visit is being planned. See 11.56am.
- Cabinet ministers discussed the Queen’s speech at cabinet this morning. It was the cabinet’s second discussion of the Queen’s speech, which is taking place on 18 May. The spokeswoman would not give details of what the speech will contain (it is supposed to be secret until the Queen delivers it), but the spokeswoman effectively confirmed the Times story (see 11.56am) saying it will contain an extremism bill. She said the government had set out its counter-extremist strategy last year and that it would be working to “take it forward” over the coming year.
- Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister, gave the cabinet a briefing on the implementation of government policies. He said that the government had made progress on devolution and on the national living wage, but that housing and the seven-day NHS were in the “more to do” category, the spokeswoman said.
- More than 600 Islamic State (Isis) fighters have been killed in the last month, the spokeswoman said. She said Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, included the figure when he gave colleagues an update on the the fight against Isis at cabinet, ahead of an international summit on this later this week. Fallon also said that the number of Isis fighters was at its lowest level for two years.
- Cameron is giving evidence to the Commons liaison committee tomorrow about the EU referendum.
Updated
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
As for the rest of the papers, here is the PoliticsHome list of top 10 must-reads, and here is the ConservativeHome round-up of today’s political stories.
And here are six articles I found interesting.
Two of the most controversial figures in recent political history are plotting a reunion. Bill Clinton is understood to be preparing to return to Britain to campaign with Tony Blair to urge voters to stay in the European Union.
The former US president will fly in to reinforce the message delivered by President Obama two weeks ago. The itinerary cannot be agreed until President Clinton’s wife, Hillary, knows for certain that she has secured the Democratic nomination for the presidential election in November. One source said, however: “We expect this will happen.”
There is no question where the Clintons stand on Britain’s EU membership. “Hillary Clinton believes that transatlantic co-operation is essential, and that co-operation is strongest when Europe is united,” Jake Sullivan, her senior policy adviser, told a newspaper. “She has always valued a strong United Kingdom in a strong EU. And she values a strong British voice in the EU.”
Eurozone economies would gain at the expense of Britain if the UK voted to leave the EU, a leading French economist has predicted, with a relocation of financial activity out of London causing sterling to plummet.
Mathilde Lemoine, a prominent member of the French government’s budgetary watchdog and chief economist of the Edmond de Rothschild private bank, said sterling could rapidly fall 34 per cent against the euro.
The report by the private bank demonstrated how European finance houses could profit from Brexit if the Leave campaign wins the referendum on June 23.
Ms Lemoine, also a former adviser to the French prime minister, wrote that the rapid relocation of financial activity would add to the “brutal drop” in sterling she expects after a vote for Brexit.
Senior Labour MPs believe they have persuaded party grandee Dame Margaret Hodge to stand against Jeremy Corbyn to spark a leadership contest.
They want the veteran Labour MP to be the stalking horse who begins the toppling of the hard-Left leader.
The plotters are also close to signing up 50 Labour MPs to publicly back her potential challenge this summer.
A fifth of the Parliamentary Labour Party must support her to make it formal and start a full-blown contest.
David Cameron is to put curbing Islamist extremism at the heart of the Queen’s Speech this month as he seeks to fend off claims that he is becoming a lame-duck prime minister.
Measures to ban organisations, gag individuals and close down premises used to “promote hatred” are to be included in an Extremism Bill that will be announced on May 18. Mr Cameron will seek to balance the action with a promise of extra help to bring isolated British Muslims into the mainstream.
The drive will begin with the launch of an independent review of how Sharia courts are operating in Britain. Theresa May, the home secretary, who first promised last December to investigate claims of a “parallel” justice system , has now finalised its terms of reference and is expected to announce the inquiry in the next fortnight.
For the United Kingdom to remain in the EU would be particularly perverse, since not even our political elites wish to see this country absorbed into a United States of Europe.
To be part of a political project whose objective we emphatically do not share cannot possibly make sense. It is true that our present Prime Minister argues that he has secured a British “opt-out” from the political union, but this is completely meaningless.
“But,” comes the inevitable question, “what is your alternative to membership of the EU?” A more absurd question it would be hard to envisage.
The alternative to being in the EU is not being in the EU. And it may come as a shock to the little Europeans that most of the world is not in the EU – and that most of these countries are doing better economically than most of the EU.
Today Lawson has published a pamphlet for Politeia on this subject.
This is the rhythm of a parliament: voters make a snap judgment of the political leaders, mentally tune out for five years save the occasional scrap of news and then, in time for the general election, tune back in to go over evidence that mostly firms up their original instinct.
We are in that middle lull. The 30 per cent that Labour still scores in the polls is historic in its awfulness at this point of the cycle and unrealistically flattering at the same time. Deduct seven points for a truer picture of its destiny in 2020. What feels like a crisis will not fully register in electoral outcomes for years yet, and certainly not on Thursday, when victory in London should cloak failures elsewhere and give Mr Corbyn his told-you-so moment. The sun has not even dawned yet on Labour’s landscape of desolation.
I’m off to the Number 10 lobby briefing now. I will post again after 12.30pm.
Warren Buffett says UK should stay in the EU
Warren Buffett, the American who is generally seen as the world’s most successful investor, has intervened in the EU referendum debate. And he thinks Brexit would be a mistake. This is what he told CNBC:
I hope they stay in … Certainly if I were to vote on it, I would vote, I would stay in ... It would be a big step backward [for the EU if the UK left].
My colleague Rafael Behr isn’t very impressed by Labour’s poster.
Labour's poster "elections are about taking sides" is wrong in a very revealing way. Most people plump for least worst option on ballot ..
— Rafael Behr (@rafaelbehr) May 3, 2016
It takes a v insular, tribal view of politics to presume that people will rally to the party that says: "Be with us or you're one of them"
— Rafael Behr (@rafaelbehr) May 3, 2016
... which is a very deep-rooted arrogance in Labour about its entitlement to be the good guys.
— Rafael Behr (@rafaelbehr) May 3, 2016
Corbyn criticises media for focusing on Labour leadership, not issues like inequality
And here are the exact quotes from what Jeremy Corbyn had to say at the poster launch about speculation about his leadership being generated by the media, and about standing again if there is a leadership challenge. He was talking to the BBC’s Norman Smith.
[People] are talking about housing, they’re talking about poverty, they’re talking about NHS cuts, they are talking about zero-hours contracts, they are talking about low wages, they are talking about a crisis of expectation for young people. It’s time, quite honestly, that many in the golden circle of the media establishment actually got out a bit and listened to what people are saying.
Q: You think this is actually got up by the media?
I think many of the media are obsessed with this rather than what they should be obsessed with, the devastating crisis of inequality in our society.
Q: And if there is a challenge, will you stand come what may?
I’m here. I’m going nowhere.
Q: So you’ll stand come what may?
I’m here. I’m going on. Of course I will.
(Listening to the exchange in full also explains the confusion about “golden circle/gilded circle”. See 10.08am. Corbyn initially said “golded circle”, which Smith may have corrected in his tweet to gilded circle, before Corbyn corrected himself and said “golden circle”.)
Jeremy Corbyn’s prediction that Labour will not lose seats in the local elections may sound like a very modest benchmark but, in the light a recent forecast from the local elections experts Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher, it is quite significant. Rallings and Thrasher are academics who specialise in council elections and, in an article in the Sunday Times (paywall), they said that recent council byelections suggest Labour is on course to lose 150 seats. Here’s an extract.
Labour’s task is put into sharp relief by the latest Sunday Times survey of local government by-election results. This shows Labour on 30%, down nine points compared with four years ago. The Tories have a national equivalent vote share of 31%, down two points. The Lib Dems continue to perform better at real elections than in the polls with a rating of 16%. Ukip is on 12% — equivalent to its performance at last year’s general election, but a long way short of their 2013-14 surge.
If those figures are reflected in the actual votes cast, Labour could lose about 150 seats in the English local elections, with each of its opponents making modest gains. It would mean Labour is stuck far below any level necessary for it to mount a convincing challenge at the 2020 general election.
My colleague Heather Stewart has also produced a very useful guide as to what the results might mean for Labour.
Corbyn says Labour will not lose seats in the local elections
Jeremy Corbyn has been talking to reporters at the launch of the new Labour election poster. Here are some of the key points.
- Corbyn claimed the media were to blame for raising the prospect of a threat to his leadership. But reporters who were at the event seem divided as to whether Corbyn talked about a “golden circle” of media ...
Corbyn hits out at "golden circle" of the media who should be talking about real issues not possible leadership challenge
— Rowena Mason (@rowenamason) May 3, 2016
Asked about opposition from Labour MPs to his leadership, Jeremy Corbyn criticises "the golden circle" of "the media establishment"
— Michael Deacon (@MichaelPDeacon) May 3, 2016
Or a “gilded circle” ...
"Gilded circle of the media" to blame for leadership speculation says @jeremycorbyn
— norman smith (@BBCNormanS) May 3, 2016
- He said the media should gets obsessed with issues live poverty instead.
Corbyn responded to Qs about challenge after election by saying the media should stop "obsessing" over him and start obsessing over poverty
— Luke James (@LEJ88) May 3, 2016
- He said that, if Labour MPs did trigger a fresh leadership contest, he would stand again.
Corbyn says "of course" he wd stand again if a challenge but dismisses as got up by the media <it really isn't-some MPs seriously discussing
— Rowena Mason (@rowenamason) May 3, 2016
- He predicted that Labour would not lose seats in the local elections.
Jeremy Corbyn says Labour is not going to lose seats at local election, is looking to gain seats
— Rowena Mason (@rowenamason) May 3, 2016
Corbyn: we are not going to lose seats
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) May 3, 2016
- He said that the antisemitism issue in Labour had been “dealt with”.
New: Corbyn said "anti Semitic issue has been dealt with". Said he won't lose seats on Thursday and would def stand in leadership election
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) May 3, 2016
- He joked about the photographers being better behaved than they are outside his house.
Press pack taking photos of Corbyn from sensible distance. JC quips "why arent you like this when outside my house?" pic.twitter.com/7enSmafzbM
— James Schneider (@schneiderhome) May 3, 2016
But Corbyn did not answer all the questions. This is from the Sun’s Harry Cole.
Also Corbyn ran away when I asked him whether he agreed with Ken Livingstone that Hitler was a Zionist.
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) May 3, 2016
Goldsmith says Mail on Sunday wrong to use 7/7 picture to illustrate his anti-Khan article
Zac Goldsmith, the Conservative candidate for mayor of London, has just finished a phone-in on LBC. Here are the main points.
- Goldsmith criticised the Mail on Sunday for its decision to use a picture of the 7/7 terror attack to illustrate an article he wrote this weekend saying that Labour is a party that has “intentionally or not, repeatedly legitimised those with extremist views”. He said that he did not choose the picture and that its use was “inappropriate” and “a mistake”. But he said he stood by the article. The publication of the article prompted Lady Warsi, the former Conservative party chairman, to post this tweet.
This is not the @ZacGoldsmith I know.
— Sayeeda Warsi (@SayeedaWarsi) May 1, 2016
Are we @Conservatives fighting 2 destroy Zac or fighting to win this election? pic.twitter.com/fzYBUDSjMG
BuzzFeed’s Siraj Datoo says he asked Goldsmith’s team on Sunday if they would be complaining to the Mail on Sunday about the picture used to illustrate the article but that he never got an answer.
@jupean @brianmoore666 I asked his team on Sunday if they would complain. Still had no response by the end of the day.
— Siraj Datoo (@dats) May 3, 2016
- Goldsmith brushed aside criticism of his campaign from Kingston Mosque in his constituency. In a statement yesterday the mosque said:
The singling out of rival Sadiq Khan MP because of his Muslim faith, as pointed out by a number of senior Conservative Muslim politicians, and the subsequent insinuation that he may be soft on terror as a result of it, is extremely troubling. Muslim communities must not be used as pawns as part of a wider political strategy to win elections. It is deeply irresponsible and rather than unifying diverse communities it will undermine the social fabric that makes London such a great city.
Goldsmith said the mosque was reaction to the picture in the Mail on Sunday article. That was not his responsibility, he said.
- He said that he has never suggested that Sadiq Khan, his Labour rival, is on the wrong side of the debate on extremism, but that he does think Khan has shown “appalling judgment” in sharing platforms with people who are.
- Goldsmith claimed that his campaign had been overwhelmingly positive, and that he did not regret sending out the controversial leaflet to British Indians saying a vote for Sadiq Khan would put their family heirlooms at risk.
- He claimed that antisemitism was an “open wound” in the Labour party.
- He said the government should be more willing to let Afghan interpreters who worked for the British army live in the UK.
Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
Here’s the poster Jeremy Corbyn is launching today.
Jez to McDonnell: "come on John, put a smile on your face". pic.twitter.com/ivvK7DHIZX
— Harry Cole (@MrHarryCole) May 3, 2016
The Labour party has publicly suspended around a dozen members since October last year over racist or antisemitic comments, but the Telegraph splash today claims that real number of members suspended could be as high as 50. It says many of the suspensions have not been acknowledged publicly. Here is the key excerpt.
A senior source within the party told The Daily Telegraph that the problem went much further and the compliance unit has actually suspended 50 members in the past two months.
They include up to 20 members within the past two weeks alone, with the unit struggling to cope because it does not have necessary resources.
A Labour source said the Telegraph’s claim was “a wild overestimate” and that the “majority” of suspensions for antisemitism were already in the public domain.
There are less than 48 hours to go until polls open for the May elections and this morning Jeremy Corbyn is out launching a Labour poster. He has also given an interview to the Daily Mirror in which he played down the antisemitism row and insisted that he had no intention of quitting. Here are the key lines.
- Corbyn said he had no intention of resigning as Labour leader. He suggested he was not worried about a challenge to his leadership, and told his critics they should “respect the mandate” he has. Asked about a possible leadership challenge he said:
If there is one, there is one – but I’m not having sleepless nights about this.
I was elected with a very big mandate to do the job, and I am doing the job.
He said he would stay on as Labour leader regardless of how bad the election results were for the party on Thursday. Asked if any result could be so bad he would quit, he replied: “No, I’m carrying on.” He said he had a message for Labour MPs plotting to get rid of him.
Respect the mandate. Respect the wishes of party members.
And he insisted that there was more to the Labour party than the parliamentary party.
The parliamentary Labour party are a very important part of the Labour movement - but it’s not the only part.
- He refused to set a target for how many seats Labour should gain in the local elections. “There are no goals, no targets,” he said. He said he wanted “the best result we can get.”
- He played down the significance of the row about antisemitism in Labour. Asked about this, he said:
No, there is not a huge problem.
What there is is a very small number of people that have said things that they should not have done.
“We have therefore said they will be suspended and investigated.”
- He accused Zac Goldsmith of running a “depressingly negative, nasty campaign” in London against Sadiq Khan.
I am surprised and disappointed. Zac Goldsmith is somebody I always assumed was a sort of liberal Tory, good on the environment and everything.
He’s run a depressingly negative, nasty campaign, personally vilifying Sadiq Khan. It’s no way to conduct politics. He is diminished in my view.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.15am: Jeremy Corbyn delivers a short speech at the unveiling of a new Labour election poster.
9.30am: Sadiq Khan, Labour’s candidate for London mayor, delivers a speech on the choice facing voters on Thursday.
10.30am: Nigel Farage, the Ukip leader, unveils an election poster in London.
Morning: Number 10 lobby briefing.
11am: Nick Gibb, the schools minister, gives a speech to the Boarding Schools Association conference.
2.15pm: Alison Saunders, director of public prosecutions, gives evidence to the public accounts committee on confiscation orders.
As usual, I will also be covering the breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime but I may wrap up early in the afternoon.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m @AndrewSparrow.
I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
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