The dust is far from settling after Sir John Chilcot’s devastating critique of Britain’s role in the war in Iraq – and Tony Blair’s emotional but defiant response. You can read a briefing on what we now know here.
And here is some key reading:
- The key points of the report: the failures of intelligence and of the people involved in making the decision to go to war.
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The letters written by Blair to then US president George Bush, including the now instantly infamous memo: “I will be with you, whatever.”
- The Guardian roundup: what the report said and how Blair responded.
- The soldiers’ families: “Blair is the world’s worst terrorist.”
- The Guardian view: “a country ruined, trust shattered, a reputation trashed”.
The big picture
The two finalists in the competition to be prime minister will be revealed this evening, after one more knock-out round in which two of the candidates seem to be vying to be the first to knock themselves out.
In the “I voted leave plus know how to do governmenty things” corner is Michael Gove, whose campaign manager Nick Boles has been forced to apologise after texting MPs to tell them he was “seriously frightened” that Andrea Leadsom, and not Gove, might make it on to the final ballot. Why so scary?
What if Theresa [May] stumbles? Are we really confident that the membership won’t vote for a fresh face who shares their attitudes about much of modern life? Like they did with IDS.
We don’t yet know what the Tory party membership and their “attitudes” make of it all, but the slighted Iain Duncan Smith (a Leadsom supporter) was roused from his quietude:
People with knives will end up stabbing themselves … I do think emails and texts like that are failing to smell the coffee.
(I know there are apps that can order coffee, but a text that can smell it would be even better.)
Boles has apologised, saying Gove was unaware of the courting campaign:
He did not know about it let alone authorise it. And it does not reflect his views.
But at a leadership hustings in Westminster yesterday evening, Gove is reported to have “giggled” when asked about the texts.
No giggling from frontrunner Theresa May, who issued a statement saying she did not encourage tactical voting:
I have been clear from the start: the party and the country deserve an open, honest, robust debate — and the next leader needs to have won a mandate to lead. So there should be no deals, no tactical voting and no coronation.
You can read the full Boles text here, courtesy of the Times’ Sam Coates, but here’s its unsetting conclusion:
Michael doesn’t mind spending two months taking a good thrashing from Theresa but in the party’s interest and the national interest surely we must work together to stop AL?
And what might stop AL, over in the “I voted leave plus used to be a banker but not the kind nobody likes” corner? That banking experience for a start.
More creases have appeared in Leadsom’s CV, which her team published yesterday after what supporter Penny Mordaunt called “ a concerted effort to rubbish a stellar career”. As Guardian colleagues report:
Leadsom’s CV has raised a number of further questions because it omits some company directorships, alters existing claims and fails to clear up question marks over sections of her City career.
See here for those questions in full. Also missing is Leadsom’s tax return – May and Gove have published theirs – which she says she will share only if she makes the final two. Don’t read anything into that, mind. Leadsom told the hustings her tax affairs were “very boring”. Perhaps she’s simply sparing us all the tedium of reading it.
There’s a Labour leadership scuffle going on too, right? Maybe not, for now. The Telegraph reports today that the resigning rebels are “in retreat”. At a Momentum rally in support of Jeremy Corbyn yesterday, Jon Trickett, a close ally of the Labour leader, told the crowd:
Our party must never again be led by someone who is unrepentant in their record supporting war.
Angela Eagle, widely considered the most likely candidate to try to topple Corbyn, voted for the war in Iraq in 2003.
Corbyn yesterday apologised on behalf of the Labour party for “the disastrous decision” to go to war. And he later won a (little) vote of (mostly) confidence in his own Islington North constituency, where the members in St George’s ward backed him by 36 votes to 27.
Does anyone have a Brexit plan yet?
MPs in the Commons yesterday voted to “commit today that EU nationals currently living in the UK shall have the right to remain”. The government – which isn’t compelled to take any notice – abstained, but others voted 245-2 in favour of the guarantee. Boris Johnson (still an MP, remember) spoke in support of the motion, saying Vote Leave had obviously intended all along that EU nationals should feel totally relaxed about their future in the UK.
Not feeling relaxed are property funds, with three more suspended yesterday after a rush on withdrawals. And France said it would lure banking firms from London to Paris, with prime minister Manuel Valls saying:
We want to build the financial capital of the future. In a word, now is the time to come to France.
(Which is not “a word”, even in French, so how good is he with numbers, really?)
The stories you might have missed yesterday
John Chilcot might have been releasing his mammoth, attention-consuming report, but there were some decisions the government just had to make on Wednesday.
- Jeremy Hunt will impose a new contract on junior doctors, after they rejected it in a ballot. The health secretary said he would not hold any further talks with the BMA, the doctors’ union.
- NHS England said it would scrap care.data, the controversial single database of patients’ medical details.
- The Home Office announced a 1% pay rise for police officers, a figure condemned as “insulting” by the Police Federation.
You should also know:
- MPs on the education select committee rejected Nicky Morgan’s choice to be the new Ofsted head, Amanda Spielman.
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Anna Soubrey, the minister for small business, said the government would consider nationalising Tata Steel.
Poll position
Survation polling of voters (before Liam Fox and Stephen Crabb retired from the running) gives quite a boost to Theresa May and quite the kicking to Michael Gove.
NEW POLL: Theresa May “Most Favourable” of Conservative Leadership Contenders https://t.co/eEpQ4IOTvQ pic.twitter.com/8J5pcTaDSc
— Survation. (@Survation) July 6, 2016
Among Conservative party members only, Survation adds, May’s approval rating leaps to +69, “where Michael Gove’s in particular was as low as -50”. Still, the only way is up. Or actually, no. It could go to -100? Statisticians, please advise.
Diary
- The second – and for MPs, final – round of voting in the Tory leadership contest starts, with a result due around 5pm.
- At 9.30am Andrea Leadsom makes a speech on the economy.
- At the same time, the ONS annual figures on the personal wellbeing of UK citizens, including levels of happiness and anxiety, are released. Smile, everyone.
- At 10.45am, foreign secretary Philip Hammond appears before MPs on the foreign affairs select committee.
- At 4pm there’s a one-hour debate in the Lords on options for a second EU referendum, led by Oona King.
Read these
Jacob Rees-Mogg, writing in the Telegraph, thinks Michael Gove could be the new Winston Churchill. Or perhaps a new Margaret Thatcher:
Churchill had an indomitable belief in the country and Margaret Thatcher was similarly willing to take political risks to do what she saw as right. A comparable figure is needed today not because leaving the European Union is risky but because it opens up a golden chance for our nation …
Michael Gove has shown all these qualities … He put his country before the easy life of Notting Hill friendship and when he believes he is wrong he has the courage to change his mind. These are the qualities needed at this most exciting of times.
Lord Young, in the Times, however, thinks it’s Theresa May who could grab the Thatcher mantle:
Just as Margaret was the leader for her time, so I believe that Theresa is for ours.
No word on whether she can also do a passable Churchill.
Suzanne Moore in the Guardian thinks both May and Andrea Leadsom are Thatcher MK II:
Neither of these women is liberal, despite May’s late conversion to gay marriage and Leadsom’s concerns about mother/baby bonding. They are extremely rightwing and May has repeatedly used fear of immigration to ramp up her own leadership bid. The fact remains that Leadsom, with her overdeveloped CV, reluctance to publish her tax returns, the backing of Arron Banks and previous remarks on the total deregulation of small businesses so that workers might lose many of their rights, including maternity leave, is even worse.
Back in the more recent past, a vote was won for Britain to leave the EU. In the New Statesman, Ipsos Mori’s Aalia Khan assesses why immigration was key:
Ipsos Mori’s longitudinal study on attitudes to immigration revealed that there is huge amount of churn in the people who are more positive about immigration and want to see it increase. Contrary to expectations of this group of people being a stable core of liberals, their views are more likely to change than those who want immigration to decrease.
Only four in 10 of those who said they would like to see the number of immigrants coming to Britain increased in February of this year held the same position in June. Over a third changed their minds to say that they wanted the numbers reduced.
Zinger of the day
Theresa May is getting this printed on a t-shirt:
Ken Clarke might have found me to be a ‘bloody difficult woman’. The next person to find that out will be Jean-Claude Juncker.
Baffling claim of the day
The Paris Ritz hotel has reopened, and Lady Amanda Harlech – described as a “writer, creative consultant and muse of the Chanel designer Karl Lagerfeld” – told the New York Times how dreadful the period of closure (since 2012) had been:
There was a sense of devastation and loss – not unlike Brexit – a sort of grief.
The day in a tweet
London stands united to remember the victims of the 7/7 bombings #WalkTogether pic.twitter.com/cUHAiyoEzF
— Heart London (@HeartLondon) July 7, 2016
If today were a song
It would be Back Stabbers by The O’Jays. “What they do/They smile in your face/All the time they want to take your place.” And compare you to Iain Duncan Smith.
And another thing
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