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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

General election cost taxpayers £141m, government reveals - politics live

Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs.
Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs. Photograph: Sky News

Afternoon summary

  • Theresa May’s decision to call a snap election cost the taxpayer £141m, the Cabinet Office has revealed. (See 4.42pm.)
  • The Commons has passed a Labour motion saying that NHS workers should get a “fair pay rise” and that the public sector pay cap in the NHS should be lifted. With the DUP planning to support Labour, the Conservatives, who don’t have a majority without DUP, faced defeat if they opposed the motion and so they chose to abstain, meaning the motion was passed by acclamation, without any MPs objecting. The result is not binding, but it does amount to a symbolic victory for Jeremy Corbyn who called for the public sector pay cap to go at PMQs. Government sources have revealed that in future the Tories will sidestep the risk of defeat when the Commons is debating opposition day motions by treating them as irrelevant and allowing their MPs to stay away. (See 5.50pm.)
  • The Police Federation has accused May of lying about police pay at PMQs. (See 3.43pm.)
  • Michael Gove, the environment secretary, has told MPs the government is considering imposing a cap on the amount any landowner can receive in agricultural subsidies after Brexit. Currently subsidies are paid by the EU under the common agricultural policy. After Brexit the government plans to introduce its own version. When the Labour MP Paul Flynn put it to Gove at an environment select committee hearing that aristocrats and members of the royal family receive huge sums under the current system, Gove replied:

One of the things we are would like to do as we reform the common agriculture policy is to see if there’s a way we can provide a cap on the level of support than any individual or institution can receive.

  • Downing Street has released a video intended to show the government is making good progress towards Brexit.
  • Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party have joined forces in a bid to pressurise the US government into helping resolve the bitter aerospace trade dispute between Boeing and Bombardier. As the Press Association reports, the political rivals, who have been unable to reach agreement to restore Northern Ireland’s failed government, have issued a joint letter to US Vice President Mike Pence raising their concerns about the fallout which could financially devastate one of the region’s biggest employers. The letter was signed by DUP leader Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein’s leader in Northern Ireland, Michelle O’Neill.
  • Theresa May has been given a discount card for high street retailer LK Bennett - the third fashion-related perk she has declared. As the Press Association reports, May recorded the gift from LK Bennett, valid from May 2017 until April 2018, on the Commons register of members’ interests. It follows previously declared donations to the fashion-loving PM from designer Amanda Wakely and shoe store Russell and Bromley. The discounts were declared because they have the “potential to be of registrable value” - indicating that they could be worth more than 300 depending on how much the prime minister spends.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Tories to avoid risk of defeat in opposition day debates by encouraging MPs to ignore them

Tory MPs will soon find that they can take quite a lot of Wednesday afternoons off. The government has to allocate a certain number of days per session, like today, for opposition day debates (they are usually on a Wednesday) and Labour normally uses these sessions to table a motion or motions criticising government policy. A government with a majority would just vote them down. But this government does not have a majority and, when it became obvious the DUP were going to vote with Labour, the whips decided to tell Tory MPs to abstain - so that technically the government has not been defeated, and Labour’s “victory” is relatively hollow.

The Tories feel free to do this because the Commons was not voting on legislation; MPs were just voting on a declaratory motion. In an ideal world, the government would always take notice of the views of the House of Commons. But, in practice, the government can happily ignore a declaratory motion saying, ‘Ministers must do X’ and no one will really notice.

How do we know? Because they have been doing it for six years anyway. After the Wright report (see 3.35pm) the Commons started holding regular debates on motions chosen by backbenchers. At first the coalition government started to worry about being “defeated” on various issues. But then the government decided to ignore these votes as a matter of course, telling their backbenchers they could vote as they liked because the outcome did not matter.

According to a well-placed source, Theresa May’s government is now going to adopt the same approach to opposition day debates. Tory MPs will be told to abstain, or they will be given the freedom to do what they want. Either way, the chief whip is going to make it clear that they won’t have to be in the Commons to vote. Government ministers and backbenchers will still participate in opposition day debates, but the Tories will try to render them irrelevant by not making any effort to win the votes.

It’s the equivalent of not turning up to the match because the other team has more players.

General election cost taxpayer £141m, government reveals

The general election cost the taxpayer £141m, the Cabinet Office has revealed. In a Commons written statement, the Cabinet Office minister Chris Skidmore said free mail shots for candidates cost £43m and administering the election cost £98m.

Cost of general election.
Cost of general election. Photograph: Cabinet Office

Commons backs Labour motion saying NHS workers should get 'fair pay rise' as Tories abstain

In the Commons the Labour motion on NHS pay (see 11.54am for the text) has been passed by MPs unopposed.

Updated

Gove says UK would block chlorinated chicken from US, even if that held up trade deal

Gove says a post-Brexit trade deal with the US would have to be ratified by the House of Commons. And the British people do not want to see animal welfare standards watered down, or labour standards watered down either.

If we cannot reach agreement on the US on these points, the deal will have to be limited in scope.

Q: So would the government actually hold up a US trade deal if it involved the UK having to accept chlorinated chicken?

Yes, says Gove, very directly.

(He said the same thing during the summer.)

Gove is now talking about fishing after Brexit.

He says he does not think anyone is saying no foreign boats should fish in British waters after Brexit.

But Britain will be able to choose who can and cannot fish in these waters.

Q: Will British fishermen get access to more fish after Brexit?

Yes, says Gove. He says at the moment the French can access more fish in the English channel than the British.

Gove says government may cap amount any landowner can receive in farming subsidies after Brexit

Michael Gove, the environment secretary, is giving evidence to the Commons environment committee now.

In response to a question from Labour’s Paul Flynn about the common agriculture policy, and subsidies paid to wealthy landowners, he said that as Britain its own subsidy regime after Brexit, the government is considering introducing a cap setting a maximum amount that can be paid to any individual or institution.

  • Gove says government may cap amount any landowner can receive in farming subsidies after Brexit.
Michael Gove giving evidence to the Commons environment committee.
Michael Gove giving evidence to the Commons environment committee. Photograph: Parliament TV

Here is the full statement from Calum Macleod, the Police Federation vice chair, on what Theresa May said about police pay at PMQs.

It shows they have lost touch with reality, if they ever had it, and are clueless as to the demands and dangers officers have to face on a daily basis to keep communities safe. Officers are struggling to keep their heads above water and all we are asking for is fair recognition.

When comparing total pay in 2015/2016 to what it was in 2009/2010 it has increased in nominal terms by +2%, but decreased by -16% in real terms. This cannot be right.

We expect police officers to run in to the face of danger every day to protect the public however the government refuses to give them the money they deserve. This has to be addressed and the government has to be held to account. How can they abide by their independent pay bodies which recommended an 11% pay rise for MPs but fail to abide by ours, which recommended a 2% consolidated). This smacks of double standards.

Police Federation accuses May of lying about police pay at PMQs

The Police Federation has accused Theresa May of lying about police pay at PMQs. Calum Macleod, the vice chair of the Police Federation, told HuffPost UK:

The government stating that police officers have had a 32% pay rise since 2010 is a joke – and is in fact a downright lie.

It shows they have lost touch with reality, if they ever had it, and are clueless as to the demands and dangers officers have to face on a daily basis to keep communities safe. Officers are struggling to keep their heads above water and all we are asking for is fair recognition.

May told MPs that, if you take into account progression pay, pay rises and the increase in the income tax threshold, someone who was a new police officer in 2010 will have seen their post-tax pay increase by £9,000, a real-terms rise of 32%.

Bercow calls for MPs to get say over time allocated for debating government bills in Commons

One of John Bercow’s innovations as speaker has been to allow PMQs every week to over-run, effectively turning a 30-minute session into a 45-minute session without the prime minister or anyone else having a say. He has also been much, much more willing than his predecessors to grant urgent questions and emergency debates, again carving out time from the parliamentary timetable for topics that he has chosen to see debated, not the government.

Now he is proposing an even more significant shift. In an interesting article for Prospect, Bercow says a House business committee, not the government whips, should get to decide what gets debated and when.

Bercow points out that this was one of the recommendations of the Wright committee (so called after its chair, the Labour MP Tony Wright) set up after the expenses scandal. The Wright committee called for the election of select committee chairs and the establishment of a backbench business committee, to determine which MPs can raise which topics on the day’s set aside for backbench debates. Both reforms are widely seen as successes, making select committee more independent and ensuring a wider range of topics gets debated on the floor of the Commons. But the proposal for a House business committee was shelved, for the fairly obvious reason that its creation would make it harder for the government to get its business through the Commons.

Explaining how this would work, Bercow says:

How would a House Business Committee work? First, the government is entitled to have a majority, but not a monopoly, on the committee. The party, or coalition, with the majority of seats in the Commons should not have its business scuppered by being denied parliamentary time, as that would be undemocratic. The House, however, should have the right to ask that certain measures receive more scrutiny than the norm because of the nature and implications of those measures.

Second, it should be chaired by an independent individual, thus securing the confidence of the whole House: the Wright committee suggested the senior Deputy Speaker. Third, there should be a backbench component and representation from the so-called “minor parties.” Fourth, as it would be desirable to link the work of select committees to the Chamber, there is a strong case for a representative of the select committees to be included, possibly the chair of the liaison committee. Finally, there is a strong case for the backbench members of the committee being elected by the whole House, so they can speak with that mandate.

Setting up a committee like this is “the right, democratic thing to do,” he goes on. “Inadequate scrutiny hardly makes for stellar legislation.”

There is no particular reason to think that Bercow will have any more luck that Tony Wright in getting this idea off the ground. But the EU withdrawal bill has stirred up the whole debate about the balance of power between the legislature and the executive (a House business committee would have set aside more than eight days for the bill’s committee stage, and when that committee stage takes place, some of the amendments will be calling for the Commons, not ministers, to decide how the Henry VII powers in the bill get parliamentary scrutiny) and so perhaps Bercow has chosen the right time to try again.

John Bercow.
John Bercow. Photograph: Rick Findler/PA

Lunchtime summary

  • The Commons is set to approve a Labour motion saying that NHS staff should get a “fair pay rise” and that the public sector pay cap should be lifted in the NHS. MPs are debating the motion now, and will later debate another Labour motion saying the government’s latest rise in university tuition fees should be scrapped. The DUP is voting with Labour on both motions, which means even that if the Tories were to try voting them down, they would probably lose. Instead Tory MPs are going to abstain. The NHS pay motion will not be binding on the government when passed. Labour claim the tuition fee one will be binding, but the government disputes this.

I was struck this week to see that Len McCluskey, or perhaps Mahatma as his friends call him, had said if they need to act outside the law, so be it.

Well, I have to say I join you, on this side of the House we’re very clear - we condemn illegal strikes, we condemn action outside of the law.

The people who suffer from those illegal strikes are the ordinary working families who can’t get their children to school, who can’t access the public services they need and who can’t get to work.

Yesterday the shadow Brexit minister Paul Blomfield said Labour was “a party that respects the law” when asked if he backed McCluskey. But Richard Burgon, the shadow justice secretary, sidestepped the same question when he was asked about McCluskey’s comments in an interview yesterday, and this afternoon, on the World at One, the shadow education minister Tracy Brabin defended McCluskey. She said:

He’s the champion for his members and workforce and he’s saying to the government you’ve got to take this seriously or further down the line we are going to have big trouble ... Given his position, he’s probably right [to threaten illegal strike action] because he needs the government to listen because they are not listening.

  • May has announced that the government will spend a further £25m on the Hurricane Irma relief effort.
  • Lord Bridges of Headley, a former Brexit minister, has accused the government of not being “honest” about the challenges created by the decision to leave the EU. (See 9.30am.)
  • Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has urged the arms industry to increase exports after Brexit. Speaking at the Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair in London’s docklands, he said:

As we look to life post-Brexit and spread our wings further across the world it is high time that we do more to compete for a bigger share of this international export market.

It is time now to build exportability into our thinking from the off, aligning that with requirements of our international partners, enabling a more open architecture to our platforms that can ‘plug and play’ with different bits of capability.

  • May has revealed that the Conservative backbencher Michael Fabricant is going to appear on the Channel 4 programme Celebrity First Dates. In response to a question from him at PMQs, she said:

I have noticed that he is shortly to appear on a Channel 4 programme called Celebrity First Dates. What I’m not sure about is whether he is the celebrity or the first date.

Updated

PMQs - Verdict from the Twitter commentariat

This is what political journalists and commentators are saying about PMQs.

No one was hugely impressed, by Corbyn is definitely getting the better reviews.

From the Mirror’s Jason Beattie

From the New Statesman’s George Eaton

From Sky’s Adam Boulton

From the Guardian’s Peter Walker

From the Telegraph’s Ben Riley-Smith

From the Independent’s John Rentoul

From 5 News’s Andy Bell

From the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman

From Sky’s Faisal Islam

The Independent’s Tom Peck has coined the term “director’s cut PMQs” to describe John Bercow’s new, longer version.

HuffPost UK’s Paul Waugh has thought up what Jeremy Corbyn should have said in response to Theresa May’s ‘he’s let people down’ riff. (See 12.20pm.)

At the post-PMQs briefing Theresa May’s spokesperson was asked about George Osborne’s reported desire to carve her up and pop her in his freezer. (See 11.30am.) This is from Business Insider’s Adam Bienkov.

I missed the question from Ian Blackford, the SNP leader, because I was writing up the snap verdict. So this is what he asked.

Blackford, the SNP leader at Westminster, asked about the economy and wage growth.

May replied by saying the economy was doing worse in Scotland than in the UK generally. She went on:

It is an SNP government that is failing the people of Scotland ... The people in Scotland now have a strong voice in this house through our 13 Conservative MPs.

Blackford said May should not be attacking the Scottish government. He then criticised May for being able to find money for quantitative easing (QE), but not for other measures to boost the economy. He said:

The government can find the money for QE but can’t find the money for fiscal measures to grow the economy. This is a government that does not understand how to use economic levers and it’s our people who are paying the price.

In reply, May said:

In all of that rather lengthy question never once did he record the increase in employment but he started off by standing up and complaining that I’d referenced the acts of the Scottish government. He believes in independence, so I think in this House we deserve to talk about what the Scottish government is doing for the people of Scotland.

I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome.

PMQs is now over. It is now routinely running for closer to an hour than half an hour, the time supposedly allocated for it. That is a choice made by John Bercow, the Speaker.

Nigel Huddleston, a Conservative, asks what May thinks should be done to get more talented women into parliament.

May says she wants women to see parliament as a place offering a future career.

Her party will continue to support women coming into parliament, through role models.

(A Commons committee came up with six ideas to promote female representation in parliament. The government has rejected them all.)

The Lib Dem Norman Lamb asks May to make it a priority to ensure that there is proper support for people in the prison system with mental health issues.

May says this is a longstanding issue. Some progress has been made. But the government will continue to look at this.

Simon Hoare, a Conservative, says he his hosting an event for the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

May says she knows from her family (her mother) what impact this disease can have. This is not just an issue for the department for health; it is also about helping people with MS back into the workplace.

May says the UK wants to leave the EU with a trade deal that will be a “friction-free” and “tariff-free” as possible.

Julian Lewis, a Conservative, says Ian Gow’s widow has expressed disgust that former soldiers are being investigated for shootings in Northern Ireland while the killers of her husband walk free. Will May introduce a statute of limitations to put an end to this “grotesque situation”.

May says the overwhelming majority of soldiers in Northern Ireland acted honourably. She says the bodies looking at deaths in the Troubles will act in a fair and proportionate manner, she says. She says most of those killed in the Troubles were killed by terrorists.

Victoria Atkins, a Conservative, says the shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon refused four times to condemn possible illegal strike action. Will she condemn this?

May says she was struck this week to see that the Unite leader Len McCluskey, “or perhaps Mahatma as his friends call him”, defended illegal strikes. May says the Tories do condemn them.

The SNP’s Kirsty Blackman says 3,000 Aberdonians were born in Nigeria. What is being done to promote peace in the country?

May says the UK is helping Nigeria in a number of ways.

Mike Wood, a Conservative, says today is world sepsis day. What more can be done to increase awareness of this?

May says she is glad Wood recovered from sepsis. Some 10,000 deaths a year could be avoided by better and earlier diagnosis. A sepsis action plan is being published.

Labour’s Daniel Zeichner says schools and pubs in Cambridge are losing staff because EU workers are going home. What will be done to tackle this shortage of labour?

Mays says Zeichner implies there is no net EU migration to the UK. There is. But there is another point. The government needs to increase training, so people can take on these jobs.

PMQs - Snap verdict

PMQs - Snap verdict: Corbyn easily had the best soundbite of those exchanges - the spoof, and very apposite, recasting of Harold Macmillan famous ‘Never had it so good’ - and his wide-ranging case against May was solid, but there was no point at which he caused her serious unease or embarrassment in a drab exchange that effectively amount to a draw. It was not that May was especially effective; she dodged the key question (about a below-inflation pay rise being a real-terms cut) and at one point she took refuge in an irrelevant and slightly tedious generalised anti-Labour rant. (If you are going to try to change the subject at PMQs by taking a detour into Corbyn-bashing, as Cameron did almost every week, at least make it incisive, or funny.) Her point about Labour introducing tuition fees seemed particularly otiose in the light of Corbyn’s own almost non-existent loyalty to the Blair regime. Her answers were never very good, but she did at least manage to parry all Corbyn’s questions and, apart from the moment when he pointed out that record employment is no good if wages are lousy, generally he did not follow up on his points. Not for the first time, it sounded like two figures throwing statistics at each other with too little actual engagement.

Updated

Corbyn says the only problem is that more people in work are in poverty. That is the Conservative legacy.

A woman called Aisha wrote to him, saying she had graduated with a hefty amount of debt. She said she was scared about the future. People who want to become a nurse no longer want to. Will May vote this afternoon against another hike in tuition fees.

May says there are a few things Corbyn did not mention. He did not mention raising the tax allowance that amounted to a tax cut. Let’s talk about delivery, she says. Corbyn promised workers he would protect their rights; on Monday he let them down. He promised students he would deal with their debt; he has let them down. He promised to support Trident, but he has let voters down. And he promised to back Brexit, but has let people down.

Corbyn says British students now have the highest debt in the world. We are in the middle of an economic slowdown. Growth is slowing, productivity is worsening, debt is rising, and homelesness is rising. By the end of this parliament 5m children will be in poverty. For many people, the economy is no longer at breaking point. It is already broken.

May says it was Labour that introduced tuition fees. What do we see; record levels of investment in the economy, more people in work than ever before, and more women in work and education than before. Labour, with its high taxes, would destroy the economy. The only people who would pay the price for the economy are ordinary working families.

Corbyn says with inflation at 2.9%, the police and prison service are effectively taking a pay cut. Can she assure MPs no staff will be cut?

May says the recommendations came from independent bodies.

And Corbyn forgot to mention the other pay rises people are getting, like progression pay.

Corbyn says there are 20,000 fewer police officers, and 7,000 fewer prison officers than in 2010. Police budgets have been cut. But the chancellor is “on the money on this one, literally”. At the 1922 committee meeting last week, he told Conservative MPs, “Look at us, everyone with a pension, more money than ever in the current account.” A Conservative PM once said, “You’ve never had it so good”. Now a Conservative chancellor says, “We’ve never had it so good.” What has happened to the average salary.

May says Corbyn has not mentioned the unemployment figures. More people are in work than ever.

Jeremy Corbyn says the UK must respond as generously as possible to Hurricane Irma.

He says the UN body on disabilities has described the situation facing the disabled in the UK as a disgrace. He challenges May over why.

May says that while the government has been in power more disabled people have got into work, and spending on the disabled has gone up. So this picture is not a fair one.

Corbyn says we have seen punitive sanctions, and the bedroom tax. Some 4.2m disabled people live in poverty.

Turning to pay, Corbyn says the police and prison service face a real-terms cut. What is the policy today?

May says the government spends about £50bn on the disabled. Spending on the disabled is the second highest in the G7 per head.

She says the government said it would respond to the pay review bodies on the police and the prison service soon. It has done that.

Looking ahead, “there is a need for great flexibility” on pay, she says. The remits for the pay review bodies will be published in due course.

UPDATE: Disability campaigners do not accept the £50bn figure May cited, pointing to Institute for Fiscal Studies research saying spending on disability benefits is much lower.

Updated

Philip Davies, a Conservative, asks for a Shipley bypass, and for more infrastructure in Yorkshire generally.

May says the government is spending more money on transport in the north in this parliament than any government has spent before.

(If that is a cash figure, then inflation may mean that it is a relatively empty boast.)

The Lib Dem Layla Moran says the Oxford car industry could be badly affected if the UK leaves the single market and the customs union. Shouldn’t people get a referendum on the final deal?

May says, if that is what Moran is telling her constituents, she is not telling them the facts.

Theresa May starts by updating MPs on Hurricane Irma. Boris Johnson has travelled to the region, she says. She says Cobra has been meeting regularly to coordinate the UK’s response. And today she can announce an extra aid package worth £25m, in addition to the £32m already provided.

Here is my colleague Heather Stewart’s take on what to expect from PMQs.

PMQs

Yesterday Downing Street announced a tentative start to the dismantling of the public sector pay cap.

But the announcement was not quite the PR success that some in Number 10 may have been expecting. Jack Blanchard from Politico Europe and Paul Waugh from HuffPost UK have both explained why in their respective daily morning political briefings.

Blanchard writes:

Corbynomics: The Labour leader’s office was incredulous at May’s decision to announce the 1.7 percent hike for prison officers and 1 percent bonus for police on the very day higher inflation figures were published — showing the rises still constitute real-terms pay cuts. “So they concede the argument but don’t solve the problem,” a senior Corbyn aide told Playbook. “And they even timed it so Jeremy could respond in his speech at the TUC two hours later. Who thinks this stuff up?”

Tory grumblings: Less jolly were members of May’s own cabinet, according to Newsnight’s Nick Watt. One cabinet minister in favor of lifting the cap said the policy “had not landed well.” Former paymaster general Francis Maude told the show: “I’m not happy that we are giving the impression we can suddenly spend money to alleviate a political pressure point.” Today’s Telegraph leader grumbles that “the government may come to rue the day it gave in.”

Quick thought: If your new policy seems to please nobody but the leader of the opposition, you may have a problem.

And Waugh writes:

Still, No.10 was clearly stung yesterday by the backlash to its big reveal on the melting pay cap. Prison officers still threatened action despite their 1.7% rise, and the cops weren’t over the moon at getting a 1% lump sum top-up. Downing Street was surprised that the cabinet’s announcement hadn’t ‘landed’ better, but maybe that’s because the cabinet’s language was so opaque. On the 2018/19 settlements for other workers, the PM’s spokesman told us the cabinet recognised the need for “more flexibility”, but you can’t pay the bills with flexibility. What’s amazing that is that ministers were amazed a grateful nation didn’t leap up with joy.

It is very likely that we will hear a lot more about this in a few minutes’ time at PMQs. Jeremy Corbyn has a particular incentive to lead on public sector pay because Labours’ first opposition day debate this afternoon (the first for ages - the Tory whips had been dragging their feet about giving Labour a debate) is on NHS pay. The motion says:

That this House notes that in 2017-18 NHS pay rises have been capped at one per cent and that this represents another below-inflation pay settlement; further notes that applications for nursing degrees have fallen 23 per cent this year; notes that the number of nurses and midwives joining the Nursing and Midwifery Council register has been in decline since March 2016 and that in 2016-17 45 per cent more UK registrants left the register than joined it; and calls on the government to end the public sector pay cap in the NHS and give NHS workers a fair pay rise.

Osborne rejects claims austerity was contributing factor to Grenfell Tower fire

If you’ve got a spare five to 10 minutes and you’re curious about George Osborne, do read Ed Caesar’s long and very good profile/interview for Esquire. Here are three of the highlights.

  • Osborne, the former Conservative chancellor sacked by Theresa May who now edits the Evening Standard, has reportedly told colleagues that he will not rest until May “is chopped up in bags in my freezer”. (Speaking metaphorically - one assumes.) Caesar says:

Osborne’s animus against May is complicated in origin — personal, political, ideological, tactical — but purely felt. When I met him at the Standard this past spring, he was polite enough about the prime minister. But according to one staffer at the newspaper, Osborne has told more than one person that he will not rest until she “is chopped up in bags in my freezer”.

  • Osborne has rejected claims that austerity was a contributing factor in the Grenfell Tower fire. Pointing out that the Standard seemed reluctant to politicise the tragedy, Caesar writes:

There was speculation that Osborne’s editorial line on Grenfell was born of a concern that the budget cuts he oversaw as chancellor might be linked to the deaths of mostly poor Londoners. (This was, in fact, precisely Labour’s line of attack.) But Osborne insists that wasn’t the case.

“I was sceptical of the instant experts in other papers who rushed to blame the whole thing on Kensington and Chelsea Council saving costs,” he told me, noting that the cladding accused of accelerating the fire was in use across the UK long before austerity measures took effect. “It’s the kind of sloppy journalism I’m trying to get my paper, at least, away from. The failure was a massive failure of fire standards over many, many years, and that is a scandal we’ve talked about.”

  • Osborne greeted the EU referendum result by saying: “Dave’s fucked, I’m fucked, the country’s fucked.” Caesar is not the first journalist to reveal this - it’s in Tim Shipman’s excellent book, All Out War - but I’m flagging it up anyway because it’s fun. And it is an excuse to point out that Osborne was clearly channelling Sir Richard Mottram, the former permanent secretary at the transport department, who set the template for Malcolm Tucker in the midst of some long-forgotten Blairite Whitehall PR disaster by saying:

We’re all fucked. I’m fucked. You’re fucked. The whole department’s fucked. It’s been the biggest cock-up ever and we’re all completely fucked.

George Osborne.
George Osborne. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Police officers in Northern Ireland missing out on pay rise going to English officers

Rank and file police officers in Northern Ireland are furious that they will not be included in the pay rise the government announced for their colleagues in England and Wales yesterday.

But the Police Federation for Northern Ireland are more angry at local politicians than the cabinet in London over their exclusion from the marginal hike in police wages.

The absence of devolved power sharing government in the regions means there are no local ministers in place to apply for and to approve any parallel pay deal, according to the federation.

Mark Lindsay, its chairman who represents more than 6,000 rank and file Police Service of Northern Ireland officers, said there was “disgust and disappointment” that no such pay award was available to his members.

The sole reason for this is the absence of a devolved administration, which requires consideration for any recommendations by both a justice minister and a finance minister.

In addition, there is currently no legislative process in place in Northern Ireland to sign off any element of an award.

Power sharing is in suspended animation after the devolved government led by the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein collapsed at the start of this year in a row over a costly renewable heating scheme the former party had championed in office.

Police Service of Northern Ireland officers in Belfast.
Police Service of Northern Ireland officers in Belfast.
 Photograph: Stephen Barnes/Corbis via Getty Images

Downing Street revealed this morning that Theresa May spoke to Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, and Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Fein leader in Northern Ireland, last night in separate phone calls, and urged them to reach an agreement on the resumption of power-sharing. A Number 10 spokesperson said:

The prime minister made clear the importance of restoring a power-sharing executive to Northern Ireland as soon as possible and she recognised their continued leadership towards reaching agreement. They discussed key outstanding issues that remain for both parties and the prime minister encouraged both leaders to come to an agreement soon in the interests of everyone in Northern Ireland.

Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill and DUP Leader Arlene Foster taking part in a UTV debate in February.
Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill and DUP Leader Arlene Foster taking part in a UTV debate in February. Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

Clegg and his wife reveal their teenage son has been treated for cancer

Nick Clegg, the former Lib Dem leader and former deputy prime minister, and his wife Miriam González Durántez have revealed that their 14-year-old son Antonio was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a form of cancer, around this time last year. He has had chemotherapy and is now in remission, and his parents have chosen to speak out to raise awareness for Bloodwise, a blood cancer research charity.

They spoke in an interview on ITV’s Lorraine. González Durántez said they took their son to the doctor after discovering a “very, very small” lump on his neck. Antonio did not have any other symptoms. “We took him to the GP anyway which was a stroke of luck really because immediately he spotted it could be something more serious and it was lymphoma,” she said. She said that telling her son about his cancer was “one of the toughest things that we have every done”.

Describing his reaction to the news, Clegg said:

Well it’s like a sort of ‘word bomb’ isn’t it? Certainly if you are unfamiliar with it, as we were, and your initial reaction, I think, we found, was like any mum and dad, it’s irrational, but you just have this almost physical wish to try and take it off your kid and take it yourself. And then very quickly you get into the pretty gory details of the treatment.

Clegg went on:

The advances in science have been remarkable of course but it’s still a very brutal thing - you’re basically poisoning the body with very powerful chemicals and drugs to kill the cancerous cells and that has huge side effects; hair loss and vomiting and nausea. At one point his body was neutropenic which means his body had no defences against infection, so you very quickly move from the shock into just trying to support your child as they’re battling through this very heavy treatment ...

You have got your work and you’ve got all sorts of other things going on in your life but when something like this happens it just becomes the sole principle, objective, just to make sure he is better.

Clegg said his son was treated at a teenage cancer unit at UCLH in London. The staff there were “brilliant”, he said.

Now his son was recovering, he said.

His lymphoma was all over his chest and his neck and he gets tested every three months I think for a couple of years, so there is always a slight spike of anxiety with us every three months but basically he is on the road to recovery.

Nick Clegg and Miriam González Durántez on ITV’s Lorraine.
Nick Clegg and Miriam González Durántez on ITV’s Lorraine. Photograph: ITV

Peter Ricketts, a former head of the Foreign Office and former national security adviser, has welcomed Lord Bridges’s speech. (See 9.30am.)

But Roger Helmer, a Ukip spokesman and former MEP, disagrees with the Tory peer.

Westminster Unionist, an official DUP Twitter account, has taken issue with Lord Bridges’ world war two analogy. (See 9.39am.)

UK jobless rate hits new 42-year low but real wages keep falling

The unemployment figures are out. This is from my colleague Graeme Wearden.

Breaking! Britain’s unemployment rate has fallen to a new 42-year low of 4.3%, in the three months to July.

That’s down from 4.4% a month ago, and the lowest since 1975.

But real wages are still falling. Average weekly earnings only rose by 2.1% per year in the quarter, weaker than expected, and the same as last month.

That means that the cost of living squeeze is getting worse, as inflation has jumped from 2.6% to 2.9%.

Graeme has more on the unemployment figures on his business live blog.

Former Brexit minister suggests government not being 'honest' about challenge of leaving EU

Lord Bridges of Headley is not exactly a household name - he’s an Old Etonian former Conservative party official ennobled by David Cameron - but he was a Brexit minister until June when, after the general election, he resigned without saying why. Bridges voted remain, and according to one report (paywall) he left because he was “convinced Brexit couldn’t work”. But he did not say so himself.

Now he has spoken out, in a speech in the House of Lords last night. It was his first speech in the chamber since his resignation and, although he was not overtly critical of the government’s stance, you don’t have to be a cryptologist to work out that he thinks Theresa May and her team are not handling Brexit well. Ministers are not being “honest” about the challenges Brexit poses, he suggested. He told peers:

First, an observation: faced with any challenge, one must acknowledge the truth. If we are not honest with ourselves, our plans will be built on sand. Consequently, we will lose the trust of those who look to us for leadership, and those with whom we are negotiating. We must be honest about the task we face—its complexity and scale. We must be honest about the need to compromise and about the lack of time that we, and Europe, have to come to an agreement on our withdrawal.

Bridges stressed the need for a transition, which he suggested should run until the end of 2020, and he said the UK should continue to pay into the EU budget during this period.

We should make it clear that we are willing to continue to contribute to the EU budget as we cross the bridge—in other words, between March 2019 and the end of 2020. That would help us to address the EU’s concern that our withdrawal blows a hole in its budget. We would be honouring commitments we have made for the rest of the EU’s budgetary period; the EU would then need to justify why we must contribute more than that.

And he was gently scathing about May’s expressed wish for her government to be defined by something more than Brexit. He said:

The challenge of creating a new partnership touches on every aspect of our lives, as we have been discussing. It is a gargantuan task; so, let us be honest about this too. I hear the government talk of not wishing to be defined by Brexit. Brexit is the biggest change this nation has faced since 1945. To say we do not wish to be defined by Brexit is like Winston Churchill saying in 1940 that he did not want his government to be defined by the war. Such careless talk costs time, as it allows the machinery of government to be distracted from the task at hand.

As usual, I expect there will be a lot more Brexit here before the day is over.

Here is the agenda for the day.

8am: Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, gives his 2017 state of the union speech in Brussels. Politico Europe is covering it on a live blog. According to Sky’s Faisal Islam, Brexit does not seem to feature.

9am: Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, gives a speech to a rail summit.

9.30am: Unemployment figures are published.

12pm: Theresa May faces Jeremy Corbyn at PMQs.

3.30pm: Michael Gove, the environment secretary, gives evidence to the Commons environment committee.

Around 1pm: MPs begin a debate on a Labour motion saying the government should end the pay cap in the NHS. They will vote at around 4pm. Later there will be a debate on a Labour motion saying the government’s latest rise in university tuition fees should be scrapped.

As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary after PMQs and another in the afternoon.

You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.

Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news from Jack Blanchard’s Playbook. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ top 10 must reads.

If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

Updated

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