Afternoon summary
- A Conservative announcement that they would ensure that a minimum train service must operate during strikes has provoked angry responses from unions. The party has said it would legislate to oblige rail employers and unions to enter into Minimum Service Agreements (MSA), which would set in advance the number and nature of staff who would remain at work during any strike. This would render strike action unlawful if there were no MSA in place.
- Reaction has continued to roll in to Jeremy Corbyn’s announcement on last night’s BBC Question Time special that he would remain neutral in a second referendum on Brexit. Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson said the position was astonishing, while Brexit party leader Nigel Farage said the Labour leader wasn’t seen as patriotic in leave areas like Hartlepool.
- Jeremy Corbyn has launched Labour’s youth manifesto – called The Future is Ours – in Loughborough. The document commits the party to giving 16-year-olds the right to vote, and to investing an additional £250m to build up to 500 new youth centres. Earlier in the day he vowed to take on “bad bosses and tax dodgers” at an event to highlight the party’s “fair tax programme” outside an Amazon warehouse in Sheffield.
- The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has ruled out scrapping GP home visits after doctors backed the idea in a vote, arguing that they were too over-stretched to deliver the service. The Conservative party has also pledged more than £1.6bn for research to find a cure for dementia over the next decade, which it says represents the largest boost to dementia research ever in the UK, doubling current funding levels.
That’s all from me today. I’ll be back tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
The actor and writer Rob Delaney has shared a video praising the NHS and calling it “the pinnacle of human achievement”, reports Nicola Slawson. Delaney, co-star of the Channel 4 sitcom Catastrophe, says he is “crazy” about the NHS in the clip, shared on Twitter.
The American actor, who is a vocal supporter of Labour, compared the experiences of being treated by the US private healthcare system when he was in a car accident when he was 25 with the “extraordinary care” his son Henry received from the NHS when he was diagnosed with a brain tumour before he died.
Conservatives to ban all-out rail strikes
A Conservative announcement that they would ensure that a minimum train service must operate during strikes has provoked angry responses from unions. The party has said it would legislate to oblige rail employers and unions to enter into Minimum Service Agreements (MSA), which would set in advance the number and nature of staff who would remain at work during any strike. This would render strike action unlawful if there were no MSA in place.
They accused “militant rail unions” of causing misery for passengers, with more than 160 days of strikes that have taken place, or are planned, since 2016.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps said:
Corbyn’s union backers are causing misery for commuters across the country but this is just a taste of things to come if he gets into Downing Street. He would scrap trade union legislation and make it easier for unions to go on strike which would cause chaos for passengers. The Conservative Party will introduce a new law to ensure that the railways keep on running even if trade unions vote to go on strike.
The move comes ahead of 27 planned days of strikes on South Western Railway next month by members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union in the long-running dispute over guards on trains. RMT members on West Midlands Trains are on strike today over the same issue.
RMT general secretary Mick Cash said:
Banning strikes is the hallmark of the right wing junta, not a democratically elected British government. RMT would fight any attempt to strip our members of their basic human rights.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers’ union Aslef, said:
The right to strike - to withdraw your labour - is a fundamental human right. We are not slaves. Aslef has rarely called a strike and, when we have, it has always been as a last resort and as a result of management intransigence. We are not, however, surprised that Boris Johnson and his cronies want to make it even more difficult for hard working men and women to protect their jobs, pay, terms and conditions. Johnson only acts on behalf of the boss class in Britain.
Nigel Farage has paid a visit to Hartlepool – a Brexit party target seat – on the party’s battle bus and visited the Market Hall in Middleton Grange shopping centre. PA Media reports that he spoke to a number of stallholders, bought a caramel slice and a £1.29 Christmas card for his mother. Farage told reporters:
I think the Brexit issue is huge, I think the patriotic issue is huge, I think Corbyn is not seen as being very patriotic and I think if Conservative voters in these areas realise that we’re the challenger and come to us, then we could [beat Labour], absolutely.
He said resolving the Brexit issue would help restore the public’s faith in politics.
What was interesting though, and I felt it when I did it, from the audience last night was the sheer level of hostility. This is real, people are very angry with politics, their faith and trust in parliament, politicians, has never, ever been lower and goodness me it shows. This is why, actually, getting Brexit done properly will allow us to get people to believe that if they vote for something it might actually happen.
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Barristers have called on whichever party wins the general election to restore public confidence in a “properly funded justice system” and increase spending to redress past cuts to legal aid, reports Owen Bowcott.
At the Bar Council’s annual conference in central London, the leader of the organisation, which represents 16,500 barristers throughout England and Wales, urged politicians to divert more resources to the “damaged” system.
Richard Atkins QC, chair of the Bar Council, said:
The rule of law and independence of the judiciary are fundamental pillars of our democracy. Judges apply the law without fear or favour, and this must not be undermined.
Once highly regarded as a vital public service, today’s justice system is widely acknowledged to be suffering from years of under-investment. Crime is increasing, yet prosecutions are falling. Too many people are unable to access justice quickly or effectively. As a result, there is understandable public dissatisfaction with the state of the justice system. Urgent action is required to remedy this.
The organisation’s 2019 “Manifesto for Justice” says: “The cumulative effect of ill-conceived, short-term decisions over the last decade is undeniable: swingeing cuts to civil, criminal and family legal aid; court closures; under-resourcing the Crown Prosecution Service; the increase of unrepresented people filling courts (Litigants in Person); a criminal justice system on its knees with crime going up and prosecutions going down. As a matter of urgency, the next government must address the state of the justice system.”
The Ministry of Justice has suffered a 40% cut in its budget between 2011 and 2020 and overseen mass closures of courts around the country. “Justice must not become a postcode lottery,” the manifesto states. “We have fewer courts than ever before. 277 courts and 18 tribunals across England and Wales have closed over the last decade. There are huge backlogs of cases in many of our remaining courts and yet courtrooms are lying empty.”
Cuts to legal aid should be reversed, the Bar Council says. “Access to justice underpins a fair, just and reasonable society. It is not a commodity and must never be a luxury available only to those who can afford to pay for it.
“Legal aid should be recognised as being as much a part of civil society as the NHS, housing, social security and education. It should be reintroduced to help the most vulnerable and marginalised citizens who are currently left to fend for themselves. The next government must reinvest in legal aid, reversing a decade of cuts.”
The six-point programme also calls for an end to what has been termed the “innocence tax”. “The current situation of the state prosecuting an individual, refusing to give him or her legal aid and then refusing to fully reimburse their private legal costs when they are acquitted is desperately unfair. It must be reformed.”
The Bar Council calls on the next government to recognise the importance of the legal industry which in 2017 contributed £26.8bn to the UK economy.
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Lunchtime summary
- Jeremy Corbyn has launched Labour’s youth manifesto – called The Future is Ours – in Loughborough. The document commits the party to giving 16-year-olds the right to vote, and to investing an additional £250m to build up to 500 new youth centres.
- Earlier in the day Corbyn and shadow employment rights secretary, Laura Pidcock, vowed to take on “bad bosses and tax dodgers” at an event to highlight the party’s “fair tax programme” outside an Amazon warehouse in Sheffield. The party has pledged to introduce unitary taxation of multinationals to stop tax-avoiding profit-shifting.
- The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has ruled out scrapping GP home visits after doctors backed the idea in a vote, arguing that they were too over-stretched to deliver the service. Delegates representing GPs across England at a British Medical Association conference voted to try to remove the duty from their standard contract, after complaints that they were wasting time driving around the country.
- The Conservative party has pledged more than £1.6bn for research to find a cure for dementia over the next decade, which it says represents the largest boost to dementia research ever in the UK, doubling current funding levels.
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Swinson: Corbyn's Brexit neutrality 'astonishing'
The Press Association has comments from Jo Swinson from her campaign visit to London’s Design Museum this morning, where highlighted her party’s policies on innovation and technology.
She told the news agency:
I think it is quite astonishing that Jeremy Corbyn is refusing to say... not even just refusing to say now where he stands on remaining or leaving the European Union, but is basically saying that he is never going to tell people what he thinks about that.
I mean, this is the biggest issue facing our country for generations and he is just saying he is not interested in telling people what he thinks. To me, I think that is a total absence of leadership. Remainers in this country need a leader, not a bystander.
Asked about her performance in last night’s BBC Question Time programme, she said:
I’m very proud of standing up for what I believe in. I think it’s important to have that authenticity in politics. And I have had a lot of good feedback and I look forward to future opportunities to discuss issues with the public.
She said it was up to others to decide if they thought she had been given a tougher time than the other leaders, but added:
I understand that it was according to the MPs at the last general election, which doesn’t reflect how we are currently in the opinion polls.
There have been a string of complaints from Lib Dem politicians about the make-up of last night’s audience, including this from MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton:
BBC confirm that the #bbcqt #LeadershipDebate audience was stacked based on current party representation in the commons ie numbers of MPs. So there were effectively 2 Lib Dem’s in that room. @joswinson handled it with grace& passion. Sustained pressure but she didn’t buckle once.
— Alex Cole-Hamilton MSP🔶 (@agcolehamilton) November 23, 2019
That’s it from Labour’s youth manifesto launch. You can read the full document here.
The party has announced an additional £1bn in annual revenue expenditure for youth services. Labour analysis of government figures shows that spending on youth services has reduced by £1bn (73%) since 2010. The party says it would double the annual capital expenditure for youth services that the government has committed to, investing an additional £250m to build up to 500 new youth centres.
Among Labour’s pledges aimed to get young voters on side are –
- Votes at 16 and automatic voter registration.
- An end to tuition fees and bringing back maintenance grant.
- Free bus travel for under-25s.
- Banning unpaid internships.
- Reforming Help to Buy to focus it on first-time buyers on ordinary incomes.
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He concludes:
A Labour government that will deliver for all people in the future is a prize within our grasp, but it’s not going to be handed to us on a plate. You’ve seen the attacks we’re getting in some of the billionaire media at the moment. You’re seen all that stuff that’s thrown at us. But, I tell you what: don’t do personal, don’t reply, just relentlessly go out there with the policies we’ve got, the determination we’ve got to put them into operation, and then, in the cold misery of a wet November and December, you’ll get a red Christmas and a great spring with a Labour government.
Chants of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” and selfies ensue.
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Corbyn says there are 150 billionaires in Britain and 50 of them are funding the Conservatives. “I don’t know about the other 100,” he says. “They should be funding the Conservative party, because the Conservative party is certainly funding them.”
Corbyn says he is proud that the UK parliament declared a climate emergency, but “declaring it is not the same as doing something about it”. He says that it is important to get to net-zero emissions as quickly as possible.
He adds that the job opportunities created in bringing emissions down are huge. Labour calculates 300,000 green energy jobs will be created.
The campaign has been framed as the Brexit election, says Corbyn, but it is also about health, housing and education.
He repeats his argument that under a Labour government the “NHS is not for sale” in post-Brexit trade negotiations with the US, prompting chants of “not for sale, not for sale” from the audience.
The Labour leader is talking about his visit to an Amazon warehouse in Sheffield earlier today, where he launched the party’s proposals for cracking down on tax avoidance.
“I want to make it very, very clear, under a Labour government there will be a few things done differently,” he says. They will end zero-hours contracts “end of story”, every worker will have full-rights from day one, they will end non-dom status and tax people where they make their money.
He says their proposals are not “anti-business” because there are lots of small businesses that do pay their taxes and they are focusing on the biggest businesses.
Corbyn adds: “It’s a people-powered manifesto, in a people-powered party, in a people-powered campaign to win this election.”
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Corbyn is up on stage. He says there are two weeks to get people to register to vote and then to get them to vote Labour. He says there are 9 million people still not registered.
Corbyn says he enjoyed last night’s grilling from people in Sheffield. “I am very very happy to take questions from anybody, on anything, any time, any place. We have nothing to hide,” he says.
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Labour launches youth manifesto
Corbyn is about to launch his youth manifesto – called The Future is Ours – in Loughborough. The document commits the party to giving 16-year-olds the right to vote, and to investing an additional £250m to build up to 500 new youth centres. You can watch the live stream at the top of this blog and I’ll bring you live updates.
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The latest polling, from Panelbase, has the Conservative party lead over Labour narrow to 10 points. The survey has the Tories on 42%, down one point from the pollster’s survey last week, with Labour on 32%, up two points. The Lib Dems were on 14%, down one point, and the Brexit party down two points to 3%.
You can keep up to date with the most recent polling with our tracker here:
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The Green party’s co-leader Jonathan Bartley appeared on Sky News’s Sophy Ridge on Saturday this morning, where he warned that the climate emergency could kill more people than the second world war:
It’s an existential threat. 55m people died in the second world war, the threat of a climate emergency is much, much bigger than that. There is no real bigger threat except of course for nuclear weapons.
On Prince Andrew’s decision to withdraw from public life, he said:
I think there are still questions that are unanswered. I don’t think just Andrew withdrawing from public life is a solution. The point here is the victims who are at the centre of this, the survivors of abuse. No one should be above the questions and these questions need to be put and this is no substitute, no alternative.
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Former prime minister Gordon Brown is to claim removing Boris Johnson from Number 10 is the first step in restoring “common decency” and moving the UK forward, the PA Media reports.
He’ll be speaking today at three Labour campaign events across Scotland - in Fife, South Lanarkshire and East Lothian.
He will highlight figures that show there are 121,925 children in working families north of the border living in poverty.
The UK is already torn apart by Brexit, divisive nationalisms, a north-south divide and the crude trolling of vulnerable people of all sides.
We are so disunited we have lost sight of a once-compassionate, state-guaranteed safety net and seem unable to work together - even to come to the aid of vulnerable children...
A caring nation would increase child benefit substantially, raise the child credit, end the withdrawal of benefits from three and four-child families and guarantee that there is always enough housing benefit in place to pay rent.
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Jeremy Corbyn has been speaking outside an Amazon depot in Sheffield, launching the party’s “fair tax programme”.
Speaking to reporters, he insisted adopting a neutral stance in a second Brexit referendum was a sign of “strength” and “maturity”.
I think being an honest broker and listening to everyone is actually a sign of strength and a sign of maturity.
Tories pledge £1.6bn to find dementia cure
Here’s some more on that Conservative dementia announcement.
The party has pledged more than £1.6bn for research to find a cure for dementia over the next decade, which it says represents the largest boost to dementia research ever in the UK, doubling current funding levels.
They have also announced plans to launch an “innovative medicines fund” by extending the successful “cancer drugs fund” – which was due to end next year – to other diseases. It will have a £500m budget in the first year, compared with the £340m value of the cancer drugs fund.
There are currently 850,000 people suffering from dementia in the UK and that number is set to rise to more than a million by the middle of the next decade and to double in the next 30 years.
Johnson said dementia was “one of the great medical challenges of our time”. “This is our plan to tackle it: a record injection of cash that unleashes the brilliant British science community that brought the world penicillin, IVF and Proton Beam Therapy for cancer.”
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Labour vows to take on 'bad bosses and tax dodgers'
Jeremy Corbyn and the shadow employment rights secretary, Laura Pidcock, are due to launch their “fair tax programme” outside an Amazon warehouse in Yorkshire today.
The party has pledged to tackle tax dodging by introducing unitary taxation of multinationals to stop tax avoiding profit shifting. The approach is outlined in this report by Public Services International. Labour says the measure will bring in £6.3bn in 2023-24.
Their package of measures (which you can read here) includes:
- Clamping down on the enablers of tax dodging.
- Increasing HMRC’s targeted audits.
- Establishing an inquiry into the finance sector.
- Introducing a 20% Offshore Company Property Levy, on top of existing stamp duties and surcharges.
- Scrapping non-dom status.
- Requiring greater scrutiny of MPs’ tax affairs.
In comments issued ahead of the visit, Corbyn said:
Huge multinational companies often act as if the rules we all live by don’t apply to them. They use loopholes to claim they don’t owe tax and cynically push their workers to the limit. I don’t want to live in a country of a few billionaires and millions of stressed people, worried about making ends meet every month.
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Lib Dem parliamentary candidate, and former Labour MP, Chuka Umunna has spoken to the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, repeating criticism of Jeremy Corbyn’s neutral Brexit stance.
I think it is extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary, that on the biggest issue since the second world war, the leader of the opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, is saying he would seek to behave like some referee in a football match ...
It’s absolutely clear - you can’t save the NHS and address the issues in it at the same time as not seeking to stop Brexit, not least because 10% of our doctors come from the EU, and 7% of our nurses come from the EU.
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The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, has given an interview to the Guardian’s political editor, Heather Stewart, in which she has said that a Labour government would make values, not numbers, the driving force behind immigration policy.
What I would say is different about Jeremy [Corbyn] – and myself as home secretary – is we want to talk about values. Because it flows from your values, actually, if you hold them genuinely, what sort of immigration system that you have.
It’s worth a read:
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Here’s a bit more information about what we have to look forward to today.
- The Conservatives are announcing a £1.6bn fund to find a cure for dementia. Boris Johnson said the investment would double current funding levels and that it would set Britain’s finest scientists to work on a “dementia moonshot”.
- Labour is launching its youth manifesto. The document called The Future is Ours will commit the party to giving 16-year-olds the right to vote, and to investing an additional £250m to build up to 500 new youth centres.
- Jeremy Corbyn is visiting an Amazon depot in Yorkshire, where he will vow to tackle the “tax and wage cheat culture” of multinational companies who “rip off” workers.
- The Liberal Democrat leader, Jo Swinson, will be in west London focusing on creative and arts subjects in schools, which she said should have “the same footing as the rest of the curriculum”.
- The Brexit party leader, Nigel Farage, will be on a walkabout in Hartlepool, where the party’s chairman, Richard Tice, is a candidate.
I’ll bring you more information as I get it.
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The shadow health secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, has responded to yesterday’s vote on GP home visits at the BMA conference yesterday.
The crisis in the family doctor service is just one more area where the Conservative government has let down patients and the NHS.
In 2015 they promised more GPs, which like their pledges on everything else, never happened. And now there is a serious threat that elderly and vulnerable patients who rely on home visits will have that vital support removed.
You can’t trust Boris Johnson with the NHS. Labour’s rescue plan will recruit and train the GPs needed so home visits can continue.
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Here’s a round up of today’s front pages, with Corbyn’s “neutral” Brexit stance dominating many.
Hancock rules out scrapping GP home visits
More on the health secretary’s comments on this morning’s Today programme.
Delegates representing GPs across England at a British Medical Association conference on Friday voted to try to remove the duty in their standard contracts to carry out home visits, complaining that they were wasting time driving around the country. However, speaking on Saturday morning, Matt Hancock said the idea was a “complete non-starter” and that he was firmly opposed to the plan.
The GPs had a vote on what their opening negotiating position should be for the next GP contract. The idea that people shouldn’t be able, when they need it, to have a home visit from a GP is a complete non-starter and it won’t succeed in their negotiations.
Of course, people need to be able to see their GP and we’re putting huge amounts of extra resources into training, funding and hiring more GPs, and the other practice staff which are also so important. But you do need, sometimes, for the GP to be able to go and see somebody.
You can read the full story here:
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Good morning and welcome to politics live, the morning after the special BBC Question Time programme in which Jeremy Corbyn announced he would remain neutral in a second Brexit referendum.
The Labour leader was quizzed by a live studio audience in Sheffield, followed by the SNP’s leader Nicola Sturgeon, the Lib Dem Jo Swinson and, finally, the prime minister, Boris Johnson.
The audience pulled no punches, attacking Swinson over her record in the coalition and her party’s revoke article 50 policy; challenging Boris Johnson over his trustworthiness and previous racist statements; confronting Corbyn over antisemitism in his party and his renationalisation plans; and pushing Sturgeon to confirm that she could support a Corbyn government in exchange for a Scottish independence referendum.
You can read full write-up from the Guardian’s political editor Heather Stewart here. Some colour from the spin room in Sheffield – where the foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, and shadow transport secretary, Andy McDonald, squared up to each other over racism in their parties – from me here. And you can watch some video highlights here:
The health secretary, Matt Hancock, has been on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ruling out scrapping home visits by GPs, despite complaints from doctors that they are too over-stretched to deliver the service. I’ll bring you more on that shortly.
I’m Frances Perraudin and I’ll be guiding you through all of today’s political developments.
