Afternoon summary
- The NHS has identified 173 instances of likely patient harm arising from the loss of half a million pieces of confidential medical correspondence such as test results and treatment plans. As Rajeev Syal and Denis Campbell report, an update from the Department of Health sent to MPs on the public accounts committee said it was reviewing the recovered documents and had already found 173 cases that “require further clinical review”. The figure emerged as the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, was forced to make a statement in parliament on Monday afternoon and answer MPs’ questions in response to urgent questions tabled by Labour and the Liberal Democrats following the Guardian’s revelations.
- Lord Dunlop, a Northern Ireland minister, has told peers that the EU “will be sensitive” to the need to keep the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland open during the Brexit negotiations. (See 6.10pm.) He was speaking as peers debated amendments on this issue. Peter Hain, the Labour former Northern Ireland secretary, said a hard Brexit “could do profound damage” to peace in Northern Ireland if it led to border controls being reintroduced. (See 5.45pm.) The amendments were not put to a vote. Later peers are expected to vote on another Hain amendment saying Theresa May should commit to staying in the single market before she triggers article 50. The Lib Dems are supporting Hain, but the Labour front bench are opposing the amendment on the grounds that it could be seen as holding up article 50 because it imposes a condition on the government, and so the amendment is not expected to be passed.
That’s all from me for tonight.
Thanks for the comments.
Updated
Peter Hain is now winding up the debate.
He says everyone is agreeing with him. But, as Lord Kerslake (the former head of the civil service) said in the debate earlier, the harder the Brexit, the harder the border.
He says this could be politically “lethal” for Northern Ireland.
But, in the light of what the minister said, he says he will not push his amendment to a vote.
Turning to the amendments (see 5pm), Dunlop says there is no need to put a line in the bill committing the government to keeping the border with Ireland open because the government is ready committed to this.
He says the government does not want to do anything that will make citizens of the UK feel like strangers in the UK.
On the McAvoy amendment, he says the government’s commitment to the Good Friday agreement is “rock solid”.
He says it will always be for the people of Northern Ireland to decide their constitutional futre.
Lord Dunlop, a Northern Ireland minister, is responding for the government.
He says there should be no doubt about the importance the government attaches to Northern Ireland.
No one wants to see a return to the borders of the past, he says. The government wants trade across the Northern Ireland/Ireland border to be “as frictionless as possible”, he says.
He says the relationship between the UK and Ireland has never been stronger. And there is a strong desire on both sides to find a solution to this issue.
He says he thinks the EU “will be sensitive to the specific challenges” around the Ireland border issue.
- Northern Ireland minister says EU “will be sensitive” to the Ireland border issue.
Paul Murphy, the Labour former Northern Ireland secretary, is responding to the debate for Labour from the front bench. He says he does not think anything more important has happened in his political life than the Northern Ireland peace process and Brexit.
He says he thinks Owen Paterson was a very committed Northern Ireland secretary. But he thinks Paterson was wrong to say in the Commons recently that the EU did not play an important role in the peace process.
He says joint membership of the EU allowed British and Irish ministers to meet.
He says the issue of the border is hugely significant. He knows the government agrees. But it must be at the top of the agenda. The brightest minds should be engaged in trying to find a solution.
Referring to his own amendment, about the keeping open the possibility of a united Ireland being in the EU, (see 5pm), which he says he will not push to a vote, he says this is important because it is an issue the Irish will raise.
Updated
The government’s push for a hard Brexit could come “at a dangerously high cost” for peace across the Irish border, the former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain has warned as the article 50 bill is scrutinised in the Lords.
Hain, the former Labour MP who became a peer in 2015, said reintroducing controls on the border of Northern Ireland and Ireland might undermine a sectarian peace process which could still “so easily unravel”.
“Frankly, I’m convinced the government has begun to even grasp the political significance of it,” he argued.
Hain has introduced an amendment to the bill which authorises the government to trigger article 50, starting the process of leaving the EU, saying the government should “support the maintenance of the open border” as part of Brexit.
The amendment is supported by Paul Murphy, Hain’s Labour predecessor in the Northern Ireland office, and John Alderdice, the former speaker of the Northern Ireland assembly, both of whom are now also in the Lords.
Hain said a hard Brexit “could do profound damage” to the basis of Northern Ireland’s Good Friday peace deal if it restricted use of a border which sees around 30,000 people crossing it every day.
An open border was “politically totemic” to republicans in Northern Ireland, he said, and while political union did not exist, the two sides of the crossing were “becoming united in everyday life”. Hain said:
And that is something welcomed by unionists as well, secure in the knowledge that there can be no change in the constitutional position without their consent. Above all it’s a symbol of the normalisation of relations between the two parts of Ireland.
The government disturbs that at everyone’s great and grim peril. And those who maintain that because the prime minister said she does not want to return to a hard border then it won’t happen, should be aware that the Irish government – which doesn’t want a hard border either – has nevertheless, as a contingency measure, begun identifying possible locations for checkpoints along the border with Northern Ireland in the event of a hard Brexit.
I don’t say that we’ll go back to the murder and mayhem of the Troubles, but I do insist that the process could so easily unravel.
If the referendum means Brexit at any price, it may well be at a dangerously high cost for the Northern Ireland peace process.
In the Lords Lord Dubs, the Labour peer, says he backs the Hain amendment (see 5pm) because he thinks it would strengthen Theresa May’s negotiating hand in Brussels. He also says that peers owe it to the Irish government to show that they are taking its concerns about the importance of keeping the border with Northern Ireland open seriously.
Here is more on the debate from the BBCs’ Esther Webber.
Former Stormont speaker and Lib Dem Lord Alderdice urges PM to remember she is "not just prime minister of England and a few add-on bits"
— Esther Webber (@estwebber) February 27, 2017
Conservative former first minister Lord Trimble says amending the Article 50 bill unnecessary as PM has already committed to open border
— Esther Webber (@estwebber) February 27, 2017
Conservative former FCO minister Lord Howell says the problem of the N Ireland border can be resolved by "good will on all sides"
— Esther Webber (@estwebber) February 27, 2017
Crossbencher and former civil service chief Lord Kerslake on Northern Ireland: "The harder the Brexit, the harder the border"
— Esther Webber (@estwebber) February 27, 2017
Peers are now debating three amendments relating to Northern Ireland: one tabled by Peter Hain, the Labour former Northern Ireland secretary, saying the government should maintain an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; one tabled by Lord McAvoy, the Labour whip, saying Brexit must not undermine the government’s obligations under the Good Friday agreement; and one tabled by Paul Murphy, the Labour former Northern Ireland secretary, saying the prime minister should not negotiate anything that would stop a united Ireland being in the EU if Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland chose to unite.
In his speech Hain said:
Bertie Ahern, who served three terms as Taoiseach between 1997 and 2008 and who was a central player in helping to secure the Good Friday agreement and deliver power sharing, was reported in the Observer recently as saying the establishment of an Irish land border could have devastating results, putting Northern Ireland’s peace process in jeopardy. “I worry far more about what’s going to happen with that,” he said. “It will take away the calming effects of an open border. Any attempt to try to start putting down border posts or to man it in a physical sense, as used to be the case, would be very hard to maintain and would create a lot of bad feeling.” I would suggest, my lords, that bad feeling is an understatement.
Hain said the only way for the border to stay open was for Britain to remain in the customs union or for Britain and Ireland to have a bilateral deal on trade.
Updated
Peers debate the article 50 bill
In the Lords peers are debating the article 50 bill. It is the first day of the committee stage debate.
Here is the full list of amendments to the bill that have been tabled (pdf).
And here is the note showing how the amendments have been grouped; ie, in what order they will be debated.
The first stage of the debate focused on an amendment tabled by Lord Lea of Crondall, a Labour peer, saying Britain should leave the EU but remain in the European Economic Area (EEA).
Lord Keen of Elie, the Ministry of Justice’s spokesman in the Lords and advocate general for Scotland, responded on behalf of the government. He said the government was opposed to this amendment because leaving the EU but remaining in the EEA was not an option.
The liveliest moment came when Lord Liddle, the Labour peer and former European adviser, intervened. He said if the government really was ruling out staying in the single market. He went on:
If they are, we are facing the the most horrendous cliff edge as an economy.
Keen said he did not accept that.
I don’t accept that we are facing a cliff edge. Indeed, there is no cliff, and therefore no edge. We fully intend to negotiate a suitable settlement within the period set out in article 50.
This stage of the debate ended without the Lea amendment, amendment 1, being put to a vote.
Updated
Here is the latest Guardian story on the 500,000 medical records that went missing.
And here is how it starts.
The NHS has already identified 173 instances of likely patient harm arising from the loss of half a million pieces of confidential medical correspondence such as test results and treatment plans.
An update from the Department of Health sent to MPs on the public accounts committee said it was reviewing the recovered documents and said it had already found 173 cases that “require further clinical review”.
The cases were unearthed as part of a review of 2,500 documents that had been “traiged as potential high risk of harm”, in a letter sent to the committee by Chris Wormald, the permanent secretary at the Department of Health.
Updated
Hunt told MPs that GPs were paid £2.2m to deal with the backlog of patient correspondence.
Hunt's opening statement - Summary
Here are the key points from Jeremy Hunt’s opening statement.
- Hunt said that so far there is no evidence that any patients have been harmed as a result of 708,000 items of NHS patient correspondence not being delivered properly. He said after he was told about this in March last year he ordered a review to see if patient safety had been compromised. Some 200,000 documents were temporary residence forms, he said. Another 500,000 documents were assessed as “low risk”.
A first triage identified a further 2,500 items which had potential risk of harm and needed further investigation but follow up by local GPs has already identified nearly 2,000 of these as having no patient harm. The remainder are still being assessed, but so far no patient harm has been identified.
- He said none of the documents were lost. They were all kept in secure storage, he said. He said they had all now been delivered to the relevant GP surgery where that was possible.
- He rejected suggestions that there had been a cover-up. He said there were good reasons for not publicising this immediately.
I was advised by officials not to make the issue public last March until an assessment of the risks to patient safety had been completed and all relevant GP surgeries informed. I accepted that advice for the very simple reason that publicising the issue could have meant GP surgeries being inundated with enquiries from worried patients which would have prevented them doing the most important work, namely investigating the named patients who were potentially at risk.
But he said that after that he did make this incident public. He went on:
For the same reasons, and in good faith, a proactive statement about what had happened was again not recommended by my department in July. However, on balance, I decided it was important for the House to know what had happened before we broke for recess so we did not follow that advice and placed a written statement before the House on 24 July.
He also said that he had kept the Commons public accounts committee regularly informed. And he said the information commissioner had been updated in August last year.
Hunt is responding to Ashworth.
He says Ashworth claimed there was a breach of data protection. But no data was lost, he says.
And he says so far there is no evidence that patient safety has been compromised.
He says the measure of the competence of a government is not whether suppliers make mistake. It happened under Labour too, he says. He says what matters is how you respond to it.
He says his officials advised him not to publicise the matter.
But he did make an announcement to MPs about it last year, he says.
And he says the department’s annual report talked about a large volume of data that went missing.
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, accuses Hunt of a cover-up. He says there was a “catastrophic” breach of data protection.
Jeremy Hunt's response to urgent question
Jeremy Hunt is responding to the urgent question now.
He says he was told about a large backlog of undelivered data on 24 March last year.
He says some 700,000 documents were delayed.
None of the documents were lost, he says.
But he says he concern was for patients who might he harmed as a result of the delay. A team was set up to to focus on this.
All the items have now been delivered.
He says 200,000 forms were to do with changes of address.
Another 500,000 forms were assessed as low risk.
He says 2,500 documents potentially carried a risk. They needed further investigation. But so far 2,000 of them have been investigated, and they did not involve patient harm. The others are still being investigated so for no patient harm has been identified.
He says he was advised by officials not to publicise the scale of this so that surgeries did not get inundated by complaints.
Gareth Snell, the new MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central, is taking his seat in the Commons.
Updated
MPs will this afternoon question health officials over the scale of the loss of confidential correspondence involving patients records following previous reassurances that Parliament would be kept informed.
At a public accounts committee hearing today, DoH officials will be asked about testimony in September which reassured that MPs would be kept informed over the loss of data.
It follows disclosures in the Guardian today that thousands of patients are feared to have been harmed after the NHS lost more than half a million pieces of confidential medical correspondence, including test results and treatment plans.
The documents, which range from screening results to blood tests to diagnoses, failed to reach their intended recipients because the company meant to ensure their delivery mistakenly stored them in a warehouse.
Sir Simon Stevens, the NHS chief executive, and Chris Wormald, the department’s private secretary, will appear before the committee at 4pm today.
The PAC meeting in September raised questions over lost documents referred to in the DoH’s annual accounts which were released on July 21st 2016, the last day before Parliament’s summer recess.
On the same July day, Jeremy Hunt, the secretary of state for health, released a short statement which expressed “regret” for data lost by NHS Shared Business Services, but did not go into detail about the scale of the losses.
Hunt said: “This service was limited to three geographical areas – North East London, the South West of England and the East Midlands – and was delivered as part of the Primary Care Support Service we provided for NHS England. This service was commissioned by NHS England to attempt to trace and redirect correspondence intended for a patient’s GP, but which was initially sent by the originating sender to the wrong GP practice.
“We would like to express our regret for this situation, and we are working with NHS England to return all delayed correspondence to GP practices for filing in medical records as quickly as possible.”
In September, the PAC chair Meg Hillier raised the lost documents with Wormald and David Williams, the department’s director general finance and asked if there were risk to patient safety.
Williams said the issue was being taken seriously and that an NHS ENgland team had completed a review of the documentation.
“Where there have been some concerns about the potential for harm, those records have been turned to the relevant GP for assessment and that process is still under way. I would prefer to wait for that process to finish before giving you a definitive update,” he said.
Asked if they would report back before Christmas, Wormald said: “Yes. We are obviously concerned about this and we understand why everybody else would be. Perhaps we should give you regular written updates when new information is available.”
Jeremy Hunt responds to Commons urgent question about huge NHS data loss
Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, is about to answer a Commons urgent statement about the huge NHS data loss revealed in a Guardian story today.
Here is the story.
In the Lords peers are just starting the committee stage debate on the article 50 bill. You can read the full list of amendments tabled to the bill here. There is expected to be a vote later this evening, on an amendment saying the government should retain membership of the single market, but this is not one of the votes the government is expected to lose.
Lunchtime summary
- The speaker, John Bercow, has granted a Commons urgent question about a Guardian report saying more than 500,000 pieces of patient data sent between GPs and hospitals went undelivered over the five years from 2011 to 2016. Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, will respond to it.
- John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has effectively disowned an article he wrote about a week ago claiming that “an alliance between elements in the Labour Party and the Murdoch media empire” are engaged in a “soft coup” against Jeremy Corbyn. (See 10.14am.) A source close to McDonnell said this no longer represented his “current view” and a spokesman for McDonnell said he wanted people to focus on party unity. Speaking on the Daily Politics, Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade secretary, said he was not aware of a coup under way against Corbyn. He said:
I think this was frustration. You will recall that there were the interventions by the Labour grandees just before the by-elections. John obviously got on the late-night typewriter, as it used to be, and out of frustration penned this.
This was written for a section within the Labour party and clearly it was written out of frustration that John felt. He has retracted it. He’s said it was wrong to put that out and he wants now to focus on what I think all of us in the PLP ought to be focusing on, and that is uniting the parliamentary Labour party and listening to the country so we can get on and do our job of opposing the government.
And the Labour MP Liz Kendall told the same programme:
I have no idea what [McDonnell’s] talking about. Nobody should be fighting phantoms.
- Theresa May’s national security adviser Sir Mark Lyall Grant is to retire in April. Sir Mark, 60, will be replaced by Mark Sedwill, the mandarin currently in charge of the Home Office. As the Press Association reports, the prime minister said Lyall Grant had made a “huge contribution” but Sedwill was “ideally qualified” to take up the role.
- A 40-year-old man has been arrested by police on suspicion of sending abusive messages on Twitter. As the Press Association reports, detectives from the Metropolitan Police’s parliamentary liaison and investigation team arrested the man on suspicion of malicious communications, a spokesman said. The arrest comes after Tory MP Will Quince complained on February 23 about a stream of offensive tweets after speaking out in the row over proposed cuts to maternity services in the by-election seat of Copeland in Cumbria.
No 10 lobby briefing - Summary
Here are the main points from the Number 10 lobby briefing.
- Number 10 has said that an announcement today to change the way personal injury compensation payments are calculated will cost the NHS around £1bn. The government will make sure the NHS gets “appropriate funding” to ensure it does not lose out, the prime minister’s spokesman said.
In terms of the NHS, the government will make sure that the NHS has the appropriate funding to cover any changes to hospitals’ costs, including negligence costs.
When it was put to him that the cost to the NHS would be about £1bn, the spokesman said the final calculations were still being worked out but that £1bn was “probably broadly in the right ball park”. The spokesman did not dispute the suggestion that the announcement will also lead to insurance premiums going up, but he said that ultimately this was a commercial matter. He said that the announcement was made by Liz Truss, the justice secretary, in her capacity as lord chancellor, in accordance with her legal obligations. Truss has explained her move in a written ministerial statement today. She said:
Under the Damages Act 1996, I, as lord chancellor, have the power to set a discount rate which courts must consider when awarding compensation for future financial losses in the form of a lump sum in personal injury cases.
The current legal framework makes clear that claimants must be treated as risk averse investors, reflecting the fact that they may be financially dependent on this lump sum, often for long periods or the duration of their life.
The discount rate was last set in 2001, when the then-lord chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, set the rate at 2.5%. This was based on a three year average of real yields on index-linked gilts. Since 2001, the real yields on index-linked gilts has fallen, so I have decided to take action.
Having completed the process of statutory consultation, I am satisfied that the rate should be based on a three year average of real returns on index-linked gilts. Therefore I am setting it at minus 0.75%.
- George Freeman, the Conservative MP who chairs the prime minister’s policy board, has apologised for what he said yesterday suggesting that some people with mental health problems are not “really disabled”. The spokesman said Freeman had apologised. Freeman issued his apology on Twitter at about the time the briefing started. Freeman made his original comment when talking about government plans to restrict eligibility for the personal independence payment, a disability benefit, in the light of court rulings that would have allowed more people to claim it. The spokesman said that that no current PIP claimants would be affected by the legal changes the government is planning. Instead, the proposals were intended to “restore the original aim of the policy”, he said.
Clearly, the government is committed to ensuring the welfare system is a strong safety net for those who need it. Nobody is losing out as a result of this. The amendments haven’t been brought in to make any savings. Nobody is going to see a reduction in the amount of PIP they receive.
The spokesman also said that the government was spending around £50bn a year on people with disabilities, equivalent to around 6% of GDP.
- Theresa May has paid tribute to Sir Gerald Kaufman. In a statement she said:
I was very sad to hear of the death of Sir Gerald Kaufman. His was a life of remarkable commitment to his constituents in Manchester and to to political life of the nation. He spent more than half of his life as a parliamentarian having been first elected in 1970.
As father of the House his wisdom and experience will be very much missed by MPs on all sides of the House.
- Number 10 played down the significance of the Guardian’s revelation that more than 500,000 pieces of patient data sent between GPs and hospitals went undelivered over the five years from 2011 to 2016. The spokesman said that the department of health and NHS England had been “working hard to rectify” this problem. The spokesman also sidestepped a question about the government apparently tried to cover this up. Last year Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, just told MPs that “some correspondence” had gone missing. Asked about this, the spokesman said that what was important was that the problem had been recognised and addressed.
- The spokesman said that no decision has yet been taken as to what cut-off date will apply when the government guarantees the rights of EU nationals living in the UK to remain. There have been reports claiming that May will set the date article 50 is triggered as the cut-off date, meaning that EU nationals who arrive in the UK after the middle of next month (when article 50 is likely to be invoked) will not be guaranteed the right to remain. Asked about this, the spokesman said:
There has been a lot of speculation on this in the past couple of days. No decisions have been taken on that.
- The spokesman said May did not accept that there was a case for a second independence referendum in Scotland. The SNP government is threatening to hold one if Scotland faces being forced out of the single market. The spokesman said the UK government did not think there should be a second referendum.
There was a vote in 2014, the people of Scotland made a decision then to remain in the union, and all the evidence around at the moment suggests that Scotland does not want another referendum. It was a fair, legal, decisive result and both sides agreed that they would abide by the result.
But, asked if the government would try to veto a second referendum, the spokesman refused to commit to that, saying it was a hypothetical question. He also refused to confirm or deny a report in today’s Times saying May is considering agreeing a second referendum, but only on condition that it is held after Brexit, by which time Scotland will have left the EU along with the rest of the UK. The SNP want it to happen before then.
- The spokesman said ministers would be raising Daily Mail revelations about the aggressive tactics used by licence fee enforcement officers with the BBC. These were “concerning” reports, the spokesman said. “The licence fee does need to be collected in a fair and reasonable manner.”
- The spokesman sidestepped a question about whether Lord Heseltine would be to remain as a government adviser if he voted against the government on the article 50 bill in the Lords. The spokesman said the question was premature because there had not been a vote yet.
Updated
Minister summoned to Commons to answer urgent question on huge NHS data loss
There will be an urgent question in the Commons on the Guardian’s revelation that more than 500,000 pieces of patient data sent between GPs and hospitals went undelivered over the five years from 2011 to 2016.
UQ granted at 3.30 to @JonAshworth asking @Jeremy_Hunt on loss of confidential NHS correspondence by NHS Shared Business Services
— Labour Whips (@labourwhips) February 27, 2017
The question has been tabled to Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, but at this point we don’t know whether Hunt himself will answer or whether it will be a junior health minister.
New rules on personal injury payments to cost NHS around £1bn, No 10 says
I’m just back from the Number 10 lobby briefing.
- Number 10 has said that an announcement today to change the way personal injury compensation payments are calculated will cost the NHS around £1bn. The government will make sure the NHS gets “appropriate funding” to ensure it does not lose out, the prime minister’s spokesman said.
- George Freeman, the Conservative MP who chairs the prime minister’s policy board, has apologised for what he said yesterday suggesting that some people with mental health problems are not “really disabled”. The spokesman said Freeman had apologised. Freeman issued his apology on Twitter at about the time the briefing started.
Having experienced myself traumatic anxiety as a child carer living w alcohol I know all too well the pain anxiety + depression causes....
— George Freeman MP (@Freeman_George) February 27, 2017
which is why as a former Health Minister and Policy Adviser I am passionate about supporting MentalHealth and Disability, and hugely ...
— George Freeman MP (@Freeman_George) February 27, 2017
..regret if my comment about the need to prioritise the most 'serious disabilities' inadvertently caused any offence which was not intended.
— George Freeman MP (@Freeman_George) February 27, 2017
I will post a full summary soon.
Tony Blair has put out a tribute to Sir Gerald Kaufman.
Gerald was an extraordinary man, passionate, principled, acerbic and absolutely dedicated to the cause of social justice and the Labour party.
When I came into parliament in 1983 after an electoral disaster he accurately predicted we immediately became friends.
We used to lunch together and discuss endlessly how Labour came back to power.
Then if either of us had a big parliamentary occasion, we’d sit together to work out the best lines of attack and defence.
Blair said he saw Kaufman “a few weeks back” and “though very ill, he was the same old Gerald, kind, supportive and full of the best reminiscences of our time together”.
I’m just off to the Number 10 lobby briefing now. I will post again after 11.30am.
A spokesman for John McDonnell has just put out this statement about the Labour Briefing article.
This article was written over a week ago in response to the intervention from Tony Blair. It was published in print last week and only went online last night. However, as John said yesterday he wants us all to focus on party unity following last week’s by-election results. And he is looking to reach out in the coming days to those across all sections of the party and none.
McDonnell disowns article written a week ago claiming 'soft coup' against Corbyn under way
On Friday, after the Labour defeat in Copeland, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor and Jeremy Corbyn’s closest ally, took to the airwaves to argue that Corbyn’s critics, and the disunity they created, were to blame for what happened.
Now Labour Briefing, the website for the leftwing Labour representation committee, which McDonnell chairs, has published an article by McDonnell with a much more extreme version of this thesis. In the article he argues that a “soft coup” against Corbyn is underway, organised by an alliance “between elements in the Labour Party and the Murdoch media empire”.
Here is an excerpt.
We have to alert party members and supporters that the soft coup is under way. It’s planned, co-ordinated and fully resourced. It is being perpetrated by an alliance between elements in the Labour Party and the Murdoch media empire, both intent on destroying Jeremy Corbyn and all that he stands for.
The coup is not being waged up front in public but strictly behind the scenes. Having learned the lesson of the last coup attempt - that a direct attack on Jeremy and his policies will provoke a backlash from many party members - the coup perpetrators are this time round pursuing a covert strategy.
The aim of these covert coup plotters is to undermine the support Jeremy has secured among Labour Party members, and also importantly to undermine support from Labour voters. Undermining support for Jeremy from Labour voters is important to the plotters because their objective is to ensure Jeremy trails in the polls and can’t win elections. In this way they can destroy morale among party members and their confidence in him ...
The plotters are effective in distorting the media coverage because they have extensive contacts and allies in the media, many inherited from Mandelson’s days. The professional planning of interventions in which attacks to undermine Jeremy are framed evidences an exceptionally well resourced ‘dark arts’ operation of the old spin school. The coup plotters are willing to sacrifice the Party at elections just to topple Jeremy and prevent a socialist leading the Party. It is more important to them that they regain control of the Party than it is to win elections.
But McDonnell’s article was written about a week ago, before the Copeland defeat. It was prompted by Tony Blair’s speech on Brexit and Lord Mandelson’s admission that he tries to undermine Corbyn every day. A source close to McDonnell said that this article “does not represent [McDonnell’s] current view”.
Updated
MPs pay tribute to Gerald Kaufman on Twitter
Here are some of the tributes to Sir Gerald Kaufman from MPs on Twitter.
From Labour MPs
Sad to hear of Gerald Kaufman's death.He was a tremendously dedicated servant of his constituency & our party. A man of absolute principle.
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) February 27, 2017
Woken up to the sad news that Sir Gerald Kaufman has passed away. MP for Ardwick 1970-83 & Gorton 1983-2017. Thank you and farewell friend. pic.twitter.com/yo8mSKxpPj
— Andrew Gwynne MP (@GwynneMP) February 27, 2017
Very sad to hear Sir Gerald Kaufman has died. The only man to have started a speech at the PLP with 'As Bette Davis once said to me...'
— Chris Bryant MP (@RhonddaBryant) February 27, 2017
Grieved at news of Gerald Kaufman's death, diamond bright intelligence, granite hard idealism, ever- courageous and faithful comrade.
— Paul Flynn (@PaulFlynnMP) February 27, 2017
Truly saddened to hear of the passing of my friend Gerald Kaufman. Always a gentleman & a dedicated servant of his Manchester constituents.
— Andy Burnham (@andyburnhammp) February 27, 2017
Very sad to hear about Gerald Kaufman. A brave MP who stood up for his constituents with great determination. Thinking of his family.
— Hilary Benn (@hilarybennmp) February 27, 2017
Very sorry to hear news about Gerald Kaufman, a courteous & diligent colleague who made immense contribution to politics. He will be missed.
— Chris Leslie (@ChrisLeslieMP) February 27, 2017
Gerald Kaufman was a great wise and witty Parliamentarian & totally dedicated to Labour building a better society #RIP
— Angela Eagle (@angelaeagle) February 27, 2017
Such sad news Sir Gerald Kaufman has died. Determined, principled campaigner, could be searingly sharp & thoughtfully polite at same time https://t.co/5vSCAVExso
— Yvette Cooper (@YvetteCooperMP) February 27, 2017
Very sad to hear of the passing of Sir Gerald Kaufman MP. Father of the House and a proud, proper and hard-working constituency MP. RIP
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) February 27, 2017
Deeply saddened by the death of Gerald Kaufman my friend & colleague a truly great influence for good in our party & national life!
— Barry Sheerman (@BarrySheerman) February 27, 2017
I am just so sad to hear that Gerald Kaufman has died. Will never forget going through the lobby with him to vote against Welfare bill. RIP
— Liz McInnes (@LizMcInnesMP) February 27, 2017
So sad Gerald Kaufman has died. A strong advocate for Gorton, for Labour and for Palestine. A clever, funny man and a good friend to me.
— Andy Slaughter MP (@hammersmithandy) February 27, 2017
Sad to hear of the passing of Sir Gerald Kaufman @UKLabour MP 4 Manchester Gorton; a warrior 4 Labour electability https://t.co/qk7c0VBfFP
— Gareth Thomas (@GarethThomasMP) February 27, 2017
Incredibly sad to hear of the loss of Gerald Kaufman. A Labour and parliamentary giant who always made home for his colleagues.
— Rachel Reeves (@RachelReevesMP) February 27, 2017
Sad to hear Gerald Kaufman has died. Such a strong campaigner for his constituents and for Palestine. He will be missed.
— Lisa Nandy (@lisanandy) February 27, 2017
Sad to hear of the death of Gerald Kaufman MP. He was my MP at university in Manchester & very kind when I was elected in 2015
— Jo Stevens MP (@JoStevensLabour) February 26, 2017
Very sorry to hear of the death of my friend and neighbour Sir Gerald Kaufman. He will be missed in parliament and by his many friends
— Kate Green (@KateGreenSU) February 27, 2017
Saddened to hear the news of the death of our wonderful colleague Sir Gerald Kaufman.I'll always remember his kindness & generosity. RIP.
— Rushanara Ali (@rushanaraali) February 27, 2017
Sad to hear of death of my parliamentary colleague and Father of the House Sir Gerald Kaufman - first elected in 1970. Thoughts with family.
— Stephen Doughty (@SDoughtyMP) February 27, 2017
Sad to hear of the passing of Leeds-born Gerald Kaufman. A principled man, a sharp intellect and a master of words: https://t.co/DA4GxMngvT
— Richard Burgon MP (@RichardBurgon) February 27, 2017
Greatly saddened that father of the house Sir Gerald Kaufman 1st MP I knew has died at 86. Though increasingly frail, sharp brain to the end
— Rupa Huq MP (@RupaHuq) February 27, 2017
Sir Gerald Kaufman has died. Supported me as MP candidate, most welcoming MP to me when I arrived, shared common support for #Palestine 😔 😢
— Simon Danczuk (@SimonDanczuk) February 27, 2017
From Conservative MPs
Sad to hear of the passing of Sir Gerald Kaufman, Father of House, fellow MP in the North West & champion of his Manchester constituents
— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) February 27, 2017
Sad to hear that Sir Gerald Kaufman has passed away. My condolences to his family and friends
— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) February 27, 2017
So sorry to hear about Gerald Kaufman. An office neighbour in the last Parliament, he always so dapper
— David Mundell (@DavidMundellDCT) February 27, 2017
Sad to hear Sir Gerald Kaufman has passed away. He always had a distinctive voice and championed the arts in Parliament
— Matt Hancock (@MattHancockMP) February 27, 2017
Very sad that Gerald Kaufman has died. I visited him at home when he was ill. We became friends when he chaired the Culture Select Committee
— Michael Fabricant (@Mike_Fabricant) February 27, 2017
Sad to see Sir Gerald Kaufman passing. We've shared a corridor for over 6 years. I'll miss his cheery "good morning" and choice of clothes!
— Mark Garnier (@Mark4WyreForest) February 27, 2017
Sorry to hear that Gerald Kaufman has died - he was a much needed champion of the arts and creative industries in Parliament
— Ed Vaizey (@edvaizey) February 27, 2017
Sad to hear that Sir Gerald Kaufman, Father of the House of Commons, has died. Extraordinary public service: 47 years an MP.
— Peter Heaton-JonesMP (@PeterNorthDevon) February 27, 2017
Such sad news that Father of the House Sir Gerald Kaufman has passed away - an incredible 47 years as MP.
— Caroline Nokes (@carolinenokes) February 27, 2017
On the Today programme this morning the Conservative MP Heidi Allen said she hoped the government would reconsider its plan to curb eligibility for the personal independence payment. And she said the whole benefit should be reviewed, because it was not “fit for purpose”. She told the programme:
In my view, the courts are there for a reason. If they have come up with this ruling, which says that the criteria should be extended, then I believe we have a duty to honour that. That is their role. Does that mean we should look at the process as a whole? Frankly I think we should do that anyway. It is not fit for purpose at the moment.
Asked if she had a message for the disabilities minister Penny Mordaunt, Allen said:
Don’t do it. If I was in her shoes, I would take the financial hit and say we need to accept this. Now let’s really look at this PIP policy, which is something that needs to happen anyway, and review the whole thing from top to bottom.
Here is Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader, on Sir Gerald Kaufman.
Sad news. For decades, Gerald was an outstanding servant of the Labour movement. His principles, values & friendship will be sorely missed. https://t.co/XI6B35weKe
— Ed Miliband (@Ed_Miliband) February 26, 2017
Late last night it was announced that the Sir Gerald Kaufman, the Labour MP and father of the Commons, had died. Here is the Guardians’s story about his death.
Gordon Brown, the former prime minister, paid tribute to Kaufman this morning. He said:
There was no one quite like Gerald Kaufman: a brilliant speaker, a compelling writer, an acerbic wit and a conscientious constituency MP who was at home in every one of the Manchester communities he represented in the House of Commons.
With his sharp insights, he not only penned many famous lines but gave the wisest of advice to Labour leaders who relied upon him throughout his 47 years in Westminster.
And here is the tribute from Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader.
I’m very sad at the passing of Sir Gerald Kaufman MP.
An iconic and irascible figure in the Labour party, Gerald worked with Harold Wilson when he was prime minister in the 1960s and became a Labour MP in 1970.
Gerald was always a prominent figure in the party and in parliament, with his dandy clothes and wonderful demeanour in speaking.
Gerald came from a proud Jewish background. He always wanted to bring peace to the Middle East and it was my pleasure to travel with him to many countries.
I last saw him in his lovely flat in St John’s Wood in London, surrounded by film posters and a library of the film world.
He loved life and politics. I will deeply miss him, both for his political commitment and constant friendship.
I will post further tributes shortly.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10am: The Institute for Fiscal Studies launches a report on education spending.
11am: Number 10 lobby briefing.
12.45pm: Sir Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, gives a speech announcing the MoD’s new chief scientific adviser.
Around 3pm: Peers begin their committee stage debate on the article 50 bill. There is a chance of a vote in the early evening.
3.30pm: Labour hopes to get an urgent question on the government’s proposals to curb eligibility to the personal independence payment (PIP), a benefit for the disabled.
6pm: Sir John Major, the former prime minister, gives a speech on Britain and Europe.
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 at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
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. Alternatively you could post a question to me on Twitter.
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