Early evening summary
- Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, said there was some worry in government about the main Indian variant, B16172, because it may be more transmissible than the dominant one in the UK, B117 (the so-called Kent variant). At the start of the press conference he showed this slide illustrating how cases of B16172 have more than doubled in a week.
Whitty said that new variants accounted for less than 5% of coronavirus cases in the UK (other than B117, which is now dominant and accounts for the vast majority of cases), but he said the Indian one was “slightly concerning”. He said:
Most of [the variants] are currently relatively stable and not increasing at a great rate. The one that is slightly concerning in terms of increasing as a proportion is the variant which has been described from India. That does appear to be increasing but from very low levels over the last two weeks.
Asked if spread of the Indian variant could lead to another lockdown, he said:
What we know is, with all the variants, that things can come out of a blue sky and you’re not expecting it and then something happens. That happened, obviously, with the B117 [the Kent/UK variant] and that has happened to India with this variant as well.
So I think it very imprudent to say [another lockdown] is impossible.
At this point in time our view is this is a highly transmissible variant, at least as transmissible as the B117 variant. It is possible it is more transmissible, but we will have to see.
At this point in time our view is it is less likely to be able to escape vaccination than some of the other variants, particularly the South African one, but the data are not properly in there so I think we need to be cautious until we’ve seen clear data that give us an answer one way or the other.
- Johnson described as “complete nonsense” claims that the government was legislating to require people to produce photo ID at polling stations to suppress the anti-Tory vote. When this was put to him, he replied:
I would say that was complete nonsense and what we want to do is to protect democracy, the transparency and the integrity of the electoral process, and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask first-time voters to produce some evidence of identity.
Johnson appeared to mis-speak, because the government plans will apply to all voters, not just first-time voters.
That’s all from me for today. But our coronavirus coverage continues on our global live blog. It’s here.
Updated
The public service union Unison said the prime minister’s decision to lift the requirement for pupils to wear face masks in classrooms and communal areas next week was “too much, too soon”.
Jon Richards, Unison’s head of education, said:
Everyone wants to get back to normality, but any change has to happen safely. Otherwise, all the care taken over the past few months in schools could be undone.
Face masks will still be needed in other indoor spaces like shops, restaurants and cinemas. Schools and colleges shouldn’t be treated any differently. New virus variants are out in the community. Yet despite repeated requests ministers have failed to reveal the extent of the new strains in schools. Pupils, parents and staff deserve much better.
But Gavin Williamson, the education secretary, said:
Step three of the roadmap allows people to mix indoors once again and in line with the latest data, we no longer need to recommend that face coverings are worn in the classroom.
Over the past year we have always put the wellbeing of pupils and staff first, and this step is now the right one, as vaccinations protect the most vulnerable in society and we turn our attention to building back better from the pandemic.
The Sage document (pdf) about the likely impact of going ahead with further lockdown easing in England (see 6pm) is based on modelling from three universities, Warwick, Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
This chart shows what the the three modelling teams think will happen under step 3 easing (next Monday), and step 3 and step 4 (full easing from 21 June) to hospital admissions, hospital numbers and deaths.
The Warwick and Imperial figures assume no waning immunity. But the LSHTM estimates include figures for what might happen if natural and vaccine reduced immunity does reduce by 15% over six months, as well as the (much lower and better) figures that assume no waning immunity.
Updated
Covid resurgence could be 'very small' if basic precautions retained after lockdown, says Sage
The government has released a new batch of papers from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies this afternoon, including this summary (pdf) of what the modelling says will happen when step three of lockdown easing goes ahead.
Here is an extract from the summary (bold type from the original). It says that if “baseline measures” (ie, basic social distancing) remain in place at the end of the roadmap, the resurgence could be “very small”.
Modelling presented in these central scenarios is more optimistic than those in SPI-M-O’s previous roadmap modelling. This is primarily due to recent evidence that vaccines significantly reduce onwards transmission from people who have been vaccinated but nevertheless become infected then symptomatic. This suggests that if baseline policies to reduce transmission are kept in place at the end of the roadmap, behaviour does not return to pre-pandemic levels, and vaccine roll out progresses, there is an opportunity to keep the next resurgence very small ...
Any resurgence in hospital admissions and deaths following step 3 of the roadmap alone is highly unlikely to put unsustainable pressure on the NHS. It is likely, however, that step 3 will lead to R greater than 1 in England.
It is highly likely that there will be a further resurgence in hospitalisations and deaths, however, the scale, shape, and timing of any resurgence remain highly uncertain; in most scenarios modelled, any peak is smaller than any previous wave seen in England. Some seasonal variation in transmission could also delay or flatten the resurgence but alone is unlikely to prevent it altogether.
Updated
Headteachers expressed grave reservations about the prime minister’s decision to scrap the requirement for face masks in classrooms, warning that it appeared to contradict scientific evidence.
Geoff Barton, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, acknowledged there were arguments both for and against face coverings in classrooms. He said:
It is therefore doubly important that any decision over their continued use should be based firmly upon scientific advice. However, the government’s decision to relax the rules around face masks in secondary schools and colleges is hard to reconcile with evidence published by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies on Friday. This evidence quite clearly said that it was important to maintain the current mitigation measures in schools, including mask wearing, in the coming months.
It is obviously better for communication and learning if masks aren’t required in classrooms, but any decision to this effect must follow the scientific advice, and it is very worrying that the government’s decision appears to contradict the published evidence. This is particularly troublesome in light of the fact that a Covid strain first detected in India has recently been declared a “variant of concern” by Public Health England as this would suggest the need for greater caution.
Barton said school and college leaders were once again being placed in a very difficult position, with many parents and staff keen to retain masks in classrooms. “For the sake of a few more weeks all this unnecessary anxiety could have been avoided and we don’t understand why the government is in such a rush over this issue,” he said.
Updated
Johnson says it is 'nonsense' to claim voting photo ID plan designed to help Tories
Q: You said the last Labour government’s plans for ID cards as a recipe for tyranny. So, given there was just one case of voter impersonation at the last last election, why are you making the ID cards compulsory for voting? Isn’t this just an attempt to suppress the non-Tory vote?
Johnson says that is “complete nonsense”. He says he wants to protect the integrity of the voting process.
And that’s it. The press conference is over.
Updated
Q: If the situation is getting better, when might it be safe to have a Scottish independence referendum?
Johnson says the government and the devolved adminstrations are just focused on the pandemic.
Q: Could the Indian variant lead to another lockdown in the winter?
Whitty says things can come out of the sky. He would not rule it out.
This is a very transmissible variant, he says. He says it may be more transmissible than B117 (the Kent, or UK variant). But it may be less likely to escape the vaccine, he says.
Updated
Q: Will this be the last lockdown we see?
Vallance says this is a big step. But over the next month a lot more people will get vaccinated.
By mid-June, we will have a better idea of the impact of these measures.
But we know the vaccines are having a big impact.
Thing are pointing in the right direction, he says.
Q: In the past you said you wanted people back in the office. Is that still your preference?
Johnson says when he was running Transport for London he observed a “paradox of transport”; the more people could communicate remotely, the more they wanted to meet face to face.
He says he might be wrong; but he thinks, from his experience of watching metropolises, that this is what will happen.
Updated
Q: Will working from home go as guidance from 21 June? And when are you going to start shaking hands again?
Johnson says the government will give guidance nearer the time. He says he is optimistic that things will get back much closer to normality. But people will want to exercise their discretion.
Q: Are you expecting people to be cautious about who they hug? Who are you looking forward to hugging?
Johnson says, whoever he hugs, he will do so “with caution and restraint”. We all know what that means, he says.
Q: The scientists say if you abandon all social distancing after 21 June, they don’t know what will happen to cases?
Johnson says he hopes the 1 metre-plus rule can go then.
Vallance says the modellers will assume some residual protection after 21 June, because they assume people will not revert exactly to what was happening before. Some people will still work from home. People will isolate if they are ill.
And, as winter approaches, things like face coverings on transport may be needed, he says.
Updated
Q: Is there any possibility of bringing forward the 21 June planned end date for all restrictions?
Johnson says it is very important to proceed cautiously, but irreversibly.
He says the government has given itself a “breathing space” after each lockdown easing.
What is happening next week is a “very considerable unlocking”, he says.
He says business wants certainty.
Johnson says people should use “care and common sense” when deciding whether to hug people.
They should think about whether people are vaccinated, he says.
Updated
Q: What proportion of illness is coming from new variants?
Less than 5%, says Whitty.
But he says the Indian variant, B16172, is of concern because it is growing.
Prof Chris Whitty is now showing slides.
This shows the impact of the vaccines.
Full summary of lockdown easing measures for England taking effect next Monday
And here is a government summary of what will change in England from next Monday.
From Monday 17 May indoor hospitality can reopen and indoor entertainment can resume, including cinemas, museums, and children’s play areas.
Up to six people or two households will be able to meet indoors and up to 30 people outdoors.
All remaining outdoor entertainment can reopen, such as outdoor cinemas and performances. Some larger events will be able to take place, including conferences, theatre and concert performances, and sports events. Restrictions on the number of attendees will remain as set out in the roadmap.
Guidance on meeting family and friends will be updated. The public can make informed, personal decisions on close contact, such as hugging, with their friends and family. Close contact continues to carry a risk of catching or spreading Covid-19, and people must consider the risk to themselves and to others. Covid-secure rules remain for the workplace and businesses, such as in shops and hospitality.
The transport secretary has confirmed that international travel can begin to safely reopen from 17 May, allowing people to go on foreign holidays to “green list” countries. Strict border control measures will remain in place, including pre-departure tests and a PCR test on or before day two of their arrival back in the UK. Face coverings will no longer be needed in classrooms or for students in communal areas in secondary schools and colleges. Twice-weekly home testing will remain to control infection rates.
All remaining university students will be eligible to return to in-person teaching and learning from 17 May, and should get tested twice a week upon return.
Up to 30 people will now be able to attend weddings, receptions, and commemorative events including wakes, as well as standalone life-cycle events. These can take place outdoors or at any indoor Covid secure venue that is permitted to open. The number of people able to attend a funeral will be determined by the number that can be safely accommodated in the venue with social distancing in place.
30 people will be able to attend a support group or parent and child group. The limit will not apply to children under 5.
Organised adult sport and exercise classes can resume indoors and saunas and steam rooms may reopen.
Care homes residents will be able to have up to five named visitors, with two visitors able to attend at once provided they are tested and follow infection control measures. Residents will also have greater freedoms to leave their home without having to isolate on their return.
Updated
Here is my colleague Aubrey Allegretti’s story about the changes from next week.
Johnson says from Monday government won't be telling people not to hug close friends and family
Johnson says the guidance on hugging will change from next Monday.
But the government is urging people to use their discretion. People should think about the safety of their loved ones, and remember that outside is safer than inside, and that ventilation makes inside safer.
He says people should follow social distancing rules with people who are not friends and family.
Johnson is now summarising the measures now.
He says they are a considerable step towards normality.
And the country is still on track towards further unlocking on 21 June, he says.
He says before that point the government will give guidance about its plans for Covid-status certificates.
Johnson confirms lockdown easing for England will move to step 3 from next Monday
Boris Johnson starts by thanking people for their patience during lockdown.
Your efforts have so visibly paid off.
He describes the success of the vaccine rollout programme.
And he says the four tests for further easing of the lockdown have been reached.
The data now support moving to step 3 from next Monday, he says.
Boris Johnson's press conference
Boris Johnson is about to hold a press conference. He will be with Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, its chief scientific adviser,
The UK is in a “very good position” against emerging coronavirus variants, with vaccines working and disease rates falling, an expert has said. As PA Media reports, the comments come after Public Health England (PHE) upgraded the strain first detected in India - B16172 - to a variant of concern.
Sharon Peacock, director of the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium (COG-UK), and professor of public health and microbiology at the University of Cambridge, said that, based on current evidence, there is nothing to suggest the Indian variant causes more severe disease than the Kent variant which is dominant in the UK. However, she warned that a lack of evidence is not the same as no evidence, and that there is just not enough data at the moment.
Peacock said:
Public Health England have said that they’ve put an assessment of moderate confidence of increased transmissibility based on the mutation profile and supported by the evidence that actually this does appear to compete with our current circulating variant, the Kent variant, and modelling on growth estimate suggesting that transmissibility is at least equal to B117.
I think that, for me, looking at the overall landscape, I’m still very delighted that vaccines are working, that, you know, whatever is out there, vaccines are working, and disease rates are falling, so we’re in a very good position.
As scientists we just have to keep our eye on this so that we just maintain that trajectory.
The UK has recorded four further coronavirus deaths, and 2,357 new cases, according to the latest update to the government’s Covid dashboard. Week on week, deaths are still falling, by 33%, but cases are now rising, by 3% week on week.
Two doses of Pfizer vaccine reduce risk of death from Covid by 97%, research suggests
Matt Hancock, the health secretary, has welcomed new research from Public Health England about the effectiveness of vaccines.
It shows that a single dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine or the Pfizer vaccine reduces a person’s risk of death from Covid by 80%.
And, for the first time, PHE has data on the effectiveness of a second dose of the Pfizer vaccine (which was rolled out ahead of the AstraZeneca vaccine). Two doses of the Pfizer vaccine reduce the risk of death by 97%, the research says.
NEWS: Excellent new data from @PHE_uk shows that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine cuts your risk of dying of COVID-19 by 97%.
— Matt Hancock (@MattHancock) May 10, 2021
This is further evidence that vaccines are working & help us out of the pandemic.
When you get the call, get the jab.
Surge testing rolled out in North Kensington after cases of South African variant found
Surge testing is to be deployed in North Kensington in London after a small number of cases of the South African coronavirus variant were detected, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said.
It said NHS Test and Trace is working with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea council to provide additional testing and genomic sequencing in targeted areas within the W11 postcode.
Updated
Government data up to 9 May shows that of the 53,328,845 jabs given in the UK so far, 35,472,295 were first doses – a rise of 100,626 on the previous day, PA Media reports. Some 17,856,550 were second doses, an increase of 187,171.
Updated
John McDonnell, shadow chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn, has urged Sir Keir Starmer to shut out Lord Mandelson. He has backed a letter to Starmer making that argument from Mick Whelan, chair of TULO (the trade union and Labour party liaison organisation).
Mandelson has recently been giving advice to Starmer’s team.
The reshuffle fiasco caused unnecessary divisions in the party at weekend. Now our affiliated unions are being alienated by exposure of Mandelson’s strategy for Labour’s future. Unless Keir Starmer curtails Mandelson’s influence there will be more division https://t.co/5PsPRFsSsE
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) May 10, 2021
Updated
David Davis, the Conservative former Brexit secretary, has described the government’s plans to require people to have photo ID when they vote as “an “illiberal solution in pursuit of a non-existent problem”. Davis told the Independent:
It’s yet another unnecessary ID card approach from the government. There’s no evidence that I’m aware of that there is a problem with voter fraud at polling stations ...
It’s illiberal. It’s an illiberal solution in pursuit of a non-existent problem. If you’ve got an ID card, you’re putting a barrier in the way of people to exercise their own democratic rights, which is not necessary and shouldn’t be there.
And Jess Garland, director of policy and research at the Electoral Reform Society, said:
David Davis is right: this policy is a solution in search of a problem.
Voting is safe and secure in the UK, meaning this policy is just an unnecessary barrier to democratic participation. Ministers need to listen to these concerns and drop these costly plans.
Millions of people lack photo ID in this country. These proposals will make it harder to vote for huge numbers of voters, locking ordinary people out of our democracy and unfairly discriminating against those who lack ID.
Updated
Tracy Brabin has formally stood down as MP for Batley and Spen following her election as the mayor of West Yorkshire. As PA Media reports, the government said she had been appointed steward of the Chiltern Hundreds – a formal, historical device used by MPs who quit Westminster outside a general election.
According to HuffPost, the leftwing Labour MPs Ian Laverty and Jon Trickett are telling Sir Keir Starmer that the party’s candidate to succeed Brabin in the forthcoming byelection must be working-class.
Updated
The Scottish Green party won eight seats in the Scottish parliament, an increase of two on 2016. But the party believes it could have won another two if it had not been for a fringe party called “Independent Green Voice” being allowed on the ballot paper, the Daily Record reports. Despite doing only minimal campaigning, Independent Green Voice got a higher vote than similar fringe parties, suggesting some people mistook it for the Scottish Greens.
At a briefing with journalists Michael Gove, the Cabinet Office minister, refused to rule out the UK using legal action to try to stop the Scottish government legislating for a second independence referendum.
The SNP government wants Westminster to approve a second referendum, which is only meant to be legal if authorised by the UK government. If Holyrood were to legislate anyway, one option for Boris Johnson’s government would be to try to get the supreme court to strike down the legislation. Asked if the government would do this, Gove said:
I’m not getting into the whole question of court and litigation and all the rest of it, because if we start theorising in the area then we are sucking oxygen out of the room when we should all be concentrating on recovery.
Other people I am sure will want to speculate or theorise about these questions, but to my mind every second spent asking questions about the supreme court is a second wasted when it comes to concentrating on the issues in hand.
Today's PCC election results so far
Some of the counts for the 39 elections for police and crime commissioners in England and Wales have been taking place today.
According to PA Media, three candidates have been re-elected on the first round of counting, with more than 50% of the vote. Police and crime commissioners are elected using the supplementary vote, which means if no one gets more than half the votes on the first count, the top two candidates go to round two, and the second preferences of the other candidates are taken into account.
The three incumbents re-elected are:
Cumbria
Peter McCall (Con) re-elected with 54% of the vote – up 19 points.
Kent
Matthew Scott (Con) re-elected with 58% of the vote – up 25 points.
South Yorkshire
Alan Billings (Lab) re-elected with 54% of the vote – up 2 points.
And PA Media has posted the first round results from three other contests where no candidate got 50% on the first round.
In Lancashire the Labour incumbent, Clive Grunshaw, who has been in office since 2012, is behind his Tory opponent. Here are the first round results:
Andrew Snowden (C) 166,202 (44.78%, +12.76%)
Clive Grunshaw (Lab) 154,195 (41.55%, -2.23%)
Neil Darby (LD) 32,813 (8.84%, +1.18%)
James Barker (Reform) 17,926 (4.83%)
In Sussex Katy Bourne, the Conservative incumbent, is well head on the first round, although her vote is not that much larger than the combined Labour, Lib Dem and Green vote. The Green candidate has almost as many votes as the Lib Dems’. Here are the first round results:
Katy Bourne (C) 214,523 (47.28%, +5.51%)
Paul Richards (Lab) 84,736 (18.68%, -3.57%)
Jamie Bennett (LD) 63,271 (13.94%, +3.17%)
Kahina Bouhassane (Green) 60,781 (13.40%, +3.90%)
Roy Williams (Ind) 30,408 (6.70%)
And in Gloucestershire either the Conservatives or the Lib Dems are set to gain the post after the incumbent, the independent Martin Surl, was eliminated after the first round. Here are the results so far.
Chris Nelson (C) 79,086 (40.79%, +6.82%)
Christopher Coleman (LD) 36,024 (18.58%, +18.58%)
Martin Surl (Ind) 34,286 (17.68%)
Simon O’Rourke (Lab) 31,347 (16.17%, -8.30%)
Adrian Stratton (Ind) 13,131 (6.77%)
Updated
Starmer moves to calm Labour tensions with shadow cabinet address
Keir Starmer has moved to ease Labour party tensions with an address to staffers and shadow cabinet members praising his deputy Angela Rayner after a bitter briefing war, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports.
Summary of Downing Street lobby briefing
Here are the main points from the Downing Street lobby briefing.
- Boris Johnson used a cabinet meeting today to tell his ministers that after the pandemic he wanted to “level up and build back better”, the PM’s spokesman said. Cabinet also backed the plan to move to step three of lockdown easing in England on Monday next week, the spokesman said.
- No 10 brushed aside Gordon Brown’s call for a review of the way the UK operates. (See 1.47pm.)
- The spokesman insisted that Johnson’s 2019 Christmas holiday in Mustique had been properly declared. Responding to the report that it is being investigated by the parliamentary commissioner for standards, the spokesman said:
The prime minister transparently declared the benefit in kind in the Commons register of interests ... Clearly the rules are set out and it’s important that everyone abides by them, as the prime minister has done throughout.
- The spokesman defended the plan to include in tomorrow’s Queen’s speech requiring people to show photo ID when they vote. It has been claimed that this is unnecessary, given the low levels of voter fraud in Britain, and that it will benefit the Conservatives because non-Tories are more likely to be deterred from voting by the measure. But the spokesman said this was a “reasonable approach to combat the inexcusable potential for voter fraud” in the current system. He went on:
Showing ID is something people do when they pick up a parcel at the post office, or a library book. And our 2019 vote ID pilots showed that in elections where photo ID was required 99.6% of the electors coming to polling stations were able to cast their votes without a problem.
- The spokesman said the government’s plans for immigration reform were intended to tackle people smuggling, but he said he was unable to comment on criticism of them from UNHCR (the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) because he said he had not seen the detail of what it said.
- The spokesman said he did not have a response to the news that Ben Bradley intends to combine being a Conservative MP with being leader of Nottinghamshire council.
At his press conference at 5pm Boris Johnson will be joined by Prof Chris Whitty, the government’s chief medical adviser, and Sir Patrick Vallance, its chief scientific adviser, No 10 has confirmed.
Updated
No 10 brushes aside Gordon Brown's call for review into future of UK
At the Downing Street lobby briefing No 10 brushed aside Gordon Brown’s call for a review of the way the UK operates, and the establishment of a permanent forum where the nations and regions of the UK can meet. (See 11.11am.) Asked if Boris Johnson would back these proposals, the prime minister’s spokesman said:
Ministers and officials across all UK government departments are currently focused on tackling the Covid-19 pandemic, and through the recent elections all party leaders across the UK said Covid recovery should be our shared priority. And that’s what the UK government is going to be focusing on.
So I’m not going to be getting into detailed points on that hypothetical situation.
I’ll post more from the briefing soon.
There was a lot of focus at the weekend on the fact that the SNP did not get an overall majority in the election. Nationalists felt this was unfair because Scotland’s additional member system, a version of proportional representation (PR), was specifically designed to make it very hard for a single party to gain a majority. It was intended to make Scotland’s governance more consensual than Westminster’s.
In a statement this morning the Electoral Reform Society Scotland, which promotes PR, said the election results showed that the system was working and that it was better than the “undemocratic disaster” of first past the post. Willie Sullivan, ERS Scotland’s senior director, said:
If Scotland used Westminster’s first past the post (FPTP) system they would have stopped the count halfway through and SNP would have had 63 of the 74 seats – a result as warped as we see in every Westminster election.
No matter who you support, this kind of one-party domination is bad for all of us and it’s part of what makes Westminster so dysfunctional and distant, as the SNP and other parties rightly recognise. Westminster could learn a lot from these elections.
Sullivan also said that, despite talk (from the Alba party) before the election of voters “gaming the system”, in practice the voting system “has done what voting systems should do: represented the preferences of voters fairly”.
Omitting social care plans from Queen's speech would be 'bitter blow', says council leaders
In an interview last week Boris Johnson all but confirmed that tomorrow’s Queen’s speech was not going to contain anything new about the government’s plans for social care reform when he suggested details of the proposals would not be published until later this summer.
The Local Government Association has that, if there is indeed nothing substantial in the Queen’s speech, that will be “a bitter blow”. In an open letter to the chancellor, the LGA chair, James Jamieson, and the leaders of the Labour, Conservative, Lib Dem and independent groups on the LGA, say:
The decisions your government makes on social care funding and reform in the coming weeks have the potential to positively impact, to a significant degree, both the millions of people who draw on, or work in, care and support now, and the many millions more who will do so in the decades ahead.
They have the potential to frame social care as being about investment in people and therefore all of us, not ‘us and them’, rather than a cost that is too difficult or too high. A failure to act will be a bitter blow to everyone connected to social care.
Updated
Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has praised the outgoing shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, as “thoughtful and constructive”.
In an incredibly tough year @anneliesedodds has been a thoughtful and constructive Shadow Chancellor, I wish her all the best.
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) May 10, 2021
Congratulations @RachelReevesMP on your appointment. I look forward to working together to ensure our #PlanForJobs continues to help the country recover
Updated
Starmer to spend summer speaking to non-Labour voters, he tells shadow cabinet
Sir Keir Starmer has told his shadow cabinet that he takes responsibility for the election results (implying that he is not seeking to blame his deputy, Angela Rayner, or anyone else, as some of the reports at the weekend implied), my colleague Jessica Elgot reports.
Starmer also said he would spend the summer speaking to people who do not vote for the party.
Starmer opens shadow cabinet explicitly praising Rayner - saying she has big, new role, taking the fight to the tories, and will be more public facing.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021
Starmer at shadow cab lavishing praise on Drakeford and Welsh Labour - "the number of people on the doorsteps or on the street who acknowledge what Drakeford and Welsh labour do is remarkable"
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021
Huge round of applause too for Tracy Brabin being first female metro mayor.
Starmer also tells shadow cab again he takes full responsibility for the results. A nod to the briefing wars - and a peace offering -
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021
"I take responsibility. nobody else. I lead the Labour party and it is entirely on me."
Very interesting line from Starmer at shadow cab - he says he will devote his summer "not having rallies of the faithful but speaking to people who don't vote for us."
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021
Pretty obvious shift there from the previous leadership.
Andy Burnham has made his first announcement of his second term as mayor for Greater Manchester with a series of transport measures, demonstrating the powers that metro mayors have in terms of implementing policy.
He aims to accelerate previously announced plans to bring buses in the region back under public control by three years, in what would be the first reverse of Thatcher’s deregulation of the bus industry in the 1980s. Burnham said he plans immediate talks with the government to bring the scheme forward to 2024 and compared the high costs of travelling by bus and tram in the city-region to costs in London.
He plans to launch a bike hire scheme in November, after a short-lived bike sharing scheme was abandoned in 2018. Burnham also promised 95 new electric vehicle charging points by the end of the year, more cycling and walking routes and to negotiate full accessibility to rail stations in the region.
In a statement, Burnham said that people in Greater Manchester have made it clear that they won’t settle for second best any longer, in terms of having access to an affordable travel network.
UK's Covid alert level reduced from level 4 to level 3
Turning away from Labour for a moment, the UK’s Covid alert level has been reduced from level 4 to level 3. The chief medical officers for the four nations of the UK have released this statement, following advice from the Joint Biosecurity Centre. They said:
Thanks to the efforts of the UK public in social distancing and the impact we are starting to see from the vaccination programme, case numbers, deaths and Covid hospital pressures have fallen consistently. However Covid is still circulating with people catching and spreading the virus every day so we all need to continue to be vigilant. This remains a major pandemic globally.
It is very important that we all continue to follow the guidance closely and everyone gets both doses of the vaccine when they are offered it.
Level 4 means “a Covid-19 epidemic is in general circulation; transmission is high or rising exponentially”. Level 3 means “a Covid-19 epidemic is in general circulation”.
The four chief medical officers issuing the statement are: Prof Chris Whitty (England), Dr Michael McBride (Northern Ireland), Dr Gregor Smith (Scotland) and Dr Frank Atherton (Wales). Prof Stephen Powis, national medical director for NHS England, has also signed the statement.
Updated
From the Sunday Times’ Gabriel Pogrund
I understand Angela Rayner and Andy Burnham's teams have been in touch over the last 24 hours. Source says Rayner's staff thanked Burnham for support and Burnham's team affirmed their view that she had been treated "disgracefully" by Keir Starmer. https://t.co/l8OIaHidQz
— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) May 10, 2021
According to HuffPost’s Rachel Wearmouth, some Labour MPs are complaining Sir Keir Starmer’s reshuffle did not go far enough.
Some moderate Labour MPs are not content with Starmer's reshuffle & are seeking meeting with the leader, I'm told.
— Rachel Wearmouth (@REWearmouth) May 10, 2021
One source says: "Reshuffle was a bit too minimal and leaves a lot more to do. Needs to be more brutal and done sooner."
My colleague Owen Jones also has a read-out from the Starmer speech to Labour staff.
Labour staff tell me that Keir Starmer and general secretary David Evans speaking to them "just now didn't even mention the reshuffle let alone apologise for dragging us through the shit over the weekend and overshadowing the better results we had."
— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) May 10, 2021
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My colleague Jessica Elgot has got an update on her tweets about Sir Keir Starmer’s address to Labour staff this morning. (See 11.26am.)
Apparently Starmer did mention Rayner, my source said they didn't hear it but may have missed it... https://t.co/zgSM4GANuN
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021
Starmer 'right' to change shadow cabinet, says Sadiq Khan
Sadiq Khan, who was re-elected as the Labour mayor of London at the weekend, has said that Sir Keir Starmer was right to reshuffle his shadow cabinet. Khan said this morning:
The results [for Labour] last week were mixed but Keir is right to make changes to make sure we can earn back the trust and confidence across the country.
I’ve been involved in reshuffles before, it’s like three-dimensional chess in relation to how you conduct them.
I’m sure it’s not gone as smoothly as Keir would have liked ... and I wish him well over the next 24 hours. He’s got a great new team around him.
This morning Khan signed the official declaration of his acceptance of his new term of office at a ceremony at the Globe theatre in London. He also announced plans for what he described as the “biggest domestic tourism campaign the capital has ever seen”.
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Manufacturers based in Boris Johnson’s new freeports will not be able to enjoy the full benefits if they are exporting to a series of countries with which the UK has signed post-Brexit trade deals, the Financial Times (paywall) reports today. In his story Jim Pickard says exports to countries including Canada, Norway, Switzerland and Singapore would be affected. He reports:
Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor Rishi Sunak have declared that eight new English freeports – announced in the Budget – will be a “transformational” benefit from Brexit.
But officials disclosed on Sunday that recent post-Brexit trade agreements with 23 different countries included clauses that specifically prohibit manufacturers in freeport-type zones from benefiting from the deals ...
Typically, freeports are set up to allow companies to receive components and ingredients from abroad without paying any duties – including tariffs, VAT or excise duties – through a process known as “duty drawback”.
But businesses in freeports that enjoy those advantages will be obliged to pay tariffs when exporting finished products to any of the 23 countries in question, unlike companies elsewhere in the country.
Emily Thornberry, the shadow international trade secretary, said this looked like a “catastrophic blunder”. But the government has denied that. A government spokesperson said:
There is no error and it is not uncommon for free trade agreements to have these provisions.
Businesses will not be shut out of markets we have negotiated free trade deals with.
They will benefit from both our free trade programme, and also from freeports, which provide tax breaks, simpler planning restrictions and cheaper imports.
UPDATE: In a thread on Twitter Anna Jerzewska, who runs a trade consultancy, says that this is not a blunder because these arrangements are standard for freeports. The thread starts here.
This story shows a profound misunderstanding of what free ports do.
— Dr Anna Jerzewska (@AnnaJerzewska) May 10, 2021
These provisions are standard.
/1 https://t.co/LCIs3OYEQp
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Sir Keir Starmer has been addressing Labour party staff, my colleague Jessica Elgot reports.
Starmer is addressing and thanking party staff this morning - telling them "we are still too internally focused - we are not good enough yet at focusing on voters. We've been losing elections for 11 years."
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021
Interesting line from Starmer - he says labour "change the culture.. for too long people have been set against each other, old v young, black v white, town v city - our values are about bringing them together."
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021
Interesting line from Starmer - he says labour "change the culture.. for too long people have been set against each other, old v young, black v white, town v city - our values are about bringing them together."
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021
Starmer doesn't mention Rayner in his talk to staff - and doesn't take questions.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021
Shadow cabinet convening at 12 today - expect Starmer to hit the road after that to try and salvage some of a victory lap.
Starmer tells staff Hartlepool was bitterly disappointing but says delighted at Wales and Scotland performances - praising Anas Sarwar and Mark Drakeford.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) May 10, 2021
Gordon Brown launches campaign to make UK 'more acceptable' to Scotland and its other parts
In an article in today’s Guardian Gordon Brown, the former Labour prime minister, has said Boris Johnson should set up a review into the UK’s future because the status quo is not working.
He says that, although people think Scotland is divided between supporters of independence and supporters of the union, in fact there is a much larger group in the middle. And this group will decide whether or not the union survives, he argues. He explains:
To an outsider, the people in middle Scotland may appear to be nationalists. They will tell you that they feel more Scottish than British, that they prefer the Scottish parliament to the UK parliament and Nicola Sturgeon to Boris Johnson. In a choice between being Scottish or being British, most would opt for the former; and they will tell you that at elections they vote for the party they see as standing up for Scotland.
But they have a fundamental difference of view to the nationalists. Middle Scotland has not written a British dimension out of their lives. They don’t want to be forced to make the choice between being Scottish and British. They are best described as patriots who love our country, but not nationalists who see life in terms of a never-ending struggle between “us”, the Scots, and “them”, the rest of the UK.
Brown quotes research from Our Scottish Future, the thinktank he set up, saying 73% of Scots want better cooperation between Scotland and the rest of the UK. And he also says that from today Our Scottish Future will turn itself “into a campaigning organisation committed to making the UK more acceptable to all of its constituent parts”.
Brown has also been giving interviews this morning to drive home this argument and he told the BBC that he thought it was inevitable that Johnson would have to launch an inquiry of the time he is suggesting; it is just a matter of whether it happens in time, Brown argued. He said:
What [Johnson] will come to realise is what I’m suggesting. He will set up a review on the future of the United Kingdom. There will be a constitutional review, like Kilbrandon 50 years ago. He will set up a permanent forum, in my view, a consultation between the nations and the regions, and the centre. And he will strive in the end for better cooperation.
Now, whether he does it too late, I don’t know. But these are the decisions that the government will make in the end.
You can read Brown’s Guardian article in full here.
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Parliamentary commissioner for standards confirms she's investigating Johnson's 2019 Caribbean holiday
Boris Johnson is under investigation for who paid for his Caribbean holiday with Carrie Symonds over Christmas in 2019.
The parliamentary standards commissioner, Kathryn Stone, has confirmed in an update on parliament’s website that she is investigating a possible breach of the MPs’ code of conduct.
The section specifically referred to says that: “Members shall fulfil conscientiously the requirements of the house in respect of the registration of interests in the register of members’ financial interests. They shall always be open and frank in drawing attention to any relevant interest in any proceeding of the house or its committees, and in any communications with ministers, members, public officials or public office holders.”
The commissioner said the matter under investigation was: “Registration of interest under category 4 of the guide to the rules [Visits outside the UK] in 2020.”
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Andy Burnham, who was re-elected as the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester last week, said this morning that the party now has 10 mayors across the country and that this should be a foundation for recovery. “The public like devolution, they are getting behind the idea of Labour mayors,” he said.
Referring to the election of Tracy Brabin as the new mayor for West Yorkshire, Burnham also talked up the prospects for what he described as an M62 mayoral cluster. He said:
We’ve now got the M62 mayors coming into being where we’ve got Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds.
We’re building out a cluster here across the M62 and there is so much potential there for us to work together, the three great city regions of Liverpool city region, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire.
This is a huge opportunity for us and today is a day to be really positive about what Labour can achieve in power.
One of the winners in the shadow cabinet reshuffle was Shabana Mahmood, who has been appointed Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator. She has been giving interviews this morning and she told BBC Breakfast that the party needed to “learn the lessons we need to learn from the places where we have suffered defeat to earn the trust of voters again”. She said that was “the only show in town and that is the thing that the whole of our movement has to be focused on”.
On the Today programme earlier Diane Abbott, the former shadow home secretary, said Sir Keir Starmer should stick to the policies he set out in his 10 pledges during the leadership campaign. One of them, on migrants’ rights, said Starmer would “defend free movement as we leave the EU”. When Mahmood was interviewed on Today, she was asked if Labour was still committed to “free movement” and she sidestepped the question, saying there would be a policy review under way. This is from the Evening Standard’s Joe Murphy.
Labour looks to be in the process of wriggling out of @Keir_Starmer's unwise pledge to restore free movemement.@ShabanaMahmood being pinned on @BBCr4today by @bbcnickrobinson and she's very plainly not reaffirming it
— Joe Murphy (@JoeMurphyLondon) May 10, 2021
For some in the Labour party free movement is an important issue. A motion committing the party to this was passed at the 2019 conference. But Starmer has always accepted that leaving the EU would end the free movement for EU nationals as allowed under the single market, and so quite what the “free movement” part of the pledge meant has never been clear.
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Andy Burnham, who was re-elected as the Labour mayor for Greater Manchester last week, has also criticised the way the shadow cabinet reshuffle was held. He said:
I didn’t like the way that was handled, I’ll be honest, and I didn’t see why we were getting a negative story on Saturday night when myself and Steve Rotheram and other people around the country had good victories to celebrate, so that wasn’t right, but I don’t think the way Angela was treated was right.
But it’s been resolved and we move on from this morning. There’s a shadow cabinet in place now.
I hope that they are getting on with the job in exactly the same way that I am getting on with the job.
On Saturday night, in response to reports that Rayner was going to be sacked from two of her jobs, Burnham posted this on Twitter.
I can’t support this.https://t.co/mbmGHaROdL
— Andy Burnham (@AndyBurnhamGM) May 8, 2021
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Starmer's plan to demote Angela Rayner 'despicable act of cowardice', says Labour MP
Angela Rayner may have been relatively coy in her Twitter feed (see 9.33am) about what she felt at the weekend about reading reports saying that she was going to be demoted but on BBC News a few minutes ago one of her allies gave a much blunter assessment.
Kim Johnson, the Labour MP for Liverpool Riverside who worked with Rayner before they both were elected to parliament and who subsequently served as Rayner’s parliamentary private secretary, said she was “very disappointed” about the way Sir Keir Starmer treated Rayner. Johnson went on:
[Rayner] was scapegoated because Keir, after the dismal and disappointing election results, said he was going to take full responsibility. And then to apportion blame to Angie and to sack her from her position was a despicable act of cowardice from my point of view.
But, hey, what a difference a day makes – from being sacked to gaining three key positions on the frontbench, and I do really look forward to seeing Ange at the despatch box against Michael Gove.
When the BBC’s Victoria Derbyshire put to Johnson that “despicable act of cowardice” were strong words, she accepted that but said they were justified. Johnson went on:
To say in the one instance that I will take full responsibility for the disappointing electoral results, and then to sack Angie on Saturday, while we were still getting some positive results ...
On Saturday night it was widely reported that Rayner was going to be sacked from two of her party posts – although not of course from the deputy leadership position, to which she was elected. On Sunday morning a member of the shadow cabinet said that in fact she was going to be promoted, but details of this were not confirmed until late on Sunday evening.
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This is what Angela Rayner said on Twitter last night as the reshuffle concluded and her new jobs were announced. The final tweet is the only one implying she feels that she has been badly treated.
I came in to politics as a shop steward standing up for care workers on the minimum wage.
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) May 9, 2021
In my new roles I will focus on the future of work and the future of our economy, working with our trade union movement to deliver good, well-paid jobs in every region and every community.
I will take the fight to the Tories on their dodgy contracts and sleaze. And I will set out Labour's policy to replace Tory cronyism and cash for mates with an insourcing revolution so that public services are delivered in the public interest, not for private profit.
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) May 9, 2021
I will work tirelessly to reform our Party and deliver a policy agenda that will enable us to reconnect with the voters that we need to win, especially in our traditional heartlands, and show that the Labour Party speaks for the working class. That is our founding mission.
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) May 9, 2021
I also want to thank friends from all across the Labour Party and our movement who have been in touch with me. United we stand, divided we fall. The past we inherit the future we build. Solidarity.
— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) May 9, 2021
Starmer faces backlash from Labour left over shadow cabinet reshuffle
Good morning. When party leaders are in trouble, they often decide that the solution is a reshuffle. And, in the long run, having different personnel in place can make a difference. But in the short term reshuffles often look as though they are causing more trouble than they are worth and that is certainly the case after Sir Keir Starmer’s night of the long wait.
When the reshuffle was finally announced last night, much later than had been expected, Starmer had achieved one important aim: replacing Anneliese Dodds – who made such little impact as shadow chancellor that last week Dominic Cummings said he was not even aware who she was when he was working in Downing Street – with Rachel Reeves. It has been reported that Starmer wanted Reeves as shadow chancellor when he first became Labour leader, but had to give the job to Dodds instead because he was told Reeves would be unacceptable to the party’s left.
But otherwise the reshuffle’s achievements seem limited. After it was briefed that Angela Rayner, the deputy leader, was going to be sacked from her roles as party chair and national campaign coordinator, she has negotiated what appears like a promotion – she now rejoices in the title of “deputy leader, shadow first secretary of state, shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and shadow secretary of state for the future of work – but with trust between her team and Starmer’s clearly damaged. Other changes have been limited. And the shadow cabinet has swollen to 34 members. Given that 32 of them are MPs, 16% of all Labour MPs are now members of the shadow cabinet.
Here is our overnight story by Jessica Elgot and Heather Stewart.
Here is Heather’s analysis.
This morning Starmer is facing a backlash from the left. On the Today programme Diane Abbott, who was shadow home secretary under Jeremy Corbyn, said the reshuffle suggested Starmer’s team did not know how the party worked. She told the programme:
It does seem as if, certainly the people around him (Sir Keir Starmer), don’t understand how the party works. They tried to sack Angela Rayner in order to make her carry the can for the poor results at the weekend.
They didn’t seem to realise that because she’s an elected deputy leader, you can fiddle around with her title, but you can’t sack her, she remains a senior person in the shadow cabinet.
When asked if it was the view of Rayner that Starmer wanted to sack her, Abbott said:
Yes, that’s what all the briefing was about. It was a foolish thing to even think about and he has had to walk it back – you can’t sack an elected deputy leader.
On Twitter Matt Zarb-Cousin, who worked as a press officer for Jeremy Corbyn, said the appointment of Reeves as shadow chancellor was a mistake.
Our almost immediate response to losing Hartlepool is to make a Blairite remainer who wanted to stop Brexit the Shadow Chancellor. Wish us luck in Batley we’re gonna need it
— Matt Zarb-Cousin (@mattzarb) May 9, 2021
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor under Corbyn, said the same about the sacking of Nick Brown as chief whip.
Sacking Nick Brown, one of the most experienced and tactically astute chief whips the party has ever had, is inept in the extreme. This looks like Mandelson’s revenge.
— John McDonnell MP (@johnmcdonnellMP) May 9, 2021
And Andrew Fisher, Corbyn’s head of policy when he was leader, criticised the dismissal of both Brown and Dodds.
Nick Brown served diligently under Blair, Brown and Corbyn. If anyone symbolised unity in the PLP ...
— Andrew Fisher (@FisherAndrew79) May 9, 2021
Said it a month ago ...
— Andrew Fisher (@FisherAndrew79) May 9, 2021
"It has been reported that Dodds is “struggling to communicate the party’s direction”, which is fair enough since there is no discernible direction. The fault for that lies with the Leader, whose job it is to set it."https://t.co/LpyL43zcPT
I will post more on the reaction to the reshuffle as the day goes on.
Parliament is still in recess, and so there is not a lot in the diary. Here is the agenda.
12.30pm: Downing Street is expected to hold its lobby briefing.
5pm: Boris Johnson is due to hold a press conference where he will confirm the next stage of coronavirus easing will go ahead next Monday.
Politics Live has been a mix of Covid and non-Covid recently. Today I expect to be focusing mostly on non-Covid politics – Labour, the reaction to the elections, Scotland – but I will be covering the coronavirus press conference at No 10 this afternoon. For other coronavirus coverage, do read our global live blog.
I try to monitor the comments below the line (BTL) but it is 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 questions, and if they are of general interest, I will post the question and reply above the line (ATL), although I can’t promise to do this for everyone.
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