Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Afternoon summary
- Ken Livingstone has said he expects to be expelled by Labour for making comments about Hitler and Zionism that allegedly brought the party into disrepute. An announcement is due later this afternoon or this evening.
- Labour has accused Theresa May of a “significant retreat” over Brexit after the prime minister confirmed that she did not expect to sign a UK-EU trade deal within two years. (See 9.58am, 4.47pm, and 4.55pm)
- The German foreign minister, Sigmar Gabriel, has said Britain will come off worse if it leaves the European Union without any agreement. Speaking at a news conference with Boris Johnson, he said:
Having no deal is not the best idea for Britain and the European Union. It would bring a burden on both sides, for the Brits as well as the Europeans. My personal opinion is that the burden for the Brits is higher than for the Europeans.
- Theresa May has insisted it is in the “national interest” to maintain good relations with Saudi Arabia despite its controversial record on human rights. Speaking to the BBC, May said:
The May doctrine of foreign policy is that everything we do is in our British national interest.
It is in our British national interest to have good relations around the world so we can trade around the world. That brings jobs and prosperity to the UK.
It’s also in our national interest to ensure that we are working with others around the world to maintain our safety and security.
And yes, it is in our national interest to ensure that the values that underpin us as Britons are values that we promote around the world and that’s what we do.
- Corbyn has scaled back his claim that life expectancy is falling. After the Conservatives said his statement was factually wrong, he issued a fresh press notice this afternoon saying, correctly, that projections for what life expectancy will be are falling. (See 1.02pm and 4.59pm.)
- Philip Hammond, the chancellor, has suggested that some Tories do not want the UK to reach a Brexit deal with Europe. Speaking in India, he seemed to have Conservative backbenchers in mind when he said:
There are definitely some people on both sides who do not want a deal, they do not want to see Britain continuing to collaborate in what the prime minister described in a letter as a deep and special partnership with the European Union. I can tell you with a high degree of confidence that we will come up against tensions in this process.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
John MacInnes, professor of sociology at the University of Edinburgh, who says he has been teaching data analysis for 30 years and who works for the ESRC Centre for Population Change, has sent me his thoughts on Jeremy Corbyn’s comments about life expectancy falling. MacInnes says:
Beyond the technical language about life expectancy, both readers (and journalists) might like to keep in mind that any figure for life expectancy is an uncertain projection of future events: those alive now will be dying at any time over the next 110 years or so, those 65 and over (the figures used by Corbyn) will be dying over the next half century. As conditions change, so projections of their average life expectancy will change too.
These projections are not predictions: they explicitly do not take account of what we might ‘predict’ as predictions more than a few years into the future are almost certain to be wrong. Rather they project forward population trends in mortality that are currently visible. As new data becomes available, changes are made to how this is done, and in an age where the trend towards higher life expectancy is very strong, these projections may shift up and down quite a bit, but this has very little to do with current mortality (i.e. how many are dying now).
Corbyn would have needed to show that current mortality is worsening, and even then he’d be on shaky ground. Mortality is seasonal, dependent on the changing age structure of a population, and can also be driven by events many years in the past. It’s just wrong to link it to current social policy, no matter how bad that policy might be.
Johnson says UK will 'more than survive' if it leaves EU with no deal
Last week, on the day Theresa May triggered article 50, Philip Hammond went on the Today programme and refused to endorse Boris Johnson’s claim that it would be “perfectly okay” to leave the EU without a trade deal. Johnson himself was kept off the airwaves.
But the foreign secretary has refused to concede this point. Speaking at a news conference with his German opposite number, Johnson effectively restated his claim. He said:
It is possible to do a deal that is win-win. I don’t want to be unduly pessimistic. I think we can get a deal.
But if you ask me ‘If we don’t get a deal would the UK survive?’ I think we would more than survive.
The Ken Livingstone hearing has adjourned, my colleague Anushka Asthana reports.
Apparently they've adjourned to consider verdict in case of Ken Livingstone... Should know in hour.
— Anushka Asthana (@GuardianAnushka) April 4, 2017
Jeremy Corbyn has now issued a press release about life expectancy. In it he does not repeat the claim made last night, and repeated in his speech this morning, that life expectancy is falling. But he does, correctly, say that life expectancy projections are falling. He says:
Yesterday, Conservative party chairman Patrick McLoughlin claimed life expectancy isn’t falling by pointing to mortality rates, which are improving but more slowly than before.
But the simple facts are - and we’ve checked this with independent health and actuarial experts - mortality rate improvements are slowing and life expectancy projections have fallen. One has contributed to the other.
It is a disgrace that life expectancy projections for those aged 45 and 65 have fallen and even more of a disgrace that the government is trying to cover it up.
And this is what Paul Blomfield, the shadow Brexit minister, said about Theresa May’s admission that she will not be able to sign a UK-EU trade deal within two years. (See 4.47pm.) He said:
It is less than a week since the prime minister triggered Article 50, and it seems every day brings another broken promise from the Government. First they said immigration may go up after Brexit. Now they are backpedalling on trade deals.
We will hold the government to account on the pledges made to the British people during the referendum campaign and since. They promised a comprehensive free trade agreement with the EU giving the “exact same benefits” we have now. They said it would be ready for the day we leave, along with new trade deals with other countries.
Now, as they face reality, they are trying to downplay expectations. They need to spell out the transitional deal that will be in place, to stop the economy falling off a cliff edge without new agreements in two years time.
Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, has written a blog rejecting Ken Livingstone’s claim (see 10.330am) that what caused offence was not what he said about Hitler and Zionism, but how it was reported in Pollard’s paper.
Open Britain, the group campaigning for a “soft” Brexit, thinks it is significant that Theresa May told Sky News earlier that she does not expect to sign a UK-EU trade deal within two years. (See 9.58am.) It issued this comment from the Labour MP Owen Smith.
Bit by bit, the main planks of the prime minister’s Brexit strategy are falling away. Today, she has admitted that we will not have the time to agree a trade deal with the EU before the article 50 period is finished.
The Government have promised to deliver a trade deal that gives us the ‘exact same benefits’ as we have now as a member of the single market. If we leave the EU before a trade deal is signed, this promise will be broken, as our economy will go off a cliff-edge, hitting our businesses with punishing tariffs and putting jobs at risk.
Ministers have to prevent this hardest of hard Brexits by at least agreeing a transition deal with the EU that would keep us in the single market before a new trade deal can be signed.
Theresa May greeted Saudi officials in Riyadh without wearing a headscarf as she arrived in the conservative Muslim nation - though Foreign Office advice recommends women cover their heads and wear full-length cloaks.
The prime minister descended the steps of her plane at King Salman airbase dressed in a sweeping navy coat and black suit trousers, a scarf loosely around her neck.
Downing Street officials had recommended women in the prime minister’s delegation ensured their wrists and ankles were covered in conservative clothing, to respect local customs.
The FCO recommends female visitors “wear conservative, loose-fitting clothes as well as a full length cloak (abaya) and a headscarf.”
May is not the first female leader to eschew a headscarf in Saudi Arabia, including German chancellor Angela Merkel and Michelle Obama, though the former First Lady drew some criticism from Saudi commentators for doing so.
Camilla, the duchess of Cornwall, wore a turquoise headscarf and abaya during her recent visit, though Margaret Thatcher opted instead for a long dress and hat when she visited in 1985.
Livingstone says he expects to be expelled by Labour
This is what Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, said as he went into the Labour disciplinary hearing this afternoon. He admitted that he expects to be expelled from the party for his comments about Hitler and Zionism, which allegedly brought the party into disrepute. He said:
I expect to be expelled, I always have done, because the national constitutional committee has got 10 right-wingers and two left-wingers.
If I am expelled from the Labour party, we will seek judicial review, but we won’t submit that until after the local elections are over.
He also said that he had never said Hitler was a Zionist, only that Hitler supported Zionism.
That’s a simple statement of historical fact.
I haven’t caused offence. In the weeks following my suspension I couldn’t walk down the street, hundreds and hundreds of people stopping, many of them Jewish, saying ‘I’m Jewish, I know my history, don’t these MPs read their history?’
The people who are offended are the people who believe the lies they saw in their media that I’d said Hitler was a Zionist.
To suggest a man who loathed and feared Jews all his life was a Zionist, if I’d said that I’d be off to the doctor to check this wasn’t the first stage of dementia.
Livingstone claimed that the “whole thing has been whipped up to undermine Jeremy [Corbyn], and that’s why they’ve deferred it and we’re back with all this nonsense again”.
The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries has sent me a statement from Tim Gordon, chairman of its continuous mortality investigation (CMI) mortality projection committee.
I asked if life expectancy is falling. He sent me a reply with footnotes. Here is the response:
The latest CMI mortality projections model – with typical inputs (1) – projects that mortality will continue to improve and individuals will continue to live longer.
The reduction in life expectancy (2) under the most recent versions of the model arises because those projected improvements – although still positive – are lower than in previous versions of the Model. There are two driving factors:
(a) The exceptionally high rate of improvement observed in the first decade of this century has reduced more recently, as it has done in other western world countries. (This impacts the model because the model works by merging extrapolated recent improvements with a long term improvement rate.)
(b) The model has been adjusted to be more realistic at high ages, reflecting common market practice. (This has nothing to do with recent patterns of mortality.)
And here are the footnotes.
1. The model is a tool not a prediction, and requires at some user input. It is common practice either to adjust the model before applying it or to continue to use previous versions of the model.
2. There are two different measures of life expectancy in common use:
(a) Period life expectancy makes no allowance for future mortality improvements and is often used as an objective measure of average current longevity. When life expectancy is quoted in a statistical context, it is usually period life expectancy.
(b) Cohort life expectancy does make allowance for future mortality improvement, because this is realistic (and matters when assessing longevity-related liabilities). However, cohort life expectancy is necessarily subjective because it requires assumptions about future mortality improvement.
The New Statesman’s Stephen Bush has written a blog firming up the suggestion that Theresa May’s decision to speak out against the National Trust was motivated, at least in part, by her hostility to Helen Ghosh, the former Home Office civil servant who now runs the charity. Here’s an excerpt.
Civil servants and former special advisers believe that May’s swift response is due to her longstanding antipathy to Helen Ghosh, the National Trust’s director-general, with whom she clashed when Ghosh was permanent secretary at the Home Office and May was Home Secretary. (Ghosh left the Home Office in 2012 to take up her current role running the National Trust) ...
Another former special adviser said that May was “obsessed with revenge”. A senior figure described the new Downing Street set-up as “thin-skinned”. “The fact is she hates Helen, which is why this has happened,” another Whitehall insider claims.
Here is the press pack waiting outside Labour’s Ken Livingstone hearing. The tweet is from Ukip’s press officer Gawain Towler, who was outside too.
Press pack waiting outside Church House, waiting to dispense the last rites on Ken Livingstone's career pic.twitter.com/15ZWrvaylF
— Gawain Towler (@GawainTowler) April 4, 2017
LBC’s Vincent McAviney recorded an interview with Jeremy Corbyn after the local election campaign launch this morning. He asked about Copeland and about Corbyn’s leadership and about the prospect of Labour doing badly in the elections. Corbyn brushed aside these questions quite straightforwardly, but when he thought the interview was over, he asked the interviewer tetchily: “Haven’t you got anything else to ask about?” McAviney was still recording, and LBC has posted the audio on its website.
There are “specific challenges” in allowing goods to move freely across the Irish border after Brexit, the British ambassador to Ireland has admitted.
As the Press Association reports, Robin Barnett suggested the current crossing between Northern Ireland and Ireland could only be maintained by a “bold and ambitious” free trade deal between London and Brussels.
Giving evidence to a parliamentary committee in Dublin, the senior diplomat said there are “specific challenges” to keeping the 310-mile Irish border as seamless and frictionless as possible. He said:
I think it is clear that the common travel area that pre-dates our membership of the EU and yours is the way forward in terms of ensuring free movement of people.
In terms of free movement of goods and related issues, there are challenges.
We firmly believe the basis for an effective way forward is a bold and ambitious free trade agreement between the UK and the EU.
Ken Livingstone has arrived for the Labour disciplinary hearing, Huffington Post’s Paul Waugh reports.
Ken Livingstone, arriving for his discip hearing, says if expelled he will delay his judicial review of Lab until after local elxns in May
— Paul Waugh (@paulwaugh) April 4, 2017
Lunchtime summary
- Jeremy Corbyn has launched Labour’s local election campaign with a speech accusing the Tories of wanting to use Brexit to turn the UK into “a low-wage tax haven for big business”. Speaking in Newark he claimed:
At this crucial time we need to look to the future and ask ourselves what sort of country we want Britain to be.
Theresa May’s government is trying to use Brexit to turn Britain into a low-wage tax haven for big business.
We are offering a real alternative that reflects the priorities of the majority of our people to rebuild and transform Britain so that no one and no community is left behind.
Instead of a country run for the rich, we want to see one in which all of us can lead richer lives.
He also repeated the claim he made last night that life expectancy is now “falling”. The Conservatives said this showed that Labour “can’t even get their basic facts right” because the claim is untrue. (See 1.02pm.)
- Theresa May has condemned the National Trust for omitting the word “Easter” from its annual children’s egg hunt, saying she was furious both as the daughter of a vicar and as a National Trust member. The PR consultant John Lehal suspects that May’s motives may be partly personal: Helen Ghosh, who runs the National Trust, used to work for May as permanent secretary at the Home Office until she left after less than two years in post.
It's personal - remember the PM had a tricky relationship with her then Perm Sec & now National Trust DG Helen Ghosh https://t.co/R1jILXNYml
— John Lehal (@JohnLehal) April 4, 2017
- David King, the former chief scientific adviser has admitted it was wrong to cut fuel duty on diesel vehicles after being hoodwinked by the car industry, as the mayor of London launched a crackdown on vehicle pollution. He was speaking as Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, announced plans to introduce what he said would be “the world’s first ultra low emission zone” in London. (See 9.18am and 10.28am.)
Like Theresa May, Jeremy Corbyn has also got involved in the row about the National Trust supposedly omitting the word “Easter” from its annual Easter egg hunt. (I say supposedly because, as the Guardian version of this story makes clear, the word “Easter” is still quite prominent in the event’s marketing.)
May did not like the removal of the word “Easter”. For Corbyn, the problem was the insertion of the word “Cadbury”. Asked about the story, he said:
I think it’s commercialisation gone a bit too far. It upsets me because I don’t think Cadbury’s should take over the name.
Is Jeremy Corbyn right about life expectancy "falling"? - Analysis
Last night the Labour party issued some extracts from Jeremy Corbyn’s speech at Labour’s local election campaign launch. He was quoted as saying:
How can you not be angry and demand major change when life expectancy in Britain for pensioners and those aged 45 is falling?
The press notice repeated the point about life expectancy falling another three times.
The Conservative party responded with a press notice saying that Corbyn was wrong about this and quoting Patrick McLoughlin, the party chairman, as saying: “Labour can’t even get their basic facts right.”
But this morning, as he delivered his speech, Corbyn said it was McLoughlin who had made a mistake. The Labour leader told his audience:
Whether the Conservative party chair can face the facts or not, life expectancy has actually fallen - by a year for 65-year-old women and 6 months for 65-year-old men - since 2013.
Analysis
So, who’s right? Is life expectancy falling?
Unusually in a row about data, the Conservatives and Labour are both using the same source material. They have both referred reporters to a report from the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries’ continuous mortality investigation (CMI). The CMI is constantly revising life expectancy data (because actuaries need to know long people will live, not least so the pensions industry can plan) and at the end of last month it released its latest mortality projections model – “CMI_2016”.
A working paper summarising CMI_2016 says that the rate at which life expectancy is improving is slowing down. The crucial paragraph, which Labour referred me to when I asked for the evidence to back up what Corbyn was saying, says that, as a result of the rate of improvement slowing down, forecasts for life expectancy are now lower than they were.
The model suggests that mortality improvements peaked some time ago with the highest improvements being seen in 2004 for males and 2006 for females. Consequently the “direction of travel” of mortality improvements is negative.
The combination of lower initial mortality improvements and amended projection assumptions leads to lower life expectancies than in all previous versions of the model. Compared to CMI_2015, life expectancies at age 65 are 1.3% lower for males and 2.0% lower for females in CMI_2016, and falls in life expectancy are greater at the oldest ages.
The BBC reported this under the headline: “Pensioners’ life expectancy falls back”. And the Independent published the story under the headline: “UK life expectancy among pensioners drops for first time in decades.” The Independent’s version was widely circulated at the weekend by Corbyn supporters on Twitter.
But the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries has also sent me the press release it issued to mark the publication of CMI_2016. And this explicitly says that, although life expectancy is not improving as quickly as it was, it is still going up. It says:
Recent population data has highlighted that, since 2011, the rate at which mortality is improving has been slower than in previous years.
However, mortality is expected to continue to improve and there is significant uncertainty as to whether this will be at a slower rate than experienced in the first decade of this century.
Conclusion
On a narrow point, Corbyn can defend what he is saying: life expectancy forecasts (at least, the CMI’s) are going down.
But that is not the same as saying life expectancy is going down. Corbyn said that “life expectancy ... is falling” and that implies that the average age at which people die is starting to go down. It is not. Simon Stevens, the chief executive of NHS England, said only last Friday that life expectancy is going up five hours every day. Corbyn should have been more precise because the claim as he made it is not justified.
Updated
Theresa May has landed in Saudi Arabia. And my colleague Jessica Elgot, who is part of the press pack travelling with her, says May has chosen not to wear a headscarf.
Theresa May has touched down in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) April 4, 2017
Worth just this once to comment on her clothes - dark trouser suit, no headscarf. pic.twitter.com/hHNHJRR0OJ
Asked about Brexit, Corbyn says he does not want a war with anyone. He thinks it is better to talk than to fight.
He says Labour are democrats, and they accept the result of the referendum.
He says he has a good relationship with fellow socialist parties. He is pushing them to lobby for a deal on the rights of EU nationals in the UK and the rights of Britons on the continent.
He says Labour forced the government to agree a vote on the final Brexit deal.
It will continue to push for the government to report back to the Commons on how the Brexit talks are going.
There is “no blank cheque for this government whatsoever from Labour”, he says.
Labour is being “sensible and responsible”, he says. That is why Sir Keir Starmer set out Labour’s red lines.
And that was the last question. The Q&A is now over.
Corbyn says in wealthy areas parents can afford to give £100 a month to help their children’s school.
But you cannot do that in places where children arrive for school hungry because their parents could not afford to give them breakfast. Some teachers use their own money to buy pupils breakfast.
Corbyn says he is “fed up with foodbank Britain and with poverty Britain”.
He says Labour is confronting the Tories on the schools funding crisis. He praises Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary, for her work on this. He says the Tories are getting more and more complaints about their plans to change the funding formula. You never know, he says; Labour may be able to turn them back on this.
Corbyn says the biggest cuts in council spending have hit the poorest parts of the country.
He says local authorities should be allowed to run bus services. These powers should not be restricted to metro mayors.
He says he wants to free up local government. Local government at its best can do things brilliantly, he says.
He says he is a former councillor, and he believes passionately in what councils can do.
Corbyn is now taking questions from Labour activists and supporters in the room.
He says he wants to raise the pay and esteem of care workers.
ITV’s Paul Brand and the Telegraph’s Kate McCann, who are at the event, have tweeted about the final media question (which was from my colleague Rowena Mason.)
Colleague @rowenamason asks why Labour is 20 points behind Tories in polls. Corbyn says media never asks about issues people care about.
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) April 4, 2017
Corbyn launches bit of an attack on media and says we should be focused on health, social care, schools, homelessness. All important issues.
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) April 4, 2017
Asked again about poor polling Corbyn says he doesn't care about bad press, doesn't bother him. He wants everyone to focus on NHS crisis.
— Kate McCann (@KateEMcCann) April 4, 2017
Q: [Something about life expectancy - I could not hear it from the YouTube feed.]
Corbyn says he is glad there is a question about life expectancy and social care. The government came up with a little bit of extra money for social care. But it is not enough, and many people, especially women, are having to give up work to care for relatives.
He says he does not expect an easy ride from the media. But he does not think the media should ignore issues like homelessness and health and poverty.
If people grow up in poverty, they will achieve less. We will all lose as a result, he says. Poverty holds them back. He says fewer working class youngsters are getting into university. These are the sorts of issues that should be debated, he says.
Updated
Corbyn says the housing crisis affects everyone. He says local government has paid the price for austerity, not the bankers who caused the problem in the first place.
Updated
Corbyn's Q&A
Corbyn is taking questions now.
The first three will be from the media.
Colleague @PaulBrandITV asks Jeremy Corbyn if local elections could be the "final test" for him. Audience boos.
— Kate McCann (@KateEMcCann) April 4, 2017
Corbyn says the elections are Labour’s chance to take its case to the country. It will show Labour would invest in people, not in tax giveways, he says.
He says the party is very strong and very active on the doorstep.
Updated
He says Labour will set up a regional investment bank to help unlock £500bn for investment.
He says Theresa May’s government is trying to turn the UK into a low wage tax haven for the rich.
Instead of just having a country for the rich, we should have a richer country for everyone, he says.
Instead of a country run for the rich, we can create a Britain where all of us can lead richer lives: investing in a better Britain, creating educational opportunity for all, guaranteeing the health and social care services you need, providing safer neighbourhoods and building homes people can afford.
Labour would have a real living wage of £10 an hour, re-introduce bursaries for student nurses, invest in housing, and allow councils to borrow to build more homes, he says.
He says Labour will set out more policies during the campaign.
People should use it to send a message: that they won’t accept the NHS in crisis; their children’s future betrayed; and a housing crisis.
It does not have to be like this, he says. Things can and will change, h he says.
And that’t it. His speech is over.
Corbyn says people are being held back. But Labour councils have made a huge difference to people’s lives in many ways, he says.
He cites some examples.
Faced with the growing housing crisis: Birmingham Council is delivering 30% of all new homes in the city.
And Lancashire County Council has formed a joint venture to buy 800 affordable homes for sale and social rent.
Faced with the crisis in social care: 15 Labour councils have signed up to the Ethical Care Charter for minimum standards of safety, quality and dignity of care and improve pay and training for care workers.
Faced with so many people struggling to make ends meet: Liverpool council is setting up a not-for-profit energy company - “the Liverpool LECCy” - to sell gas and electricity at a lower cost, building on what’s been done down the road in Nottingham with Robin Hood Energy.
And in Derbyshire, the Labour council’s Welfare Rights Service has helped local people claim £18 million in benefits they otherwise would have lost.
Faced with the Government’s failure to invest in our economy: the ‘Nottinghamshire Economic Development Capital Fund’ has lent £3.5 million to help more than 30 businesses secure good jobs in Nottinghamshire.
And in Northumberland, the council-owned Arch property business generates jobs and homes, as well as a return of nearly £5m a year that supports council services like schools, roads and social care.
Faced with an epidemic of low pay: 89 Labour councils have delivered the real Living Wage for council employees and contractors to ensure better wages for local people.
These are just a few examples of how Labour councils are standing up for you, and why you need Labour to be in power in towns, counties and city regions, as well as Westminster.
Corbyn is speaking now.
He says people are entitled to be angry at the state of Britain today.
He says, whether the Conservatives can face the facts or not, life expectancy in Britain is falling.
(I will post some more analysis about this claim after the speech is over.)
Corbyn claims life expectancy is falling
Labour released some extracts from Jeremy Corbyn’s speech in advance. In it, he claims life expectancy for pensions is falling. He says:
How can you not be angry and demand major change when life expectancy in Britain for pensioners and those aged 45 is falling? We are a rich country, the sixth richest in the world. We are not at war, there is no epidemic sweeping our land.
So how on earth can life expectancy be falling?
The truth is that the Tories are running our country down.
Home ownership, opportunities for our children, wages and conditions at work, the NHS, care for our elderly, and now, life expectancy: they’re all going backwards, run down by a Conservative government that looks after those at the top and manages decline for the rest of us.
The Conservatives say this claim is wrong. In a press release issued last night, they said that the rate of improvement of life expectancy was falling, but that this was not the same as life expectancy falling.
Corbyn launches Labour's local election campaign
Jeremy Corbyn is about to speak in Newark at the launch of Labour’s local election campaign.
There is a live feed at the top of the blog.
After the Westminster terror attack it was claimed that the killer, Khalid Masood, was radicalised when he was in prison.
This morning the Home Office has announced that it is setting up what it describes as “a new unit to combat extremist ideology behind bars” - although it also says that the unit will build on the work of an existing team, so quite how new it is is probably a matter of debate.
The Home Office says:
Specialist staff will gather and exploit evidence gleaned from frontline staff – work essential to the safe running of prisons and fundamental to public protection.
Experts will also advise on the management of dangerous and high-profile extremist prisoners, and train frontline prison and probation staff so they are equipped to deal with extremist behaviour.
A strategy centre based in London will be supported by specialist regional teams across the country – ensuring resources are focused on addressing the most serious risks.
The new unit will build on last year’s formation of a new directorate for security, order and counter-terrorism - responsible for monitoring and dealing with this evolving threat.
Regular readers of this blog will know that, from time to time, unfortunate typos creep in.
So I have some sympathy for the poor soul in the Labour press office who sent out a press release last night giving Sir Keir Starmer a new job. It starts (my bold).
Keir Starmer MP, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for exiting the UK, has written to David Davis this evening to raise ongoing concerns about the impact of Brexit on Gibraltar.
It sounds like a post in the Scottish government.
Ken Livingstone gave an interview to the BBC broadcast on the Today programme this morning ahead of the disciplinary hearing this afternoon that could result in him being expelled from Labour. As the Huffington Post reports, in the interview he claimed that the Jewish Chronicle, and the way it reported what he said, was to blame for the offence caused by his comments about Hitler and Zionism.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has published a press notice with full details of his plans for an ultra low emission zone in London.
He is already introducing a £10 T-charge (toxicity charge) for the most polluting cars that will come into force in October this year.
Now he is proposing to build on that by introducing an ultra low emission zone (ULEZ) for central London, with higher charges, in 2019. He is also proposing to extend that in stages, so that by 2021 it would cover all polluting vehicles inside the north/south circular.
Caroline Russell, a Green member of the London assembly, has said that Khan should be extending the ULEZ more quickly. In a statement she said:
Londoners suffering from asthma, and other health conditions, worsened by the dirty air, will be desperately disappointed by the mayor’s sluggish timetable for clean air that backtracks on his manifesto promise.
His original plans outlined a London-wide ULEZ for buses, coaches and lorries “as early as 2019” with an all-vehicle ULEZ to the north and south circular by 2020.
It’s very disappointing to see these delayed when around 9,000 deaths in London are attributed to air pollution every year.
In her Sky interview Theresa May also defended her decision to raise security in her article 50 letter last week. Some EU figures argued that her comment about how security cooperation with the EU might be weakened if the UK did not get a deal amounted to a threat. But May said this was not the case. She told Sky:
On the security issue, there is a very practical reason for raising it in the letter.
We are currently a member of certain programmes and certain systems around Europe that help us to co-operate on exchanging information about terrorists, but also about criminals.
Once we leave the EU our membership of those systems lapses, so it’s right that as part of the negotiations we will be talking to the European Union about how we can continue with those arrangements. It’s in our interests, it’s also in theirs.
There
May says two-year timetable for agreeing shape of UK-EU trade agreement realistic
Theresa May also gave an interview to Sky News in Jordan. In it, she insisted that it would be possible to agree the shape of the UK’s trade relations with the EU after Brexit within two years.
But she stopped short of claiming that a trade deal could be signed within two years. The EU’s draft negotiating guidelines, released on Friday, say the UK will only be able to sign a trade deal after it has left.
Asked about this, May said:
There’s obviously a legal situation in terms of how the EU can conduct trade negotiations. I’m clear that by the point at which we leave the EU, it’s right that everybody should know what the future arrangements, the future relationship, that future partnership between us and the European Union will be.
That’s the sensible thing, it’s the pragmatic way to look at this, and I believe that’s what we will do.
Asked if she believed this can be done within two years, she replied: “Yes.”
May’s answer suggests that the government would be happy to settle for agreeing a framework trade agreement within two years. The trade agreement proper could then be finalised and agreed later, during a transition period.
.@theresa_may on Syrian refugees, Saudi Arabia, human rights and #Brexit, speaking to @faisalislam in Amman, Jordan pic.twitter.com/Tx7H2PYhPA
— Sky News (@SkyNews) April 4, 2017
In an interview with the Independent published today, Sigmar Gabriel, the German foreign minister, suggests that May’s two-year timetable is unrealistic. He says:
We are as keen as the UK is to complete both agreements [the UK’s withdrawal from the EU, and the future trade relationship] as soon as possible.
First, we have to get things right on the orderly withdrawal, then we will want to talk as soon as possible about our future relationship and get as far as we can within the next two years.
However, I don’t want to speculate on time frames at a time when negotiations have not even started yet. Both sides must recognise that an agreement on a wide-ranging partnership will be quite a laborious endeavour.
Theresa May has insisted building a relationship with Saudi Arabia is better than “standing on the sidelines and sniping” amid criticism of her decision to visit the region as her first trip to explore trade ties after the triggering of article 50.
May, who earlier said she hoped she would set an example as a woman leader in country where women are still banned from driving and cannot marry or travel without permission from male guardians, insisted she did raise “difficult issues” with her hosts.
On Sunday, it was revealed the Met police’s war crimes unit had begun a “scoping exercise” assessing whether criminal prosecutions could be brought over Saudi Arabia’s bombardment of the country, which is estimated to have killed more than 10,000 civilians and displaced more than 3 million people.
May told the BBC she was “concerned about the humanitarian situation” but did not criticise the Saudi campaign.
Yes, we will be raising the humanitarian issue. We believe it is important that we recognise the threat that there is in terms of people’s lives. We will be supporting that through the aid and support that we give.
Asked whether she would be raising human rights issues like women’s rights or juvenile executions with her Saudi hosts, May said:
The important thing for the United Kingdom when we meet people and we want to raise issues of human rights - and that may be in a number of countries around the world - is if we have the relationship with them, then we are able to do that.
So, rather than just standing on the sidelines and sniping, it’s important to engage, to talk to people, to talk about our interests and to raise, yes, difficult issues when we feel it’s necessary to do so.
The prime minister denied the UK had been selling its principles for the sake of trade deals for the post-Brexit era, May said the ties with Gulf countries were long standing. “No, we are not doing that [selling out principles],” she said. “What we are doing is continuing the links that we have had for a long time with countries that are important to us.”
The PM will fly to Saudi Arabia from Amman, Jordan, this morning for the second leg of her Middle East visit. She will meet the Saudi Crown Prince and visit the Saudi stock exchange this afternoon, but there will be no bilateral with the King, who she is expected to call on tomorrow. She is also due to meet the Kingdom’s first female minister, Princess Reema.
Khan promises 'world's first ultra low emission zone' to tackle London's 'lethal' air
Theresa May is heading for Saudi Arabia today, and this morning she has quashed speculation that, while in the Gulf, she’s unwilling to speak out on matters of conscience and liberty. She has spoken out against a ruling institution accused of suppressing freedom of speech.
Yup, it’s the National Trust. Weighing in on the Easter egg hunt row, she told ITV:
I’m not just a vicar’s daughter - I’m a member of the National Trust as well. I think the stance they have taken is absolutely ridiculous. I don’t know what they are thinking about frankly.
Easter’s very important. It’s important to me. It’s a very important festival for the Christian faith for millions across the world. So I think what the National Trust is doing is frankly just ridiculous.
To be fair, it was probably ITV that raised the issue. She has also been talking about other issues, which I will flag up soon.
Meanwhile, back in London, Sadiq Khan, the capital’s mayor, had the top slot on the Today programme. He said that London’s air was “lethal” and that he would be introducing “the world’s first ultra low emission zone”.
The air in London is lethal. Each year more than 9,000 Londoners die because of our poor quality air.
There are children in parts of London whose lungs are under-developed and adults have all sorts of health problems from asthma to lung problems, from suffering heart attacks to strokes and dementia. I am not willing to stand by and do nothing.
I am cleaning up our buses. I am ensuring our taxis are clean. I am introducing the world’s first ultra low emission zone, but the government needs to do much, much more if we are going to fix the air in London and across the country.
Khan said he would bring forward the launch a new toxicity “T-charge” covering the existing congestion charge zone from 7am to 6pm on weekdays to October 2017. And he said he would also be consulting on the world’s first “ultra low emission zone” in central London to begin in April 2019 with an additional charge for any vehicle that fails to meet strict emissions standards. It will be followed by a further consultation later this year on extending it London-wide to heavy goods vehicles from 2020 and to inner London for all vehicles from 2021.
Here is the agenda for the day.
11am: Jeremy Corbyn launches Labour’s local election campaign.
12pm: The Political Studies Association holds a briefing on the local elections, with contributions from Prof John Curtice and Prof Tony Travers.
3pm: The Labour party’s disciplinary hearing into Ken Livingstone resumes. A decision is expected as to what the party will do in response to claims his comments about Hitler and Zionism brought the party into disrepute.
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.
Updated
