Afternoon summary
- An official Labour report has identified four reasons why the party lost the election, according to the BBC. It will be published around the end of the month. (See 2.05pm.)
- The Labour MP John Mann has said that people living in homes worth £1m should have to pay an annual £1,000 fee to be a member of the party. (See 1.23pm.)
European unity has never been more important, never more needed and never more obviously in the interests of the countries that make up the European Union ...
There are numerous areas for further cooperation. In energy, the benefits of Pan-European coordination are clear. A common grid, for example, would cut energy costs dramatically for consumers. In higher education there is the potential to use European centers of learning to the benefit of the citizens of Europe. Likewise in art and culture.
There is a reason why, around the world, regions are coming together. Take the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which will evolve into a way for these countries to have the political and economic weight to protect their interests. The African Union is a far more effective body today than even a decade ago, especially in peacekeeping. South America is learning the same lesson.
All of these groupings are very different from Europe. Europe—partly because of its history—has integrated faster and deeper than anywhere else. But the basic principle is the same. The world is changing. New and vast powers will have the capacity to dominate. Smaller nations—and this means anyone with fewer than 100 million people—have to leverage their geographic relationships to maintain weight.
- Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, has said she is “ashamed” that more than 20 English councils have failing social services and acknowledged it could take years to fully turn them around. As the Press Association reports, Morgan, who set out plans to “revolutionise children’s social work”, said she wanted a new “intolerance of failure”. Her comments came as she announced a new watchdog aimed at driving up standards in the profession and boosting the status of social workers. In a speech in Kensington, west London, she said:
It is time to inject the same ambition we injected into our education system into social care - that same intolerance of failure, that same passion for high standards. It is time to say ‘OK is not good enough for these children’ and where there is failure we can no longer sit by and watch. As a country we should be ashamed that more than 20 local authorities today are failing, and some have been doing so for years.
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
The Guardian columnist Owen Jones has tweeted this link for the attention of John Mann. (See 1.23pm.) Owen seems to be objecting to the suggestion that Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters are all rich Londoners (although that is not actually what Mann was saying).
.@JohnMannMP https://t.co/XMV29apyMQ
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) January 14, 2016
And here is the start of the article, published in August.
Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters tend to be more working class and have lower incomes than the supporters of other candidates for the Labour leadership, according to new research.
Polling conducted by YouGov found that across a series of indicators the frontrunner’s support came from lower income groups, while his opponents and critics tended to be richer and more upper middle class.
Only 26 per cent of Mr Corbyn’s supporters have a household income over £40k a year, compared to 44 per cent for the Blairite candidate Liz Kendall.
The moderate candidates Andy Burnham and Yvette Coopers’ supporters have household incomes over £40k in 29 per cent and 32 per cent of cases respectively, putting them between the two extremes.
The Independent on Sunday columnist John Rentoul says Labour should publish both the reports it produced into why it lost the election, not just the Margaret Beckett one.
Margaret Beckett's anodyne report on Labour's defeat is not the one we want to read. Start a petition to publish "2015: What Happened?"
— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) January 14, 2016
That's the one by "senior party officials" referred to on pp268 & 367 of Cowley & Kavanagh, The British General Election of 2015.
— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) January 14, 2016
Both reports are described in The British General Election of 2015 by Philip Cowley and Dennis Kavanagh, which was published at the end of last year. Here is an extract.
Much of this disappointment was reflected in a frank internal party post-mortem for Labour’s senior officials ‘2015: What Happened?’. It noted tactfully: ‘Anecdotally, canvassers found it difficult to navigate issues surrounding the popularity of the leader and the impact of a potential coalition with the SNP.’ The view at Brewer’s Green [Labour HQ] was replicated in the campaign feedback to CCHQ. Campaigners also struggled to convince voters of the manifesto’s economic responsibility because ‘the rhetoric used in the first half of the parliament shaped public and media perceptions of our final policy offer’. The report, again diplomatically, noted: ‘This mismatch between our policy and its perception made it difficult to overcome two key challenges’ - convincing voters that Labour could be trusted with the public finances and winning over swing voters with measures that could benefit them and their families ....
The interim Labour leader Harriet Harman quickly commissioned an inquiry led by Margaret Beckett called ‘Learning the Lessons’, and largely written by Alan Buckle from KPMG. It was not published. Nor was the other, more empirical, internal report entitled ‘2015: What Happened?’ The Conservatives conducted a happier exercise but their report, ‘How the Conservatives Won. Myths and Realites’ also remained off limits to all but a handful of insiders. Transparency did not extend outside of party headquarters. Although the reports differed on details, they largely came to the same broad conclusion: Labour lost not because of things it did in the six weeks of the election campaign or because of events in the year or so before, but because it failed on fundamentals about the economy, spending and immigration.
Official Labour report 'finds 4 reasons why party lost the election'
After the general election Dame Margaret Beckett, the former Labour deputy leader, was appointed to head a review into why the party lost the election. The report was finished at the end of last year but it has still not been published.
Beckett has now told the BBC that it will be published around the end of this month.
Report author Margaret Beckett has told me publication of the report is a couple of weeks away... #Labourelectiondefeat
— Eleanor Garnier (@BBCEleanorG) January 14, 2016
On the World at One the BBC’s Iain Watson said that he had spoken to someone who had read it and that it identifies four main reasons why the party lost.
1 - Failure to shake off the myth that Labour was responsible for the financial crash, and failure to build trust in the economy.
2 - Labour’s inability to deal with issues of “connection”, in particular its failure to communicate on benefits and immigration.
3 - Ed Miliband not being seen as as strong a leader as David Cameron.
4 - Fear of the SNP propping up a minority Labour government.
Watson also said that there was “something for everyone” in the report and that there were arguments in it that would appeal to those on the party’s left. For example, it rejects the argument that Labour lost because it was too leftwing, and it argues that some of the party’s most leftwing policies were its most popular, Watson said. It also says that if the party had been more rightwing, it would have lost votes.
But the report also argues that Labour failed to win over voters from the Lib Dems in the right areas, Watson said.
None of this is particularly surprising. There have been endless reports into why Labour lost the election - there is a list of 12 of them here, with links - and they all broadly make the same points. Labour was not trusted on the economy, on leadership and on issues like welfare and immigration, they say.
Updated
Labour MP says members living in £1m homes should have to pay party £1,000 a year
Today’s Guardian analysis of the Labour party shows there has been a remarkable increase in the membership since Jeremy Corbyn became party leader. London is an area where recruitment is going particularly well.
But Labour is also facing a funding problems because of the changes to trade union political levy rules in the trade union bill which could cost the party £6m a year.
The Labour MP John Mann has come up with a solution. In a post on his blog he is proposing a Labour “wealth tax” - a £1,000 levy for party members who live in homes worth more than £1m.
The current full membership costs about £48 a year.
Mann’s idea is clearly aimed at middle-class London members, some of whom are purveyors of what Dave Watts, the former chair of the parliamentary Labour party denounced as croissant socialism in a speech in the House of Lords on Monday.
Mann, who has been a persistent critic of Labour leaders who have prioritised middle-class metropolitan concerns over the interests of voters in places like his Bassetlaw constituency, also argues that second homes should count when determining whether members have property worth more than £1m.
He has written up his plan on his blog and he says he will try to get the idea adopted at Labour conference.
Here’s an extract.
Hidden from the discussion of Labour’s big increase in membership is any analysis of who has joined as fee paying individual members, but a deeper examination will show that it is overwhelmingly the middle classes who are joining. One street in Islington North, with owner-occupiers living in multi-million pound properties, had 40 people over a 12 week period join the Party. Membership is now higher in the average Tory heartland seat than in the average Labour heartland seat. Within heartland areas it is again overwhelmingly the middle classes who have joined.
When Labour’s membership was last this high in 1997, there was a very different picture with a good mix of members coming from all backgrounds and classes. Of those who left the party over the years, it is mainly the middle class members who have recently re-joined. This is a big political problem: whilst the Labour Party has rapidly grown it is now conversely more distant from its traditional base - including in places like Islington.
But it also highlights how the current short–term crisis can be averted - that of bankruptcy. The Party has lost most of its bigger private donors and depleted trade union political funds will not be capable of again bridging this gap. This is why it is time for a Labour wealth tax. Those members with properties valued at over a million pounds should be expected to pay a Labour wealth tax of £1,000 a year to be a Labour Party member. It will raise significant money and it is entirely Socialist in its approach.
To consolidate these Socialist principles, the Labour wealth tax should be based on the total number of properties owned, so that those with second homes and property empires have the opportunity to make a more egalitarian contribution.
Recently James McGrory, who used to be Nick Clegg’s spokesman, joined Britain Stronger in Europe as their chief campaign spokesman. In his old job he was known for his combative briefing style (not that it did the Lib Dems much good in the end) and in his new post he also seems to be adopting a colourful approach to rebuttal.
If Chris Grayling is a "senior" Cabinet Minister, I am an aubergine.
— James McGrory (@JamesMcGrory) January 14, 2016
You can keep your Chris Grayling @vote_leave, he's no William Hague: https://t.co/sMpODVjZts
— James McGrory (@JamesMcGrory) January 14, 2016
John Woodock, the Labour MP, has now tweeted about Ken Livingstone’s plan to fast-track the Trident aspect of the defence review. He describes it as “deliberately provocative nonsense”.
See below. Deliberately provocative nonsense from Ken L to say a Labour Trident review can be done in 8 weeks https://t.co/GHFCnQo6bi
— John Woodcock (@JWoodcockMP) January 14, 2016
Labour reshuffle continues
Like the Archers, Cliff Richard, the monarchy and a question from Jim Naughtie, the Labour reshuffle just goes on and on and on.
The party has just put out a press notice announcing three new appointments to shadow ministerial posts. All three are taking up new posts, not replacing someone.
Imran Hussain - shadow development minister
Kate Osamor - shadow equalities minister
Thangam Debbonaire - shadow culture minister
And Dave Anderson has been made a whip.
In a statement to his local paper, Anderson said Labour had to stop “fighting each other” and focus on attacking the Tories.
It’s vital that we move on from the internal navel gazing and personality clashes and started taking the fight to this most vicious of governments.
They are hammering the poor, decimating our councils and the vital services they provide, attacking our democracy through the Trade Union Bill and pushing on with plans to redraw constituency boundaries with the aim of giving themselves a big advantage in future elections.
Hussain and Osamore both backed Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour leadership contest, Debbonaire backed Yvette Cooper and Anderson backed Andy Burnham.
Updated
Kevan Jones, the Labour former defence minister who resigned as a shadow defence minister last week, has criticised Ken Livingstone for wanting to fast-track the Trident aspect of the defence review. He told PoliticsHome:
I find it remarkable that he is suggesting this - if it had been Tony Blair or Gordon Brown talking about changing party policy like this he would be arguing it was undemocratic.
The Labour MP John Woodcock also criticised Livingstone. He told PoliticsHome:
Even if the leaders of this so-called review had prior defence experience it would be absurd to complete a review of nuclear deterrent policy in eight weeks.
Jeremy Corbyn wants to use digital media consultations to give Labour party members more say over party policy. Perhaps he has inspired Oliver Letwin, because Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister, has today published a paper on how the government will carry out consultations and he is also saying he wants more digital consultation. This is what he said in a written statement.
We will use more digital methods to involve a wider group of consultees at an earlier stage in the policy forming process. We will make it easier for the public to contribute and feed in their views, and we will try harder to use clear language and plain English in consultation documents.
In business questions Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, was asked about Damian Green’s Today interview criticising him. (See 9.22am.) He insisted that he and Green could disagree amicably.
[Green] and I have been friends for more than 25 years and we will carry on being friends. The difference between this side of the House and that side of the House [the Labour side] is that when we have a debate, we do it with good grace. When they do it on that side of the House, it’s because they hate each other. And they really do hate each other, Mr Speaker.
Channel 4 News’s Michael Crick has more on the Grayling/Green friendship.
Chris Grayling was Damian Green's producer when Green was a presenter on C4 Business Daily in late '80s. Were also fellow ministers at MoJ
— Michael Crick (@MichaelLCrick) January 14, 2016
Prof John Curtice, the psephologist, has published some research today that helps to explain why the pollsters got the main general election result wrong. As my colleague Tom Clark explains, it was not so much “shy Tories” (the phenomenon blamed for the 1992 polling failure) as “busy Tories”.
Work by pollsters themselves, including ICM and YouGov, is increasingly also pointing to the awkward explanation that they had the “wrong people” in their samples. But Curtice’s study sheds valuable new light on how they got the mix wrong.
He uncovers a link – independent of social class and age – between the ease with which voters can be got hold of, and their political leanings. Among those respondents whom the BSA researchers succeeded in talking to on their first visit,Labour was six points ahead. But among those who required between three and six knocks at the door, the Tories enjoyed an 11-point lead.
The Tories are not so much shy as busy with other things, Curtice told the Guardian. The lesson is to “stop doing so many surveys in such a hurry, and instead take a little bit longer to do them better”. If telephone and online pollsters would run their surveys over a week rather than two or three days, he said, this could allow them to send reminder emails and make repeat calls and therefore get at those sort of hard-to-reach people who held the key to the 2015 election.
Many of the party’s MPs see Mr Milne as the power behind the throne. They blame him for trying to impose a whipped vote over extending RAF air strikes into Syria; pushing for the sacking of Hilary Benn as shadow foreign secretary in last week’s reshuffle; and seeking a confrontation over the Trident nuclear weapons programme.
“I think his behaviour over the last few weeks has been a disgrace,” said Ian Austin, a backbench critic. “He is a warrior, not a peacemaker,” said another who declined to be named ...
Mr Milne’s enemies see a pattern in which he backs various unsavoury foreign regimes that stand up to US “imperialism”.
In the 1980s he chaired the local Labour party in Hammersmith, west London, where Clive Soley was the sitting MP. Lord Soley, as he is now, remembers him as a young man who leaned towards Marxism. “He was oversympathetic to autocratic regimes and undersympathetic to countries with the rule of law and democracy,” he recalls. “That is the worst aspect of the hard left.”
Pickard also reports complaints that Milne is one of those communications directors who does not favour communicating with journalists.
[Milne] disputes the media’s definition of centrist politics. “That is the centre ground as perceived by City of London corporations and the corporate-controlled media.”
That opinion may explain why he has barely bothered to talk to lobby journalists, leaving that to his deputy. “You might as well use a Ouija board to try to contact him,” says one political editor.
In the Guardian today Simon Jenkins, not one of the paper’s natural Corbynistas, backs Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Trident stance. Here’s an excerpt.
Defence is an area where governments are notoriously beholden to archaism and special interests – and where oppositions have a duty of challenge. The idea that opposition to the renewal of Trident is an extreme policy confined to the British left is absurd. Anyone reading the recent literature on the nuclear deterrent can reach only one conclusion. It is daft.
When the late defence chief Michael Carver famously asked of Trident, “What the bloody hell is it for?”, an informed guess was that roughly half his senior colleagues agreed, including most army generals. Former defence secretaries Des Browne (Labour) and Michael Portillo (Conservative) have come out against Trident. So have military experts from Hugh Beach to Patrick Cordingley. So has the formerly pro-nuclear defence pundit Michael Howard.
Trident’s defenders have been largely confined to naval and defence industry lobbyists and a few Conservative MPs. The late Michael Quinlan, for long the high priest of nuclear deterrence, scrupulously held that the case needed regular review. In his final Chatham House essay (and then book) in 2006, he doubted if the “highly unspecific strategic arguments” for a separate British deterrent would long justify its soaring cost.
But Emma Burnell at LabourList says that, despite being an unilateralist, she thinks it is a mistake for the party to focus on this issue.
Renewal of Trident is likely to come before Parliament in a vote this summer – before our next conference. The recent reshuffle has been designed to make it easier for Labour to take an anti-renewal stance. However, our policy – as set by members at conference and supported by our major unions – is to support renewal.
So once again we are set to have a long and bruising internal fight. The question you have to then ask, is what difference will such a fight make to the reality of the situation? The answer I’m afraid is absolutely none.
The Tories – and enough of those Labour MPs who feel differently from me – will vote to renew Trident. Labour MPs will be within their rights to do so under our current policy and that can’t be changed under our rules so if the Leadership try to force a whip it will be within the rights of MPs to vote against it. I imagine they will also mention the times the Leader himself voted against a Labour whip. the unions will be loud in their opposition to the leadership, and we will spend many, many months fighting among ourselves to ultimately no end. Trident will be renewed and we will have spent our time fighting among ourselves.
Bryant dubs Grayling 'leader of the Out campaign'
In the Commons Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, is responding to business questions. These sessions always start with the shadow leader of the Commons asking the leader of the Commons for a statement on the forthcoming business, but this morning Chris Bryant opened by asking “the leader of the Out campaign” for the week’s business.
Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, is in Greece meeting his Greek counterpart, Nikos Kotzias, as part a tour of all 27 other EU member states he has been conducting in the course of the EU renegotiation. Later he will visit Turkey. In a statement he said:
Britain and Greece have a number of issues of mutual interest including EU reform, Cyprus and migration into Greece - on which the UK is supporting Greece in meeting the challenges it faces on irregular migration.
The UK is a strong supporter of a Cyprus settlement and the ongoing UN-led talks. Having visited both sides of the divide in Cyprus to offer Britain’s support in finding a solution, the visits to Athens and Ankara are an opportunity to discuss with the other guarantor powers what further steps we need to take to deliver the goal of a re-unified island.
Top EU official plays down prospect of Cameron's renegotiation requiring treaty change
Jonathan Faull, the head of the European Commission’s taskforce dealing with the EU renegotiation, has been giving evidence to the European Parliament’s constitutional affairs committee this morning. Thankfully it was in public. When he gave evidence to a House of Lords committee earlier this week, it was behind closed doors, although apparently a transcript of the session will be published later
I missed most of it, but Sky’s Faisal Islam and the BBC’s Ben Wright were on the case. Here, via Twitter, are some of the main points.
- Faull played down the prospect of the EU renegotiation requiring treaty change. This is significant because Downing Street has said the changes would require changes to the EU treaties, although David Cameron accepts that this will not happen immediately and instead has indicated that he would be happy to rely on a promise from fellow EU leaders to incorporate the changes he wants in a treaty change at some point in the future.
"I'm not sure that the accommodation of concerns raised by the PM necessarily requires treaty change" says @FaullJonathan to EU parliament
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 14, 2016
Faull now on treaty change "there are issues of timing... many responses to British concerns can be done within existing legal framework"
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 14, 2016
And @FaullJonathan says that there is a debate on treaty change... But some feel everything can be achieved without
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 14, 2016
Interesting: Faull says an agreement of the European Council heads of state would legitimately meet "legally binding" standard (set by PM)
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 14, 2016
- Faull said that the EU’s commitment to freedom of movement was not unconditional.
Faull: "the fundamental freedoms are fundamental. We and I think the British take them very seriously... But they are not unconditional"
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 14, 2016
- He indicated that he expected a deal at the EU summit later this month. There have been suggestions that the timetable might slip, and that the talks could go on until March.
Head of EU Commission task force on UK renegotiation Jonathan Faull says he hopes February summit will be 'decisive'. Confident of deal
— Ben Wright (@BBCBenWright) January 14, 2016
General sense from @FaullJonathan is that the EUropean Commission trying very hard to get this wrapped up by next month ...
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 14, 2016
Commission's Faull says the renegotiation "has not been easy at all" and still "difficulties" remain
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 14, 2016
- Faull hinted that EU renegotiation might produce an alternative to Cameron’s plan for the UK to be given the power to stop EU migrants claiming in-work benefits for four years.
Faull didn't mention the four year delay on claiming credits, talked of finding ways to reduce incentives
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 14, 2016
Faull: "at the heart of this is the fact that the British in work benefit system is non contributory... Turning on its head not plausible"
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) January 14, 2016
Here’s Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, on Chris Grayling’s Telegraph article on the EU.
Chris Grayling’s comments reveal once again the split at the heart of the Conservative Party on the issue of Europe. Liberal Democrats are united in making the positive case for us to stay in ...
The prime minister is completely wrong to suspend collective responsibility on this issue. If Chris Grayling or anyone else wants to argue or vote against Britain staying in Europe then that must be respected, but they should have to resign from government to do so.
It is ludicrous that David Cameron has decided the government will not have a collective position on the most important decision facing our country.
On Newsnight last night Alan Johnson, the Labour former home secretary, said that he was pro-Trident. He was “pro-nuclear disarmament through multilateral disarmament”, he said. But he hinted that he might be resigned to the party adopting unilateral disarmament as a position under Jeremy Corbyn. This is what he said when asked if he thought that it would damage Labour if the party chose to reject Trident.
I hope not. I hope we can do it in a way that shows we’ve had an open debate, the kind of debate that is going on in the country, but we’ve come down, having deliberated on this, one way or the other. One thing’s for sure; we can’t have two different positions on this.
On the same programme the Labour MP John Woodcock, who is strongly pro-Trident (not least because the new submarines will be built in his Barrow and Furness constituency) said that he thought it would be a mistake for the party to oppose Trident given the fact that the House of Commons is bound to vote in favour of Trident renewal. He said:
Let’s focus on something where we actually can make a difference for the people who desperately need Labour to be a credible opposition, rather than spending time tearing ourselves apart as a party for something which is going to happen anyway - there is a cast-iron majority in Parliament for this project to go past the point of no return.
So no matter what Jeremy does, or even if he were to magic up a changed policy - which he won’t - it’s not going to make a difference to the fact that these submarines are going to be renewed.
Woodcock is almost certainly right about a Commons vote in favour of Trident renewal being inevitable regardless of what Labour’s policy review decides. Almost all Tory MPs are in favour of Trident renewal and a substantial number of Labour MPs would probably support it as well, even if that meant defying a party whip.
The Commons is due to vote on the matter before the summer recess although, according to Newsnight, Ministry of Defence sources have indicated that the vote could come as early as mid March.
Grayling accused of 'peddling myths' about Europe by former Tory minister
On the Today programme Damian Green, the Conservative former minister and a supporter of remaining in the European Union, was on the Today programme responding to Chris Grayling’s Telegraph article. Here are the main points he made.
- Green accused Grayling of “peddling myths” about Europe. He told Today:
I want to challenge some of the things Chris is saying. I think he’s peddling myths about Britain in Europe; it’s fascinating he says that ‘carrying on as we are would be disastrous for Britain’. He and I fought an election campaign last year – a successful election campaign – in which we told the British people that we were creating more jobs, we kept inflation down, we’re bringing the deficit down, we’re creating millions of new apprenticeships. Well we’ve done all that as members of the EU. It seems to me a bit odd to say nine months later ‘oh it’s all disastrous’.
- Green accused Grayling of ignoring David Cameron’s determination to oppose Britain being dragged into further EU integration.
The key miss in Chris’ article is when he says ‘oh there are calls for still more integration’. It’s a very implicit and very important part of the prime minister’s renegotiation that Britain won’t be committed to ever-closer union. That is actually a big change in our relationship with the rest of the EU.
- Green said the Tories should conduct the argument about Europe “in a civilised way”. Describing Grayling as “a good friend of mine”, he said:
There will be many Conservatives on both sides of this argument and we need to conduct it in a civilised way. And we know what happens to the Conservative party in the 1990s and I don’t think anyone wants to repeat that.
I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome.
Updated
There are two significant political stories that have broken overnight. Both relate to seismic policy splits affecting the Labour party and the Conservative party respectively.
On Newsnight last night Ken Livingstone, the Labour former mayor of London and co-chair of the party’s defence review, said that it may produce a new policy on Trident by Easter. The defence review as a whole will not be ready until later in the year, but the bit covering the nuclear deterrent will be fast-tracked, he said.
We will desperately try and do it as rapidly as possible. So we will focus on the Trident issue ahead of the rest of the defence review ... With a bit of luck that can be done in eight to 10 weeks. It will take a lot of work for me and Emily [Thornberry, shadow defence secretary and co-chair of the defence review] but that’s good.
Livingstone and Thornberry are both opposed to Trident and so it it almost inevitable that the review will come out against the nuclear deterrent. The review itself will not settle party policy - in theory, that has to be determined by party conference - but it means the parliamentary party might have to take a position on Trident sooner than some people expected. A Commons vote is due later this year and Livingstone clearly wants to produce a new Trident policy before that takes place.
And the Conservative party, of course, is split on Europe. Conservative ministers are still meant to be bound by collective responsibility, supporting David Cameron’s EU renegotiation, because his concession allowing them to campaign for Brexit does not come into force until the renegotiation is over. But Chris Grayling, the leader of the Commons, is pushing at the boundaries of the new rule with an article in the Daily Telegraphy all but saying Britain should leave.
TELEGRAPH: Cabinet minister: EU disaster for Britain #tomorrowspaperstoday #bbcpapers pic.twitter.com/X28n0Tak45
— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) January 13, 2016
Here is the Guardian’s story about this.
I will be reporting more on both stories as the morning goes on.
Here’s the agenda for the day.
10.15am: Lord Heseltine, the Conservative former deputy prime minister, gives a speech at the IPPR North Northern Summit.
10.30am: Chris Grayling, leader of the Commons, takes business questions in the Commons.
11.50am: Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, gives a speech on social work.
As usual, I will also be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
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
