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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Government loses vote in Lords over licence fee non-payment: Politics Live blog

Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander at the Shangri-La Hotel in The Shard where they were announcing their fiscal plans
Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander at the Shangri-La Hotel in The Shard where they were announcing their fiscal plans Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

Afternoon summary

  • The government has been defeated in the House of Lords, with peers voting against plans to allow the decriminalisation non-payment of the licence fee before 2017. As the Press Association reports, ministers have set up an independent review into the issue, due to report this summer, and want to keep open the option of taking swift action following it. But peers voted by 178 to 175, majority three, in favour of a cross-party amendment to prevent any change before the next licence fee settlement begins in April 2017. Lord Grade of Yarmouth, a former chairman of the BBC and one of 17 coalition peers who rebelled over the issue, warned that “dark forces” were at work.

I would love to see the licence fee decriminalised, but there are risks in doing that. There are risks the enemies of the BBC will see it as an opportunity to then move the compulsory element of the licence fee and move the BBC to a subscription model which would completely undermine the whole concept of public service broadcasting. I think there are dark forces at work.

  • David Cameron has criticised the Lib Dems’ plans for deficit reduction, saying their tax increases would hit “hard-working people”.

I don’t think it is right to have a plan that involves really quite substantial tax increases that would hit hard-working people. I think that what we need now is a plan that the Conservative party has set out which is to eradicate the remaining deficit, to start putting money aside during years of growth for a rainy day. That’s our plan. That is the correct plan.

  • Geoffrey Robinson, the Labour former Treasury minister, has said his party needs to improve its relationship with business. He told the Daily Politics:

We are for the consensus, we are for the attitudes of constructive engagement with business and Ed Balls and Chuka Umunna have been out there really preaching that to business. If they haven’t done a good job it’s time they did.

They are still New Labour, all the policies, all the statements on business, if they haven’t given that impression its a terrible, neglectful omission on their part.

I think Balls and Umunna - they happen to be good friends of mine - both of them have to get out there and engage more positively and constructively with the business leaders ...

The policies are right; the mood music is wrong. We have got to engage. We are not anti-business, we are not anti-trade union. We are for both of them. I don’t know how it’s happened but it needs to be corrected.

  • Sajid Javid, the culture secretary, has said he would not “shed a tear” if Britain left the EU. At a press gallery lunch he was asked if he would mind if Britain voted to leave in 2017. He replied:

The most important thing is that the British people are given a choice. I’m pleased that the Conservatives are absolutely committed to that, and that is what will happen if we win the election. Would I shed a tear? No.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

Cameron and Osborne visit Emmerdale

David Cameron and George Osborne visiting the set of Emmerdale on the Harewood Estate near Leeds.
David Cameron and George Osborne visiting the set of Emmerdale on the Harewood Estate near Leeds. Photograph: Lynne Cameron/PA

David Cameron and George Osborne have been visiting the set of Emmerdale today. This is from the Press Association.

David Cameron and George Osborne were welcomed into Emmerdale’s Woolpack pub today but there was no sign of any traditional Yorkshire bitter flowing.

Instead, the pair chatted with apprentices about working on the ITV1 soap during a visit to the set near Leeds.

Cameron and Osborne walked down the famous village street in freezing drizzle before ducking into the pub.

But they emerged to watch a scene being rehearsed after a briefing from director Peter Rose.

They watched as actor Trudie Goodwin - who plays Georgia Sharma - parked her BMW outside The Woolpack and got out to chat to her screen daughter, Priya - played by Fiona Wade, about selling her house.

Cameron apologised for bringing the rain and gave the actors a traditional “break a leg” send-off before they started the scene.

He watched with the chancellor as the action played out, with many other members of the regular cast looking on from behind the cameras.

The two men chatted with the crew and stars, with the chancellor posing for pictures with Kelvin Fletcher, who plays Andy Sugden, and Michelle Hardwick, who plays Vanessa Woodfield.

Asked if Cameron was an Emmerdale fan, a Downing Street spokeswoman said: “When he was last speaking about television programmes he likes, he said he tends to watch cookery programmes.

“But I think he recognises the role that Emmerdale is playing in the local economy and the number of apprentices that they employ and the importance of the creative industries. That’s certainly what he is a fan of.”

Note the way the Downing Street spokesman (in the quote in the last two paragraphs) tries to deal with the fact that Cameron obviously never watches Emmerdale. But trying the “he prefers cookery to drama” line doesn’t really wash on the day Cameron told MailOnline he was “a big [Game of] Thrones” man. (See 2.13pm.)

George Osborne and David Cameron speak to apprentices in The Woolpack pub, during a visit to the set of Emmerdale on the Harewood Estate near Leeds
George Osborne and David Cameron speak to apprentices in The Woolpack pub, during a visit to the set of Emmerdale on the Harewood Estate near Leeds Photograph: Lynne Cameron/PA

Updated

In the light of today’s Survation poll from Sheffield Hallan, the New Statesman has reposted a long article by Tim Wigmore about Nick Clegg’s chances of holding his seat. It’s a good read.

Here’s how it ends.

Whether Sheffield’s sixth MP joins the other five in being a Labourite could have a critical impact on the government formed in May. If that remains unlikely, that the question of whether Clegg will lose is even being asked is testament to how unpopular the Lib Dems have become. The Deputy Prime Minister is now dependent upon an unseemly coalition - borrowed Conservative voters and a left-splitting Green surge - for his political survival.

Sajid Javid’s press gallery speech

Sajid Javid
Sajid Javid Photograph: Amer Ghazzal / Barcroft Media/Amer Ghazzal / Barcroft Media

Sajid Javid, the culture secretary, gave a speech this afternoon at a press gallery lunch. Colleagues who were there said he went down rather well. These are off camera, on the record events, with a room full of Westminster journalists, and guests are expected to give a reasonably funny speech and take questions. The key challenge is to avoid being dull. According to my informants, Javid passed.

Here are the key news lines.

  • Javid would not say whether the government would try to reverse the defeat in the Lords on decriminalising non-payment of the licence fee.
  • He said he would not shed a tear if the UK left the EU.
  • He said all options should be considered when the BBC’s charter came up for renewal.
  • He said he was not “making plans” to lead the Conservative party.

But he did not deny that he might like to. And he joked about the idea.

  • He said the eurozone was at a “dangerous moment”.

jokes

Polling Observatory, an academic group that analyses polling data, has published its latest “poll of polls” assessment. It says that Labour is one point ahead of the Conservatives, and that Labour support has not fallen this year.

So far, there is little evidence of any decisive impact on the overall balance of power. Labour support has been stable for the past two months – our February 1st estimate of 32.2 per cent is exactly the same as our estimate for December 1st.

There has been a great deal written in the media about an alleged slump in Labour fortunes, but this story seems to be behind the curve. Labour did lose substantial support in the early autumn, but they have been stable since.

And, while I’m on the subject of polls, earlier today (see 11.52am) I again mentioned the Paul Whiteley forecast that Patrick Wintour wrote up recently predicting a Labour/Lib Dem coalition. Some readers asked BTL if this was available online. I asked Whiteley, and he sent me a link to this article, where he has written it up.

MPs are debating cancer outcomes this afternoon - but not many of them
MPs are debating cancer outcomes this afternoon - but not many of them Photograph: BBC Parliament

The Commons seems particularly empty today. That’s prompted this from the Labour MP Liz McInnes.

George Galloway is doing well for himself, by colleague Helen Pidd points out.

Cameron rejects MPs' call for tougher stance against Islamic State

In an interview with MailOnline David Cameron has rejected the claim from the Commons defence committee that Britain is not doing enough to combat Islamic State (Isil). He said:

We are doing everything that we can to defeat the monstrosity of Isil.

Look, we are taking action, we are the second nation in terms of bombing runs that have been carried out in Iraq.

That is making a difference on the ground and we are seeing the growth of Iraqi security forces and Kurdish forces sweeping Isil out of parts of Iraq and we need a long term plan for both Iraq and Syria so we defeat Isil.


Talking about his home life, Cameron also talked about the time he had to take his son to A&E after he stood on a wasps nest and was stung 60 times, revealed that he has got fed up listening to songs from Frozen, declared himself a big Game of Thrones fan and credited Rupert Harrison, George Osborne’s chief of staff, with coming up with the joke he used at PMQs yesterday about “Bill Somebody” being Labour’s economic plan.

A scene from Game of Thrones. David Cameron calls himself 'a big Thrones man'.
A scene from Game of Thrones. David Cameron calls himself ‘a big Thrones man’. Photograph: HBO/Courtesy: Everett Collec/REX/HBO/Courtesy: Everett Collec/REX

Government plans to decriminalise licence fee non-payment defeated by peers

The government has lost a vote in the House of Lords. Peers voted for an amendment that would delay government plans to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee until 2017, after renewal of the BBC’s charter.

The opponents won by just three votes.

Lunchtime summary

  • The German group Pegida which protests against the perceived “Islamification of the West” has announced plans to hold its first UK rally. As the Press Association reports, Pegida started in Germany and last month 25,000 people joined a demonstration in the streets of Dresden. The group, known by its German acronym which translates as Patriotic Europeans Against The Islamisation Of The West, has planned an event in Newcastle on Saturday February 28. Demonstrations in Birmingham and London have been mooted for a later date. In a Facebook post, the group said: “Pegida UK is holding its first rally in Newcastle. All are welcome to attend. lets show the Islamists we show no fear.” Opponents have plans to hold a counter-demonstration, claiming the group is supported by members of the far tight.
A Pegida demonstration in Dresden in January.
A Pegida demonstration in Dresden in January. Photograph: Fabrizio Bensch /Reuters
  • The Green party has proposed building 500,000 homes for social rent by 2020. It would fund the plan by cutting tax allowance for landlords, including scrapping buy-to-let mortgage tax relief. Natalie Bennett, the Green leader, said:

We need to move away from regarding houses as primarily financial assets and go back to regarding them as homes. This policy is an important step in that direction.

Landlords have been receiving massive public subsidies through tax breaks and housing benefits, and this is contributing to the rising, unsustainable level of inequality in our society.

They do not deliver enough of social and economic benefit to the rest of society to justify their favourable tax treatment: it isn’t in the interests of our common good to continue this bias towards the wealthy at the cost of those struggling to survive with high rents and often low-quality housing.

Here’s Chris Leslie, the Labour Treasury spokesman, on the Lib Dems’ fiscal plans. (See 12.14pm.)

You can’t trust Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. They broke their promise not to raise VAT on families while backing the Tories in giving millionaires a huge tax cut. And they signed off risky and extreme Tory plans in the Autumn Statement to take public spending as a share of national income back to 1930s levels. Only Labour has a tough but balanced plan to get the deficit down fairly.

My colleague Frances Perraudin has sent me a paper round-up. Here it is.

The Financial Times leads with an analysis of Tory party donors, showing that the number of big City backers has doubled during this parliament, replacing industrialists and entrepreneurs as the main financial supporters. City figures in the party’s top twenty donors have donated £12.2m in this parliament compared to £8.3m between 2005 and 2010.

The analysis shows that eight of the top 20 donors, who account for 35 per cent of all party funding, are from a City background. Longstanding hedge fund donors Lord Fink and Sir Michael Hintze of CQS, have been joined in the top 20 by other prominent figures on the hedge fund scene: former star Brevan Howard trader Chris Rokos donated £1m while Andrew Law of the Caxton fund has given £947,911.

The Mirror has given a lot of space to the Samantha Cameron’s links to companies using tax havens, something Ed Miliband hinted at in yesterday’s PMQs.

The PM’s mother-in-law Lady Astor’s luxury furniture store Oka Direct is more than 50% owned by anonymous ­shareholders through accounts held in Guernsey, we can reveal. She has a 22% stake in the firm she founded in 1999 and which has ­benefited from the offshore investment. And Samantha’s step-dad Viscount Astor is linked to a firm in a Caribbean tax haven which owned his family’s 19,000 acre Talbert Estate in Scotland.

The Times report that “hundreds of thousands” of parents will lose their child benefit and face higher taxes over the next parliament as rising wages drag them above tax and welfare thresholds.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), a public finance think-tank, has warned that “fiscal drag” will strip about 600,000 more families of child benefit by 2020 and catch another 1.2 million adults in the higher and top rates of tax unless present policies are changed.

Already 1.2 million families have lost some or all of their benefit after the government’s controversial decision to means test parents, and 5.1 million people are paying the 40p and 45p income tax rates.

The Independent has picked up figures from Labour which suggest that the number of young people registering to vote as they reach 18 has fallen by 100,000 since last year. The figures were highlighted in an opinion piece written by Labour leader Ed Miliband in the paper. Miliband claims that less than half of young people are now likely to register when they reach the voting age. “This is not just a scandal, it is a disaster for our democracy,” he writes.

Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander launching their fiscal plans at the Shangri-La Hotel in the Shard, London
Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander launching their fiscal plans at the Shangri-La hotel in the Shard, London Photograph: John Stillwell/PA

The Lib Dem launch this morning was at the Shangri-La hotel in the Shard.

Shangri-La is a fictional utopia. Perhaps Sir Nick Harvey has been there too. (See 12.22pm.)

On BBC News Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said today’s announcement from the Lib Dems (see 12.14pm) meant they were now the first of the main parties to say they wanted to achieve “a large chunk” of deficit reduction through tax increases.

Harry Lambert at May 2015 has been looking at the Survation poll from Nick Clegg’s seat in more detail. He says it is voters in the 35 to 54 age group who seem to be turning against Clegg the most in recent months.

At his People’s Question Time event in Plymouth Ed Miliband said the recent controversy about Labour, tax avoidance and business revealed an essential truth.

There has been a row this week about tax avoidance and business.

Amid the usual Westminster noise it seemed to me to show us a truth about our country.

It was five days which showed the two different paths for Britain.

The Conservatives believe that when a few at the top succeed, the country succeeds. So they serve hedge funds, tax avoiders, and bankers getting big bonuses, while millions faces jobs on zero hours, with low pay.

We think a country succeeds with an economy based on a different idea; that it is only when working people succeed that Britain succeeds.

Rewarding hard work for all, skills for all our young people, an economy that serves businesses large and small, with no vested interests, from the energy companies to the banks to the hedge funds, able to hold our country back.

Sir Nick Harvey
Sir Nick Harvey Photograph: David Jones/PA Archive/Press Association Images

You might think there’s no need to worry too much about what the Lib Dems’ fiscal plans are for the next parliament. YouGov has them on just 6% today. (See 11.52am.)

But Sir Nick Harvey, the Lib Dem former defence minister, thinks Clegg could be prime minister for a month after the election. He explained how in an interview with Huffington Post.

Former defence minister Sir Nick Harvey said unlike the 2010 coalition deal which was hammered out in just five days, any negotiations after this May’s poll should take much longer.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Harvey said this would require an “interim government” to be in place while political parties haggled over the formation of a new administration.

Harvey said as the incumbent, David Cameron should remain in Downing Street until a deal was struck. But that if the Conservative leader “was so fucked off” he wanted to leave then there was “no reason” why Clegg could not fill the role - assuming of course the deputy prime minister keeps his seat ...

Harvey said: “If it was a Lib-Lab discussion going on, Cameron ought to remain in office. If he was so fucked off he didn’t want to, I would understand that in human terms. But I think personally it would be a dereliction of duty, I think he should remain there until it’s done.

“Failing that of course, Nick Clegg is the deputy prime minister. There is no reason why he couldn’t act up for a few weeks.”

Lib Dem spending plans launch

This morning Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, have been releasing details of the Lib Dems’ spending plans for the next parliament. The party released details overnight, and my colleague Rowena Mason has written them up in a detailed story.

They were at the Shard for the launch.

The key facts are in Rowena’s story, but this morning we got words from Clegg and from Alexander, and also some new points they made during the Q&A. Here are the new lines.

  • Clegg suggested that the Tories’ planned EU referendum could lead to the break-up of the UK.
  • He compared the Tories to the Tea Party and said their economic plans were implausible.

The Conservatives’ so-called long term plan is more like a Tea Party manifesto for Britain. By the end of the next Parliament, under current Tory spending plans, a further £54bn a year will have been cut from public spending. That’s more than we spend today on all our schools put together and four times what we spend on our police. It means they will have to make deep cuts to everything from nurseries and social care to police and the armed services.

  • He said that, under the Lib Dem plans, they would cut £38bn less by 2019/20 than the Tories.
  • He said, under Lib Dem plans, they would borrow £70bn less than Labour over the course of the next parliament.

Our plan means that in the last year of the next parliament, we will cut £38bn less than the Conservatives. And we will have borrowed £70bn less than Labour.

Updated

For the record, here are today’s YouGov GB polling figures.

Conservatives: 34%

Labour: 33%

Ukip: 13%

Greens: 7%

Lib Dems: 6%

YouGov poll
YouGov poll Photograph: YouGov

According to Electoral Calculus, this would leave Labour the largest party, but seven seats short of a majority.

And here are election predictions from a variety of organisations.

Elections Etc: Conservatives 282, Labour 280, SNP 40, Lib Dems 24, Ukip 3

Election Forecast: Labour 285, Conservatives 280, SNP 36, Lib Dems 25, Ukip 2

Prof Paul Whiteley: Labour 291, Conservatives 281, Lib Dems 48

(These are all academic forecasts, based on models that using current polling data and make allowance for how polls shift in the run up to an election.)

May 2015: Conservatives 272, Labour 270, SNP 56, Lib Dems 25, Ukip 4

Guardian: Labour 273, Conservatives 273, SNP 49, Lib Dems 28, Ukip 5

(These are based on current polling, taking into account Lord Ashcroft’s seat by seat polling.)

Electoral Calculus: Labour 298, Conservatives 265, Nationlists 50, Lib Dems 16, Ukip 1

(This is just based on current polling.)

The Salisbury Cathedral 1215 copy of the Magna Carta installed in the Queen's Robing Room at the Houses of Parliament
The Salisbury Cathedral 1215 copy of the Magna Carta installed in the Queen’s Robing Room at the Houses of Parliament Photograph: WPA Pool/Getty Images

The four surviving copies of Magna Carta are on display today in the House of Lords.

This is what the Press Association filed on this earlier.

The four surviving original manuscripts of the Magna Carta go on display together today in the House of Lords to mark the 800th anniversary of the charter which first laid the foundations of the rule of law.

The manuscripts - two held by the British Library and one each by Lincoln and Salisbury cathedrals - will be on show for just one day in the Palace of Westminster where they will be seen by 200 schoolchildren from around the country.

They have been on view together at the British Library in London since the start of the week.

It is part of a programme of events commemorating the sealing of the Magna Carta at Runnymede on June 15 1215 as well as the 750th anniversary of the De Montfort parliament which brought together for the first time representatives of the shires and towns of England.

The Lord Speaker, Baroness D’Souza, said: “Magna Carta established the principle of the rule of law and equality before the law. For 800 years we have been influenced by its contents and it remains one of the most important political documents.

“How fitting it is, therefore, that we celebrate this exceptional document by uniting the surviving original copies from 1215 in the home of British law-making today.”

Ed Miliband is doing one of his People’s Question Time events in Plymouth today.

Coverage may be a bit limited, because the Labour party did not sent out operational notes inviting the national media, but I’ll do what I can from Twitter.

The Ministry of Defence has confirmed that Britain will contribute up to 1,000 troops to a Nato high readiness force based in Baltic countries to deter Russia.

This is from the news release.

The UK will send up to 1,000 troops to a high readiness force and deploy four RAF Typhoon jets for air policing in the Baltic States to boost NATO’s collective security, the defence secretary has announced.

At the NATO defence minister’s meeting in Brussels today Michael Fallon MP will confirm that the UK will be the lead nation in the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) in 2017 and then on rotation thereafter. This will see the UK contributing manpower to two regional headquarters in Poland and Romania and to force integration units in the three Baltic States, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. The VJTF is a high readiness, multinational force which will act as a ‘Spearhead force’, forming NATO’s first response in the face of aggression.

The UK will also send four RAF Typhoon jets to support the NATO Baltic Air policing mission again in 2015. The Typhoons will operate alongside Norwegian aircraft between May and August 2015, working to secure NATO’s airspace over the Baltic nations of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania which do not have their own air defence fighters. The Typhoons will operate at NATO’s request from Amari Airbase in Estonia.

Every day the Press Association is filing an election fact. Here’s today’s.

A record unlikely ever to be beaten is the largest constituency majority of all time - 62,253. This was achieved in 1931 in Brighton by Tory Sir Cooper Rawson, who polled 75,205 against 12,952 for Lewis Cohen, his nearest Labour challenger.

Nick Clegg's LBC phone-in - Summary

Here are the main points from Nick Clegg’s Call Clegg phone-in.

  • Clegg said he wanted the Iraq inquiry report published “a matter of weeks” after the election. Sir John Chilcot should set a deadline for the report’s publication, he said, because the process was taking too long.

Given how disenchanted the public’s become at the delay of this, it would do his own work the power of good just to set some deadlines and to force the pace ...

My patience is running very thin indeed ... I’d like it to be [published] a matter of weeks after the election, ideally. It cannot go on for much longer like this because otherwise people will feel the final product – even if it’s a very distinguished, balanced, incisive product - the credibility of the whole process will then start sullying the content of it.

No, I don’t think they’re right. I heard Rory Stewart [the committee chair], who is a Conservative MP but knows a lot about the region, and I think he was speaking very thoughtfully about this so I don’t want to dismiss it lightly at all and I certainly would want to have a good look at the report that they have produced.

But the suggestion at least – maybe this was just the way it was reported – that somehow our commitment can be measured according to the number of boots on the ground in Baghdad, I think that is a misplaced measurement.

The point [Pessina] makes about how Labour just appears to have nothing constructive to say about who we run our economy is broadly right ... They crashed the economy in 2008. It was like a near-death experience for our economy. They were responsible, not entirely, but largely for it. I haven’s heard a word of remorse. I haven’t heard word of apology.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, struck a very different note when he spoke about Pessina yesterday, although Clegg, like Cable, said that Pessina would be in a stronger position to speak out if he were not a tax exile.

  • Clegg said that the longer he had been in power with the Tories, the more different he had felt dfrom them politically.
  • He said “a few” business leaders supported the Lib Dems. Asked to name one, he named Richard Reed, founder of Innocent Drinks.
  • He criticised recent coverage of Labour’s plans for sex and relationship education in schools. This seemed to be aimed at the Daily Mail. He said.

I’m astounded and gobsmacked at some of the ludicrous coverage of this. Some of the stuff in some of the papers claiming that this will be foisting condoms on classes of five to seven [year-olds] - it’s ridiculous.

Nick Clegg on LBC
Nick Clegg on LBC Photograph: LBC

Q: Was Stefano Pessina right about Labour?

Clegg says Pessina would be in a stronger position to speak out if he paid tax in the UK.

But he is “broadly right” about Labour’s stance on the economy.

He says he has not heard a single word of apology from Labour about crashing their economy.

Q: How many business leaders support the Lib Dems?

A few, says Clegg.

Q: Like who.

The founder of Innocent Drinks, says Clegg.

And that’s it.

I’ll post a summary soon.

Q: Unite has been doing a survey in your constituency. It doesn’t look good for you.

Here are the figures.

Clegg says this poll is “such utter, utter bilge”. It is not surprising that a trade union poll shows Labour ahead. He says he spends a lot of time in the constituency.

Some people hate the Tories so much they say they will never forgive him.

Of course he is not a Tory. The longer he has governed with them, the more he realises he isn’t, he says.

Q: Do you support sex education for five-year-olds?

Clegg says some of the reporting on his has been ridiculous. (He is talking about a Daily Mail splash about Labour policy, or what it said was Labour policy.) Of course people are not planning to teach five-year-olds about sex, he says. People are talking about age-appropriate relationship education.

Q: Do you think Theresa May is making progress restricting the right of the police to access the phone records of journalists?

Clegg says he is “delighted” by the ruling from the interception of communication commissioner on this yesterday. The government is going to implement it.

Q: Is it right that Chris Huhne still has a pass to get into the House of Commons?

Clegg says the rules allow ex-MPs to have a pass giving them a access to the Commons unless they have been in jail for 12 months. Huhne wasn’t in jail for 12 months. The rules are the rules. Huhne is abiding by them.

Q: What are you going to do about David Ward, one of your MPs who continually tweets anti-semitic comments?

Clegg says many of Ward’s comments are crass. But just because something is offensive, that does not make it racist.

Q: Why are you and the other main parties not doing something about Halal slaugter?

Clegg says the recent case of cruelty in a Halal slaughterhouse was terrible. But action has been taken about that. And cruelty could have happened at any slaughterhouse. The fact that it was a Halal one was not relevant.

Q: But livestock should be slaughtered in a humane manner.

Clegg says he disagrees. Jewish and Muslim communities should be able to go on slaughtering animals without having to stun them first, he says. But that does not mean that practices like kicking sheep in the head are acceptable.

Clegg says Chilcot report should be published 'a matter of weeks' after the election

Q: How do you think Sir John Chilcot fared at the Commons foreign affairs committee. I thought he was a bumbling civil servant lifer. [This is from Nick Ferrari.]

Clegg tries to be diplomatic. He says Chilcot will be judged by his report, not by yesterday.

Q: Is he fit for purpose?

Yes, says Clegg.

Q: But he did not answer the questions.

Clegg says it would do Chilcot himself some good to set some deadlines, and force the pace.

He understands the need for the Maxwellisation process. But there should be a deadline.

  • Clegg says Sir John Chilcot should set a deadline for publication of his report.

Q: How much longer should he have?

Clegg says his patience is running “very thin indeed”. He says he would like to see the report published “a matter of weeks” after the election.

  • Clegg says Chilcot report should be published “a matter of weeks” after the election.

Q: What do you think about the Commons defence committee’s call for greater involvement in the fight against Islamic State?

Clegg says he does not support more “boots on the ground”. But he would like to see British expertise playing more role in getting the Sunni tribes to oppose Islamic State.

Nick Clegg's Call Clegg phone-in

Nick Clegg his hosting his Call Clegg phone-in.

Q: Isn’t it time we stopped intervening in the Middle East. Iraq did not work. And yet we are talking about more intervention?

Clegg says we should do more on some issues, but less on others.

He leads the only main party to oppose the Iraq war, he says.

On the present conflict in Syria and Iraq, he says the British won’t be able to fix the bloodshed there.

But on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, he says Britain has always left it too much to the US. He has always felt the EU could use its economic muscle more here, he says.

And here is some Twitter comment on the Justice Lowell Goddard’s interview.

From Simon Danczuk, the Labour MP and leading child abuse campaigner

From the BBC’s Danny Shaw

From Joshua Rozenberg, the legal journalist

From Abianda, a social enterprise working with gang-affected women

Justice Lowell Goddard's Today interview - Summary

Here are the key points from the Today interview with Justice Lowell Goddard, the new head of the child abuse inquiry. She was speaking from New Zealand, where she lives (although she will relocate to the UK for the inquiry).

  • Goddard said she would be tough enough to take on the establishment. Asked if she was able to take on those in authority, she replied:

Well, I’m a judge so that’s not a new thing for me.

  • She said the inquiry had to have “achievable goals” and that she did not want it to drag on. She wanted “a very effective inquiry”, she said.

It is a very broad landscape and the inquiry is very complex and multi-faceted, but it needs to be achievable as well. It needs to set goals that are achievable in the interests of the survivors of sexual abuse ...

It must be managed because an inquiry that drags on and does not have achievable goals that cannot deliver is not an effective inquiry and I’m interested in conducting a very effective inquiry.

  • She said she wanted to set clear boundaries for the inquiry.

The problem to avoid starts with the scoping, the planning, the setting of milestones, the transparency of process, the interim reporting along the way and the setting of dates. Now, I can’t give you any indication of what those may be right now – that is perfectly obvious and I know you would accept that. But that is how you stop an inquiry getting out of control.

  • She confirmed that the its terms of reference could be set to allow it to go back past 1970, unlike the original inquiry which was not going to go beyond that date.
  • She said the survivors would be “at the forefront of the inquiry”.

It’s very important to remember that at the forefront of the inquiry, and indeed the centre of this inquiry, are the survivors of child sexual abuse. Their views will inform the inquiry throughout and at the outset will be hugely beneficial in formulating the composition of the panel and setting the terms of reference and scoping the inquiry.

  • She said she was satisfied she would be independent.

The understanding that I have been given is that this is an independent inquiry in every sense that such an inquiry should be; that it will be for me, in consultation with my counsel assisting, Ben Emmerson QC, no doubt the panel when it’s formed, the new panel, and the home secretary, to settle clear terms of reference for this inquiry.

I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome.

Justice Lowell Goddard, the new head of the child abuse inquiry, was interviewed on the Today programme this morning. She insisted that she wanted her inquiry to have achievable goals.

It is a very broad landscape and the inquiry is very complex and multi-faceted, but it needs to be achievable as well. It needs to set goals that are achievable in the interests of the survivors of sexual abuse ...

It must be managed because an inquiry that drags on and does not have achievable goals that cannot deliver is not an effective inquiry and I’m interested in conducting a very effective inquiry.

I will post more from the interview soon.

Here’s the agenda for the day.

9am: Nick Clegg’s Call Clegg phone-in.

10.30am: Clegg launches the Lib Dems’ fiscal plans for the next parliament.

Morning: David Cameron gives a campaign speech.

As usual, I will be also covering all the breaking political news from Westminster, as well as bringing you the most interesting political comment and analysis from the web and from Twitter. I will post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow

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