Afternoon summary
- Theresa May has apologised to NHS patients for delays caused by the winter crisis. (See 1.13pm.) She issued her apology as new figures were released showing record numbers of patients were forced to wait in the backs of ambulances last week as hospitals in England struggled to cope with demand for medical treatment.
- Tony Blair has said Labour should oppose Brexit fully. (See 11.08am.)
That’s all from me for today.
Thanks for the comments.
Tony Blair has dismissed the suggestion that Jeremy Corbyn’s performance in the 2017 general election showed Corbyn was in a strong position. Responding to a claim in an ITV interview that Corbyn did better than Blair, Blair said:
On that basis Theresa May would be a more successful prime minister than Margaret Thatcher.
Blair was responding to a claim that Corbyn won a higher percentage of the vote than Blair ever achieved.
As you can see from the Commons library note UK election statistics: 1918 - 2017 (a great read), Corbyn, with 40% of the UK vote in 2017, did better than Blair in 2005 (35.2%). But Blair did better in 1997 (43.2%) and in 2001 (40.7%).
And May did do better in 2017 (42.3%) than Thatcher did in 1987 (42.2%). But Thatcher did better in 1983 (42.4%) and in 1979 (43.9%).
ITV’s Paul Brand later explained that his question was badly phrased.
Cheers. Corbyn had highest *increase* in vote share since 1945, i.e. beating Blair on that measure. Also beat his 2005 performance. Apols if not clear in my Q,
— Paul Brand (@PaulBrandITV) January 4, 2018
Blair says Brexit is "very dangerous" for the EU
Tony Blair has not just been trying to persuade the British to change their minds about Brexit. He has given an interview to several continental papers too, including Le Monde, and according to the Le Monde story, he told them Brexit could be.
Here is an extract, which I’ve put through Google Translate and tidied up just a little.
In an interview with several continental newspapers, including Le Monde, the former premier has a warning for Europeans. “Europe will be considerably weakened if the UK leaves the EU,” he warns, not only in terms of defence and security, but because it “would lose an important pillar of the bridge that connects the two sides of the EU. Atlantic’.
While Theresa May’s government has been forced to make significant concessions, and negotiations on future trade relations between London and Brussels are scheduled from March to October 2018 for effective departure on March 29, 2019, Blair is worried. “There is a danger of a certain fatalism among Europeans about Brexit,” he says.
According to him, the EU27 must realize that “Brexit is also very dangerous for them” and that it would be “a mistake” for Europe “if it took a decision of this magnitude out of weariness”.
Europeans must understand that “the debate is not over in the United Kingdom” and “keep an open mind if the British change their minds,” said Blair.
The Irish Times was another paper involved in the joint interview. Their story does not include the “very dangerous” line, but it quotes Blair as saying:
It’s not too late until it’s happened. I think Europe is also making a mistake if a decision of this magnitude is taken on the basis that people get tired of contesting it, and a Brexit fatigue is a real risk. The leaders of Europe should not be indifferent to the consequences this has for Europe.
The Spectator has published an interesting interview with Angela Rayner, the shadow education secretary. In it Fraser Nelson reveals that Rayner keeps a picture of Theresa May above her desk to provide a form of negative inspiration. He explains:
Angela Rayner is perhaps the only Labour MP who works with a picture of Theresa May hanging above her desk. It’s there for inspiration, she says, a daily reminder of the general incompetence of the Conservative government and the need for its removal. ‘That picture motivates me, in a strange way,’ she says when we meet. ‘They are doing such a bad job of Brexit, and a lot of people will be let down. Again. The people who already think that politicians are lower than a snake’s belly.’ The anger is with politicians in general. ‘It just feels that this generation is not doing a very good job.’
Gove says Brexit not likely to reduce amount of government money going to farmers in long term
In his speech to the Oxford Farming Conference Michael Gove, the environment secretary, played down any suggestion that leaving the EU will reduce the amount of government money going to farmers.
As the Guardian reported overnight, Gove said that he wants to replace the current system of farming subsidies with a system that rewards farmers for environment protection.
The government has already said that it will guarantee the amount of money it spends on farming support, in cash terms, until the next election in 2022.
Today Gove said that, after the UK leaves the EU in 2019, there would be a five-year transition during which the government would continue to pay farmers under the current BPS (basic payment scheme), but with modifications. The largest BPS payments would be reduced, he said. “We could do this through a straight cap at a maximum level or through a sliding scale of reductions, to the largest payments first,” he said in his speech.
Explaining what would happen after that five-year transition, he said:
After that transition, we will replace BPS with a system of public money for public goods ...
Building on previous countryside stewardship and agri-environment schemes, we will design a scheme accessible to almost any land owner or manager who wishes to enhance the natural environment by planting woodland, providing new habitats for wildlife, increasing biodiversity, contributing to improved water quality and returning cultivated land to wildflower meadows or other more natural states.
Asked what level of payments for public goods there would be after 2024, Gove said he hoped it would be “broadly” the same as the £3bn subsidies were now. He went on:
My aim is to secure the best possible deal for the environment, and also at the same time to ensure that money we currently spend on other public goods continues to be spent.
Updated
The Lib Dems, who are campaigning for a second referendum on Brexit, have welcomed Tony Blair’s intervention today. This is from their Brexit spokesman Tom Brake.
This intervention shows there is growing support for giving people a vote on the final Brexit deal. With the NHS in crisis and the promised £350m a week nowhere to be seen, the case for an exit from Brexit is growing stronger each day.
Theresa May has publicly challenged a call by the leader of the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead for police to take action against rough sleepers in the town ahead of the royal wedding later this year, my colleague Harriet Sherwood reports.
Blair says Labour would 'annihilate' Tories if it firmly opposed Brexit
Tony Blair has given an interview to Sky News. Largely he repeated the points about Brexit that he made earlier in his Today interview and his Brexit article (see 11.08am) but he made a fresh claim; he said Labour would “annihilate” the Tories if it firmly opposed Brexit. He told Sky:
What they [the Labour leadership] think is that the smartest thing to do is for Labour to carry on saying ‘We’re in favour of Brexit too’ and then essentially, when the government comes out with its deal, say, ‘We’d get a better deal.’
When they get to that point, they’re going to find it very difficult.
It’s far better to go onto the high ground, say what we really think and give some leadership to our people. And then - I can see a situation where the Labour party would annihilate the Tories if it went for the high ground, because it would also go right back into the fundamental division in the Tory party over the future of the country. So I think it would just be a much more powerful political postion.
Corbyn says Tory underfunding to blame for NHS winter crisis
Jeremy Corbyn has responded to Theresa May’s comments on the NHS (see 1.13pm) by saying Tory underfunding has caused the NHS crisis. He posted this on Twitter.
It is not good enough for @Theresa_May to say NHS problems are "frustrating" and "disappointing" when the Tory Government has caused this crisis.
— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn) January 4, 2018
Nurses, doctors and patients are pleading with her to properly fund our health service, but she is ignoring them.#NHSWinterCrisis
Theresa May apologises to NHS patients for delays caused by winter crisis
Yesterday Theresa May recorded a brief clip on the NHS. Today she did a brief interview with the Sky News; by my count, she took four questions, but she wasn’t particularly forthcoming and mostly what she said just duplicated what she said yesterday.
There was one key addition, though. She apologised to NHS patients - echoing the apology that Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, gave them yesterday.
Here are the key points.
- May apologised to NHS patients for the delays caused by the winter crisis. Asked if she would be happy if she or a relative had to put up with the delays patients are currently facing, she replied:
Well, I recognise that it is difficult for people who are facing delays. I recognise that it is difficult if someone is delayed on their admission to hospital, or if somebody has an operation postponed. And we will hope to ensure that those operations can be reinstated as soon as possible. I know it’s difficult, I know it’s frustrating, and I know it’s disappointing for people, and I apologise.
- She repeatedly thanked NHS staff for their work. She opened her remarks saying:
I’ve been very pleased here at Frimley Park hospital today to be able to say a personal thank you to staff here. But that’s a thank you to all staff across the NHS for the fantastic work that they are doing.
She also made a point of thanking NHS support staff for their work. The NHS was a “whole team effort”, he said.
- She refused to say whether she thought the NHS was in crisis. Paul Kelso, Sky’s health correspondent, put it to her that Hunt had effectively admitted this morning that the NHS was in crisis (see 8.38am) and asked if May agreed. May just said that the NHS was under pressure, and then praised staff.
- She repeated the claim she made yesterday about the NHS being “better prepared for this winter than ever before”.
- She said the government was “putting record amounts of money into the NHS”. This is true in cash terms. But, given inflation, spending on any particular public service is almost always at a record level in cash terms. This is not a very meaningful measure.
As this chart from a King’s Fund blog shows, if you look at NHS spending as a proportion of GDP, it is not at a record level.
Updated
Theresa May has apologised to patients who have had had operations delayed because of the NHS winter crisis. She told Sky News:
We will hope to ensure that those operations can be reinstated as soon as possible. I know it’s difficult, I know it’s frustrating, and I know it’s disappointing for people, and I apologise.
I will post more from the interview shortly.
Updated
Sadiq Khan condemns Toby Young's appointment to OfS board as 'chumocracy that makes public sick'
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, has joined those complaining about the appointment of the journalist Toby Young to the board of the new Office for Students, the Evening Standard’s Pippa Crerar reports.
.@SadiqKhan says it’s “astonishing” that Theresa May approved appt of @toadmeister to OfS given his views on inclusion. “It’s another example of the chumocracy that makes the British public sick to death of the political elite”. #LBC
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) January 4, 2018
@toadmeister is Young’s Twitter handle.
Here is Janet Davies, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN), on the latest NHS performance figures. (See 10.13am.) She said:
Today’s figures show that almost every day last week, NHS hospitals in England were at bursting point, with over 90% of beds being used - well above the 85% safe limit recommended by experts.
Lack of beds for new patients is a major factor contributing to the current severe pressure on the NHS, but it’s impossible for trusts to open extra beds without more nurses to staff them.
The RCN has been warning of under-investment in nursing posts for several years - now that underlying problem has developed into a full-blown crisis. There needs to be a fundamental review of the sort of health and social care we want in this country.
Labour says surge in number of ambulance waits at A&E is 'absolutely shameful'
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, told BBC News a few minutes ago that today’s ambulance delay figures are “absolutely appalling”. He said”
These figures are absolutely appalling. They are dismal. Seventeen thousand people trapped in ambulances beyond 30 minutes waiting to get into a hospital - just imagine if that was one of your elderly relatives, waiting to get into the hospital, trapped in an ambulance - 17,000 is absolutely shameful.
And it’s no good government ministers offering listless apologies. We want them to get a grip of this situation. And the crisis we are seeing in the NHS today is because we’ve now got eight years of underfunding, cuts to community health provision and social care provision cut back by billions so that lots of elderly and vulnerable people do not get the support in the community they need.
For Theresa May to say [the NHS] is the best prepared it’s ever been is absolutely laughable.
Ashworth also said that Labour had been warning the government about an NHS winter crisis for months and that in the autumn it said ministers should be giving the NHS an extra £500m to help it cope.
Blair's Today interview and Brexit article - Summary
Tony Blair has published an article on his website explaining why he wants Labour to oppose Brexit. But his Insistute for Global Change has also published a “Brexit - What We Now Know” report arguing that Brexit has already damaged the economy.
Here are the main points from the articles and from Blair’s Today interview.
- Blair said that Labour should oppose Brexit fully. In his article he said:
Make Brexit the Tory Brexit.
Make them own it 100%.
Show people why Brexit isn’t and never was the answer.
Open up the dialogue with European leaders about reforming Europe, a dialogue they’re more than willing to have now because they realise Brexit also damages Europe economically and politically.
At every PMQs nail each myth of the Brexit campaign, say why the Tory divisions are weakening our country - something only credible if we are opposed to Brexit not advocating a different Brexit, and challenge the whole farce head on of a prime minister leading our nation in a direction which even today she can’t bring herself to say she would vote for.
- He said Labour should make a link with Brexit when it attacks the government over the NHS and other public services issues. In his interview he said:
Because the Labour party is saying that we too would do Brexit, we cannot attack its vast distractive impact.
Labour could mount such a powerful assault on the government’s record from the appalling state of the NHS to crime, which through neglect and failure to support the police is on the rise again, if we were saying to the country: here’s the agenda which could be delivered for the people were it not for the fact that all the energies of government and substantial amounts of cash are devoted to Brexit.
- He said in his article that, if Britain decided to stay in the EU, it could “use the Brexit vote as leverage to achieve reform”.
- He predicted that the government would split, with Theresa May and some ministers favouring a Brexit deal that would keep the UK close to the EU, but “true believer leavers” opposing these compromises.
- He predicted that the EU would offer the UK a tariff-free deal on trade in goods, but little on services. In his article he said:
My bet is that the government will try to negotiate an agreement which leaves much detail still to negotiate, because there is no way round the dilemma. They will bank some low hanging fruit possibly e.g. tariff free access for goods (leaving for later non tariff issues). For Europe since they have a whacking great surplus with Britain on goods, this is a no-brainer.
But on access for services, which have driven most of our export growth over the last 20 years, are 70% of our economy, and where we have the surplus, we will be blocked without major concessions.
- He said the claim in the new Michael Wolff book about the Trump White House that he warned Trump the British were spying on him was a “complete fabrication”. Blair supposedly delivered the warning in a meeting with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. But Blair said:
This story is a complete fabrication, literally beginning to end. I’ve never had such conversations in the White House, outside of the White House, with Jared Kushner, with anybody else.
- Blair also rejected the claim that he was angling for a Middle East job when he met Kushner. He said he had discussed the Middle East with Kushner. But, on the subject of a possible job, he said:
I never sought one, was never offered one, don’t want one.
Updated
Here is Sir Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, on the latest NHS waiting figures. In a statement Cable said:
These figures show the NHS crisis is worsening, with thousands of patients being stuck in ambulances outside A&Es and many hospitals suffering from a severe lack of beds.
Every day seems to bring yet more bad news about the state of the health service. The blame lies firmly at the government’s door.
Ministers refused to provide the funding top NHS officials said was necessary and now patients are paying the price.
It’s time to give the NHS and care the extra cash they desperately need, by putting a penny on income tax to raise an extra £6bn a year.
Large increase in number of patients having to wait in ambulances at A&E, figures show
Delays in ambulances delivering patients to A&E departments in England have reached their highest level of the winter, new figures show, as hospitals struggle with mounting demands on their services. As the Press Association reports, a total of 16,900 people were forced to wait for more than 30 minutes to be seen by staff at emergency departments over the Christmas week, up from 11,900 the previous week, including 4,700 delayed for more than an hour. The PA story goes on:
NHS England’s weekly operational update also showed showed non-emergency calls to the NHS hotline again reached a record high in the week ending December 31.
Calls to the health service’s 111 service shot up 21% on the previous week to 480,400 - the most received in a single week since the hotline was created.
An NHS England spokesman said: “Hospitals, GPs, ambulances and other frontline NHS services have been extremely busy between Christmas and New Year, reporting higher levels of respiratory illness and some indications of increasing patient illness severity and flu.
“These increased pressures were mirrored in the NHS 111 service. In the week ending Sunday 31st December, NHS 111 responded to 480,000 calls, up 21% on the previous week.
“This is the highest number of weekly calls since the 111 service was created.
“In the light of these pressures, the medical and nursing-led national emergency pressures panel has now enacted, for a time-limited period, the NHS’ winter pressures protocol to free up further staff and beds for patients needing urgent and emergency care.”
The Department of Health says ambulance crews should be able to hand patients over to A&E staff within 15 minutes of arrival at hospital, and not doing so increases the risk to patients due to delays in diagnosis and treatment, as well as the chance that a patient will get worse while waiting on a trolley.
It comes as hospitals across the country compete with winter’s annual spike in demand.
Tens of thousands of non-urgent operations and routine outpatient appointments have been shelved by NHS England to ease pressures on hospitals.
Bed occupancy rates climbed as high as 93.5% on New Year’s Eve, up from 86.7% on Christmas Day, according to the data, with an average of 91.7% across the week.
In the previous week hospitals had reported bed occupancy levels of 90.9% - above the recommended safe limit of 85%.
Updated
Conservative party members more likely to favour return of death penalty than soft Brexit
Almost 80% of Labour party members agree with Tony Blair’s call for a second referendum on Brexit, a new survey has revealed. The research was carried out by Prof Tim Bale and colleagues from the Mile End Institute at Queen Mary University of London and it involved a survey of more than 4,000 members of the main political parties.
You can read a summary of the findings here. And here is the full 41-page report (pdf).
Here is the chart with the figures on a second referendum.
My colleague Peter Walker has written up the findings for today’s paper. Here is his story.
As this chart from the FT’s Jim Pickard points out, the findings show that Conservative party members are more likely to favour bringing back the death penalty than a soft Brexit (if you define soft Brexit as remaining in the single market).
most fascinating element of the @ProfTimBale research is how views of Labour, Lib Dem and SNP members are pretty similar - with Tories way different https://t.co/yZiytQK9bN pic.twitter.com/NVsLIWIzIu
— Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) January 4, 2018
Updated
This is from Sir Christopher Meyer, who was ambassador to Washington when Tony Blair was PM. He is probably right, if you accept the argument that the collapse of the Brexit talks is one of the few events that could shift public opinion decisively in favour of a second referendum and remain.
Blair on @BBCr4today underlined yet again that real divide in UK not between Remainers and Leavers but between those who accept the referendum result and those who don’t. The latter have vested interest in negotiations’ failure.
— Christopher Meyer (@SirSocks) January 4, 2018
Gove says common agricultural policy benefits the wealthy
Here is the full text of Michael Gove’s speech at the Oxford Farming Conference.
And here are some highlights from the FT’s Laura Hughes, who has been listening.
Michael Gove tells #OFC18 the CAP is "fundamentally flawed". He says paying land owners for the amount of agricultural land they have is "unjust, inefficient and drives perverse outcomes." Says it gives the most from the public purse to those who have the most private wealth.
— Laura Hughes (@Laura_K_Hughes) January 4, 2018
He says the CAP "perversely" rewards farmers for "sticking to methods of production that are resource-inefficient & also incentivises an approach to environmental stewardship which is all about mathematically precise field margins and not ecologically healthy landscapes."#OFC18
— Laura Hughes (@Laura_K_Hughes) January 4, 2018
On threat of lowering food standards under new post- Brexit trade deals, Michael Gove says that would be foolish because people "know when they’re buying British they’re buying food which is guaranteed to be high quality and more sustainable" #OFC18
— Laura Hughes (@Laura_K_Hughes) January 4, 2018
I will post more from the speech when I’ve read it.
Blair's Today interview - Verdict from the Twitter commentariat
The Blair interview didn’t really take us on very much, I’m afraid. Brexiters like the way John Humphrys repeatedly challenged him on the grounds that he is refusing to accept the result of the EU referendum, although I felt they ended up just going around in circles.
This is what other political journalists and commentators are saying about it.
From the Daily Mail’s Jason Groves
To be fair to Tony Blair he does know a thing or too about how a once-popular political product can quickly become completely toxic
— Jason Groves (@JasonGroves1) January 4, 2018
From the BBC’s Andrew Sinclair
Isn't Tony Blair making the same point about brexit and another referendum which the Lib Dems made in last year's election?
— Andrew Sinclair (@andrewpolitics) January 4, 2018
From MailOnline’s James Tapsfield
Tony Blair was the outstanding politician of his generation, but sadly his baggage now stops him conveying an argument
— James Tapsfield (@JamesTapsfield) January 4, 2018
From Good Morning Britain’s Piers Morgan
I remember Tony Blair telling me that if Britain didn't enter the Euro, it would lead to financial disaster for the country.
— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) January 4, 2018
Then he told me Britain had to go to war with Iraq because Saddam had WMD.
So I'd take his 'Brexit will be a disaster' claims with a pinch of salt.
From the Independent’s John Rentoul
High fives all round in No 10 as Blair reinforcing case for Brexit dominates media cycle instead of NHS
— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) January 4, 2018
From Sky’s Mollie Goodfellow
Tony Blair is the ex-boyfriend who feels it’s still valid for him to comment on your life choices
— Mollie Goodfellow (@hansmollman) January 4, 2018
From PoliticsHome’s Kevin Schofield
Tony Blair sounding pretty manic on #r4today. Not a great look for the anti-Brexit campaign.
— Kevin Schofield (@PolhomeEditor) January 4, 2018
From the Telegraph’s Liam Halligan
John Humphreys just single-handedly justified licence fee. Much of broadcasting boss class still hero-worships Blair. Humphreys far shrewder
— Liam Halligan (@LiamHalligan) January 4, 2018
From Total Politics’ David Singleton
It's now in vogue to attack Tony Blair but his stance on 'Breggsit' is coherent and really not that controversial #r4Today
— David Singleton (@singersz) January 4, 2018
From the Cameron biographer and former Sunday Times political editor Isabel Oakeshott
Brilliant dissection of Tony Blair’s position on Brexit on @BBCr4today now. Worth listening to Humphries’ demolition job whatever yr view.
— Isabel Oakeshott (@IsabelOakeshott) January 4, 2018
Unfortunately I thought Blair sounded pretty reasonable. As he always did when excusing the inexcusable @Nigel_Farage @LeaveMnsLeave https://t.co/70x2Wm3qON
— Isabel Oakeshott (@IsabelOakeshott) January 4, 2018
Updated
Here is some more Tory reaction to the Blair interview, from two prominent Brexiters.
From the MEP Daniel Hannan
The only effect - the ONLY effect - of Tony Blair demanding a referendum between the final deal and continuing EU membership is to encourage Brussels to offer a worse deal.
— Daniel Hannan (@DanielJHannan) January 4, 2018
From Nigel Evans MP
How dare Tony Blair, the man who ratted on his promise to have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty , is now prepared to ignore the result of the EU referendum which was promised and given to the British people. This man has no shame!
— nigelevansRibbleV. (@nigelmp) January 4, 2018
Nick Timothy, Theresa May’s co chief of staff until the general election, and the person credited with doing more than anyone else to encourage May to approach a hard Brexit approach, thinks Blair’s intervention will be counter-productive.
Tony Blair is making an excellent case for Brexit on the radio.
— Nick Timothy (@NickJTimothy) January 4, 2018
The BBC’s Chris Mason has posted this response to the Blair intervention from an unnamed shadow minister.
Tony Blair live on @BBCr4today now. Shadow minister tells me Mr Blair's intervention is "utterly unhelpful." "Lots of Labour voters voted for Brexit and this to them sounds like the metropolitan elite ignoring them." (1/2)
— Chris Mason (@ChrisMasonBBC) January 4, 2018
Shadow minister adds: "The whole Tony Blair project was about being on the right side of public opinion. And now look at this. Are you telling me the Tony Blair of 1994 would have said this?" (2/2)
— Chris Mason (@ChrisMasonBBC) January 4, 2018
The Spectator editor Fraser Nelson says Blair was wrong to say the Brexit vote is creating staff shortages in the NHS.
Tony Blair tells @BBCr4today that, since the Brexit vote, there are "significant staff shortages in the NHS". Here are the facts on EU nationals in the NHS since the referendum. pic.twitter.com/LzWPziRGLJ
— Fraser Nelson (@FraserNelson) January 4, 2018
Norman Lamont, the former chancellor and Tory Brexiter, is being interviewed on the Today programme now. He says that Tony Blair is trying to “sabotage the result of the referendum” and that he is increasing cynicism about politics. The interview was “pure cynicism by him”, Lamont says.
He also says trying to stop Brexit would be against the national interest.
And when would this referendum be held, he asks. He suggests the second referendum proposal is not even practical.
Lamont also says that countries outside the EU have increased trade with the EU faster than EU members like the UK.
And he says the reason the UK does 40% of its trade with the EU is because those countries are the UK’s neighbours. Proximity is the key factor, not EU membership, he says. He says Blair’s claims about how leaving the single market would be bad for trade are “fraudulent”.
Hunt says Blair wrong to link Brexit to NHS winter crisis
Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, claims Tony Blair was wrong to link Brexit with the NHS winter crisis.
Tony Blair's memory is as selective in office as out of office: does he not remember his own regular NHS winter crises? Perhaps he was too focused on joining the euro to give his full attention to the NHS...
— Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) January 4, 2018
Interestingly, though, Hunt seems to be admitting here that the NHS is facing a winter crisis. Yesterday he did not accept that that word was appropriate.
Humphrys turns to the allegation that he told President Trump that the British were spying on him. (See 8.10am.)
Blair says this story is a “complete fabrication”.
Q: Have you met Jared Kushner?
Of course, says Blair.
But he says the claim that he was angling for a job is wrong.
He had been Middle East envoy to the Quartet.
This story is literally an invention, he says.
And that’s it. The interview is over.
Q: So how should people have the chance to vote again. An election or a second referendum?
Blair says it could be a second referendum. But it would be a referendum with two options.
Q: Don’t you risk civil disobedience with this approach?
Blair says he accepts the result of the 2016 referendum.
But in 2016 people did not know what the alternative was.
If, when people see the terms of Brexit, they are entitled to think again.
Q: A shadow minister has described your intervention as unhelpful. They are saying lots of Labour voters voted for Brexit. You are making it sound as if the metropolitan elite is against them.
Blair says there are elites and ordinary people on both sides. He says 17m people voted to leave, but 16m people voted to remain. Those 16m aren’t all elite.
Blair asks Humphrys if he is saying parliament cannot reject the deal.
Q: Of course it can.
Blair asks what then happens if parliament rejects the deal. He says during the negotiation the central dilemma - do you have good access to the single market, and follow EU rules, or not - will become stark.
He says Brexit is not the solution for the problems facing Labour voters.
Q: But people rejected that argument at the referendum.
Blair says the Labour party should tell people that focusing on Brexit stops the government focusing attention on the NHS.
Q: So why did MPs vote for a referendum? Were they silly?
Blair says he is not disputing the result of the referendum. He says the debate does not stop at that point.
Updated
Q: You say in your article people should have the option to rethink and stay. How can we do that when we have had the referendum?
Blair says that at the time of the referendum people did not know that the alternative was.
Democracy does not just stop on one day, he says.
Q: So what are you asking for? Another referendum?
Blair says that is a second order question. You could also have a separate general election.
He says the Brexit people are saying there can be no second referendum.
When people see what the alternative is, they would be entitled to reject it.
Blair says the government is spending substantial sums preparing for Brexit.
His argument, directly to Labour as much as the government, is that Brexit is a distraction. It is stopping the government focusing on the problems facing the country./
Q: But people voted for it.
Blair accepts that.
But he says, once the final terms are known, people should have the right to think again.
Q: No on thinks we will not be able to recruit EU nurses after Brexit.
Blair says EU workers are leaving.
He says the NHS is in a terrible state. But the government does not have the bandwidth to deal with it, he says.
Tony Blair's Today' interview
John Humphrys is interviewing Tony Blair.
Q: You have been accused of spreading fear about Brexit.
Blair says he does not accept that.
Q: But one forecast says the UK will overtake France by 2020. That does not sound like an economy struggling.
Blair says you can look at the facts; growth is down since the referendum.
Q: But you cannot be sure that is down to Brexit.
Blair says there is “little doubt that Brexit is causing economic difficulty”. Growth is now forecast to be less than 2% in the years ahead. That is below the previous trend.
Q: But that is down to a problem with productivity.
Blair says Brexit is also a factor.
But that is not the only issue, he says.
He says he is arguing for people to have the right to think again, as “claim and counter-claim fades”.
Q: That’s all it is, isn’t it. Just claim and counter-claim. The RCN says fewer EU nurses are coming to the UK because of language tests.
Blair says that is not the only issue.
Tony Blair is also likely to be asked about the Times’ splash (paywall). Here is how it starts.
Tony Blair warned Donald Trump’s aides that British intelligence may have spied on them during the election, according to an explosive new book.
The former prime minister met Jared Kushner, son-in-law to Donald Trump and a senior aide, at the White House last February.
According to the author Michael Wolff, Mr Blair shared a “juicy rumour” during their meeting — “that the British had had the Trump campaign staff under surveillance, monitoring its telephone calls and other communications and possibly even Trump himself”.
His office has already denied the story.
Tony Blair urges Labour to fight Brexit
Tony Blair confirmed last month that he is trying to stop Brexit and he is intervening again today. He is giving an interview to the Today programme and he has published a long article on the subject, summarised here by my colleague Peter Walker. Here is the start of Peter’s story.
Labour will become “the handmaiden of Brexit” if it continues to prevaricate and be timid over the issue, Tony Blair has warned in a passionate call for the party he formerly led to oppose the government on leaving the EU.
In a lengthy article published on his own website, coinciding with the release of a report from his political institute detailing the current state of play over Brexit, Blair reiterates his call for the British people to have the final decision on whether the withdrawal from the EU goes ahead or not.
Describing 2018 as “the year when the fate of Brexit and thus of Britain will be decided”, Blair is open about his opposition to leaving the EU and argues that the 2016 referendum cannot be seen as binding as it contained no detail on what a post-Brexit future would involve.
And here is Peter’s story in full.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.10am: Tony Blair is interviewed on Today.
8.45am: Michael Gove, the environment secretary, gives a speech to the Oxford Farming Conference. He will say farming subsidies will be replaced by payments for planting woodland, boosting wildlife, helping improve water quality and recreating wildflower meadows, my colleague Damian Carrington reports.
And Theresa May is visiting a hospital at some point.
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.
Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ top 10 must reads.
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