Sacked shadow minister praises Lisa Nandy for joining strikers on picket line
Sam Tarry, the shadow transport minister sacked by Keir Starmer for comments made on a rail picket line, said it was “great to see” Lisa Nandy visiting striking communications workers today.
Tarry was sacked by Starmer last week for giving multiple interviews on a picket line at Euston in London with striking RMT workers – where he suggested they deserved pay rises in line with inflation.
Tarry tweeted:
Senior Labour politicians need to demonstrate loud and clear that our party is on the side of ordinary working people who are fighting back against this anti-worker government.
Great to see @lisanandy on the picket line.
Senior Labour politicians need to demonstrate loud and clear that our Party is on the side of ordinary working people who are fighting back against this anti-worker Government. 🌹 https://t.co/a553BF8Udg
— Sam Tarry MP (@SamTarry) August 1, 2022
Starmer has previously told shadow frontbenchers they should not join picket lines for strikes, arguing that Labour should be a party of government. Nandy is understood to have told the leader’s office in advance that she planned to visit Communication Workers Union (CWU) workers from BT and Openreach striking in her Wigan constituency.
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Rory Carroll
David Trimble faced bitter opposition from across the political spectrum during his life but his funeral has united British, Irish and Northern Irish leaders in paying tribute to his accomplishments and sacrifice.
The service in Lisburn on Monday brought together the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, and other political representatives from London, Dublin and Belfast to bid farewell to Northern Ireland’s inaugural first minister.
It was a rare gathering and show of solidarity – and a truce in current political tensions – to honour Lord Trimble, an architect of the 1998 Good Friday agreement and a former Ulster Unionist party (UUP) leader, who died last week at the age of 77.
Ireland’s president, Michael D Higgins, and taoiseach, Micheál Martin, joined Northern Ireland’s party leaders at Harmony Hill Presbyterian church, a name both apt and ironic given Trimble’s torrid time as a peacemaker.
Read the full article by my colleague Rory Carroll here:
Asked by reporters if Chris Pincher should resign his seat in the Commons, Rishi Sunak said he would quickly reappoint an independent adviser “to make sure that ministers and the government are held to account for their behaviour”.
Pincher has refused to resign as MP for Tamworth after he drunkenly groped two men at a private members’ club in London’s Piccadilly. He now represents the constituency as an independent after being suspended by the Conservative party.
Sunak said:
I think trust is really important and standards are really important in public life. I think honesty is important. And that’s why in this leadership campaign, even though it’s not easy for me, I want to be honest about some of the challenges we face and what’s going to be required to fix them.
Sacked shadow minister praises Lisa Nandy for joining strikers on picket line
Sam Tarry, the shadow transport minister sacked by Keir Starmer for comments made on a rail picket line, said it was “great to see” Lisa Nandy visiting striking communications workers today.
Tarry was sacked by Starmer last week for giving multiple interviews on a picket line at Euston in London with striking RMT workers – where he suggested they deserved pay rises in line with inflation.
Tarry tweeted:
Senior Labour politicians need to demonstrate loud and clear that our party is on the side of ordinary working people who are fighting back against this anti-worker government.
Great to see @lisanandy on the picket line.
Senior Labour politicians need to demonstrate loud and clear that our Party is on the side of ordinary working people who are fighting back against this anti-worker Government. 🌹 https://t.co/a553BF8Udg
— Sam Tarry MP (@SamTarry) August 1, 2022
Starmer has previously told shadow frontbenchers they should not join picket lines for strikes, arguing that Labour should be a party of government. Nandy is understood to have told the leader’s office in advance that she planned to visit Communication Workers Union (CWU) workers from BT and Openreach striking in her Wigan constituency.
Sunak also downplayed growing cabinet support for Liz Truss, telling reporters:
You have to remember that actually in the parliamentary stage of this contest I topped the ballot in each and every round, with more support from MPs than any other candidate.
He said “lots more people” have come on board to back him since the close of that ballot, adding:
So actually I feel very confident that there’s an enormous amount of support, in fact the most support in a parliamentary party, for my candidacy.
Rishi Sunak said his plan to cut income tax by 20% by the end of the decade was “one of the most far-reaching cuts to income tax that we’ve seen” and would be done “responsibly over time”.
The former chancellor told reporters in Devon that as prime minister, he would cut VAT on energy bills “to provide a little bit of extra help for people over the autumn and winter” as bills would be “higher than we thought”.
Sunak described his proposed plan to cut income tax to 16p by the end of the next parliament as “radical”, adding:
We’ll do that responsibly over time, continuing to reduce our borrowing. And we’ll do it by growing the economy, taking advantage of our Brexit freedoms, and getting our businesses to invest more and innovate more through the tax reforms that I’m going to put in place.
The shadow levelling up secretary, Lisa Nandy, has attended BT workers’ picket line despite Keir Starmer’s ban on frontbenchers supporting strikes.
Nandy was photographed at a Communication Workers’ Union (CWU) picket line in her constituency, days after Starmer sacked Sam Tarry as a shadow transport minister for doing broadcast interviews from a rail strike picket line – although his presence there was not given as the reason.
As my colleague, Jessica Elgot, points out, one way Labour frontbenchers can potentially navigate Starmer’s policy is to argue that they’re attending the picket line to listen to workers.
Shadow levelling up secretary Lisa Nandy in Wigan today…
A way Labour frontbenchers can potential navigate the picket line ban – they can argue it’s a visit to listen to workers if they don’t hold a placard or do broadcast interviews. But it’s definitely a statement… https://t.co/WNrmyCCfH2
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) August 1, 2022
A No 10 spokesperson said Boris Johnson would “definitely” want the Lionesses to receive “the recognition they rightly deserve” after their triumph at the women’s Euros final.
Asked if the PM will support damehoods for the team following their win, Johnson’s official spokesperson added:
On honours specifically, there is obviously a process that is a matter for the independent honours committee, but clearly the public want to see (the) Lionesses receive recognition.
Johnson will be going on holiday from Wednesday until the end of the week, Downing Street added.
Rupert Neate
The business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, has promised that legislation coming into force on Monday will have an “immediate dissuasive effect on oligarchs attempting to hide their ill-gotten gains, ensuring that the UK is a place for legitimate business only”.
However, a string of lawyers, tax experts, MPs, accountants and transparency campaigners are warning that the long-awaited register of overseas entities, which was sped through parliament after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, is “riddled with flaws and loopholes” and will have no impact on forcing corrupt oligarchs to reveal which UK mansions they own.
The register is intended to, in the government’s words, “flush out corrupt elites laundering money through UK property” by forcing secretive overseas companies to reveal the true owner or risk “tough fines”, or even up to five years in prison.
The Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who has long campaigned for a crackdown on secretive overseas ownership of UK property, complained that the register was “more lead balloon” than the “silver bullet we were promised would stop abuses like money laundering in our real estate sector”.
Read the full article by my colleague Rupert Neate here:
More from the work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, who said Liz Truss’s campaign had nothing to do with an image circulating on social media showing her rival, Rishi Sunak, stabbing Boris Johnson in the back.
Speaking to Times Radio this morning, Coffey, who is Truss’s campaign manager, said Nadine Dorries “chose” to retweet the doctored image depicting Boris Johnson as Julius Caesar about to be stabbed by a knife-wielding Sunak.
Coffey said:
Well, I wouldn’t have done it. The Liz for Leader campaign certainly didn’t do it. Nadine chose to do it. I’ve made her aware that many colleagues were upset by it.
She added:
It’s for Nadine to decide how she runs her social media. But all I say is that I’m really here to focus on Liz rather than other news.
She also said:
I’m not going to go into individual conversations, but she recognised that other people would have been upset by some of this, but she’s very keen to make the case herself.
Asked which victory she was more confident of, the Lionesses or Liz Truss, Thérèse Coffey said “they both have my full confidence”.
The work and pensions secretary told LBC:
We were at the home of football and football came home with the Lionesses. I was there with Liz and we had a great time, cheering on the Lionesses, who really uplifted the mood of the nation and what a great tournament it’s been.
Truss attended the Women’s Euros final yesterday at Wembley on behalf of the government while her rival was pictured watching the match in a pub in Salisbury, Wiltshire, after meeting Tory party members on the campaign trail.
Boris Johnson posted a photo on Twitter showing him watching the Lionesses’ dramatic 2-1 victory over Germany at home with his children.
York and North Yorkshire are to elect a mayor and receive £540m of government investment over 30 years in a landmark devolution deal to be signed today.
The agreement will create a new combined authority across the region led by a directly elected mayor, who will have the power to spend the money on local priorities such as transport, education and housing.
It is the first city and rural region to see devolution on the scale enjoyed by city regions such as South and West Yorkshire, according to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. The unveiling of the plan coincides with Yorkshire Day.
Residents will elect a mayor in May 2024 if the proposed deal becomes reality.
Read the full story here:
The work and pensions secretary, Thérèse Coffey, was speaking to LBC’s Nick Ferrari earlier, when she was asked about Rishi Sunak’s plans to introduce a £10 fine for patients who miss GP and hospital appointments.
Coffey, who is backing Liz Truss, replied:
This idea has been rolling around for a long time and I think there’s a reason why it hasn’t been brought into place in the past.
She added:
I think putting the onus on doctors to fine their patients, I’m not sure many doctors would want to do that, quite candidly. It’s important we treat people.
Truss pledges to ‘unleash British farming’ through deregulation
Liz Truss has promised to “unleash British food and farming” in order to improve the country’s food security and “remove onerous EU regulations and red tape” if she becomes prime minister.
The Tory leadership candidate did not go into much detail on which laws she would abolish but vowed to tackle the labour shortages in farming with a short-term expansion to the seasonal workers scheme.
It comes after a recent government report warning that labour shortages “caused by Brexit and accentuated by the pandemic” were badly affecting the food and farming sector, often forcing farmers to leave fruit rotting in the fields and cull healthy pigs.
Truss said she would work to address longer-term skills shortages and hurdles to the adoption of labour-saving technologies.
She also promised to replace EU law that restricts the development of farming infrastructure and technology, including agricultural drone use and precision breeding technologies.
Sunak’s latest policy pledge was described as “another U-turn” by a Truss campaign source, after the former chancellor recently promised to cut VAT on energy bills, a policy he rejected in office.
A Truss campaign source said it was “a shame” Sunak had put up taxes rather than cut them as chancellor and “the public and Conservative party members can see through these flip flops and U-turns”.
People “need tax cuts in seven weeks, not in seven years”, the source said.
Asked about accusations that he is a “backstabber”, Sunak argued that the government had “found itself on the wrong side of a very serious ethical issue”.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said:
I’m not going to comment specifically what others are choosing to say, but I will tackle the broader claim that they relate to, because I do think there is a risk that people are looking at the last few months of the government with slightly rose-tinted glasses about what it was really like.
Because it wasn’t working as it should, and crucially the government found itself on the wrong side of a very serious ethical issue, and, for me, also going down the wrong economic path, and that’s why in the end more than 60 MPs at the last count, I think, resigned from the government, of which I, after a lot of deliberation and months of standing by the PM, I was one of them.
Here’s a bit more from Rishi Sunak, who was speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme earlier. Asked about spending on tax cuts and dealing with the NHS, Sunak replied:
We can do both, so if you look at the projections for the economy that are already out there, it’s perfectly affordable to keep cutting income tax over time whilst growing public spending at a disciplined level and reducing our borrowing.
He rejected accusations from his successor as chancellor, Nadhim Zahawi, of being a “doomster” on the economy as “rather amusing”.
Sunak added:
It’s my opponent in this contest who wants to stick with the failed orthodoxy of having these ultra-low corporation tax rates and, you know what, they don’t work in increasing business investment in this country – we’ve tried it for a decade.
Sunak vows to take 4p off income tax within seven years
Rishi Sunak has committed to taking 4p off income tax within seven years if he becomes prime minister, in a last-ditch attempt to win over Conservative party members as postal ballots begin dropping on doormats.
The former chancellor insisted his “radical but realistic” plan was consistent with his record in office and his leadership campaign, despite having strongly criticised his rival for promising “morally wrong” tax and spending plans which would increase borrowing.
Cutting the basic rate from 20p in the pound to 16p would amount to a 20% tax reduction, the “largest cut to income tax in 30 years”, Sunak claimed.
He said the 20% reduction would be funded by “additional tax receipts generated by forecast economic growth”, and promised to not increase government debt to cover the cost.
Sunak’s proposed plan to cut income tax to 16p by the end of the next parliament would cost about £6bn a year. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said his income tax proposal was “perfectly affordable” and that he wanted to cut income tax in a way that was “responsible” by making sure it could be paid for, and is done so alongside economic growth.
Sunak added:
I don’t think embarking on a spree of excessive borrowing at a time when inflation and interest rates are already on a rise would be wise.
Nadhim Zahawi formally backs Liz Truss
Nadhim Zahawi, the chancellor, has formally endorsed Liz Truss in the Tory leadership race, as Conservative party members begin to receive their ballots for the final leadership vote today.
Zahawi became the latest senior Tory to throw his weight behind the frontrunner, praising Truss’s “booster” economic approach in The Daily Telegraph and saying she would “overturn the stale economic orthodoxy and run our economy in a Conservative way”.
Zahawi wrote in the paper:
Liz understands that the status quo isn’t an option in times of crisis. To quote the excellent economist Sam Bowman, we need a ‘booster’ attitude to the economy, not a ‘doomster’ one, in order to address cost-of-living woes and the challenges on the world stage.
Liz will overturn the stale economic orthodoxy and run our economy in a Conservative way.
Welcome to today’s Politics Liveblog. I’ll be covering for Andrew Sparrow today. Do drop me a line if you have any questions or think I’ve missed anything. My email is leonie.chao-fong@theguardian.com.
