Starmer has given in to the Labour left over Diane Abbott, says Sunak – UK politics live | Politics
Sunak: Starmer has given in to Angela Rayner and the left of the Labour party over Diane Abbott selection row
Rishi Sunak has accused Keir Starmer of giving in to Angela Rayner and the left of the Labour party over the selection of Diane Abbott as a Labour candidate, and told Conservative activists in Redcar that if Starmer became prime minister, he would give in to to them in government.
Speaking as the Conservative party launched its election battlebus in Redcar in England, the prime minister said Starmer didn’t stand for anything, and that “if he was happy to abandon every promise that he made to become Labour leader as soon as he got that job, what makes you think that he wouldn’t do exactly the same thing all over again if he became prime minister?”
Sunak said:
Just see what’s happened over this Diane Abbott situation, right. And it confirms what we know about him. It’s that he doesn’t stick by anything he says. Just constantly changes his mind.
And it’s clear that Angela Rayner is in charge of the Labour party, and not him at the end of the day. And if he’s given into her and the left on that, imagine what he’ll give in to when it comes to higher taxes, the unions’ demands, or weakening our defence and security.
“If he doesn’t stand for anything himself, how can he stand up for all of you?” Sunak asked.
Asked again about the selection of Diane Abbott while campaigning in Uxbridge this morning, Starmer refused to be drawn further on the issue, saying “I dealt with that issue yesterday.”
Yesterday the Conservatives used an image of Rayner on her phone in a social media attack on the Labour party over the Diane Abbott row.
Key events
Rhun ap Iorwerth, the leader of Plaid Cymru, has said the Labour party has not appreciated the situation Vaughan Gething is in, as he faces a no-confidence vote in the Senedd next week.
Speaking during a campaign visit to Ammanford in south Wales, he said voters are “absolutely” talking about Gething on the doorstep.
He said: “We have a very, very troubled first minister, it seems that Keir Starmer doesn’t appreciate the trouble that his leader in Wales is in. But it’s very clear to me from conversations on doorsteps, from emails I’ve received, from messages I’ve received, from just conversations on the street that people absolutely recognise that we have a leader, a first minister in Wales, that isn’t up to the high standards to which we should hold our political leaders.”
Ap Iorwerth continued: “The opposition parties haven’t got confidence in Vaughan Gething, more importantly than that, we’re clear that the people of Wales don’t have confidence in him. This one is down to Labour, if Labour members of the Senedd, and more importantly, Keir Starmer want to keep him in place, he will stay in place. It’s their call.”
All opposition parties in the Senedd have indicated that they will support the no-confidence motion, with a vote taking place on 5 June.
Liz Truss: Tony Blair was a worse prime minister than I was
Liz Truss has told her local newspaper, the Eastern Daily Press (EDP), that Tony Blair was a worse prime minister than her.
She said Blair, who won three general elections and who was in Downing Street for ten years and seven days more than she was, “created things like the Equality Act, the Human Rights Act and the Climate Change Act,” making him “the worst prime minister in recent years.”
In April she wrote for the Telegraph that Blair had trashed the UK constitution, telling its readers:
Until 2005, the Lord Chancellor held a special constitutional position not only as a Cabinet minister but also as the head of the judiciary and Speaker of the House of Lords. These were historic duties dating back to before Magna Carta. The Constitutional Reform Act 2005 changed this by denuding the Lord Chancellor of much of this power. One of the justifications for this act of constitutional vandalism was a desire to fit in with the rights-based philosophy of continental Europe. These constitutional arrangements were tried, tested and successful for centuries. Hopefully, in time, the experience of the last couple of decades, following Blair’s trashing of our precious judicial system, will come to be seen as a temporary aberration.
In the EDP interview, published today, she also criticised the role of media, saying “The media tend to go for the politicians instead of asking ‘what the CEO of Natural England is doing? What’s the governor of the Bank of England doing?’ These people have a lot of power.”
She repeated in the EDP her claim that “unelected” establishment figures forced her out of power. Earlier this week, appearing on the Lotus Eaters podcast, which was founded by ex-Ukip candidate Carl Benjamin, Truss said “What we need to do is, we need to repeal the Human Rights Act. We need to abolish the supreme court. We also need to repeal the Equality Act. We also need to make the civil service more accountable. You also need to scrap the OBR.”
Benjamin sent a tweet to Labour’s Jess Phillips in 2016 saying “I wouldn’t even rape you.” He added to the comments in a subsequent video saying: “With enough pressure, I might cave, but let’s be honest nobody’s got that much beer”. Phillips has called on prime minister Rishi Sunak to take action against Truss for appearing on the podcast.
Truss left office after 49 days as prime minister, having been forced to sack her chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng after a disastrous mini-budget spooked the markets and forced his successor, Jeremy Hunt, to raise taxes.
Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross has told a media briefing on Saturday morning that it was “emotional” to stand down from his Moray seat.
Ross claimed that a “lot of key seats” in the election were “a straight choice between the Scottish Conservatives and the SNP” and claimed that Labour and the SNP had “very similar policies”.
PA Media report Ross said “I don’t think anyone can honestly say that the SNP, their remaining representatives in rural areas or the Government as a whole, have done enough for rural Scotland. The SNP have absolutely turned their backs on these areas. The SNP have failed rural and island communities, in particular with respect to health. The shortage of teachers across Scotland, again, is a more significant problem in rural communities than it is in urban ones in the central belt.”
Ross, who posed yesterday in Glasgow with an over-sized red card to “send off” three SNP first ministers, criticised the SNP’s “obsession” with independence, adding “people can see their focus is not on the issues that really matter”.
Rishi Sunak has been asked by PA why his campaign events appear to have a focus on seats that were won by the Conservatives in 2019, rather than going in to areas held by opposition parties.
Sunak said “Well, I’m going right across the country. We’re just over a week into this. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, across England. And I’m just trying to talk to as many people as I can.”
He was also inexplicably asked by the Sunday Times which Taylor Swift song “best describes (his) current position in the polls”, to which Sunak said “my encyclopaedic knowledge of Taylor Swift is probably not sufficient to deal with that.”
Rishi Sunak had an awkward encounter earlier this week with 16-year-old singer-songwriter Henry Hassell, who asked the prime minister why he “hates young people so much” in a Devon pub.
A clip of the moment went viral on TikTok, and Hassell has now been interviewed about it.
He said of Sunak’s national service announcement: “Obviously there’s been a lot of negative reactions to that from people my age, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to ask Rishi Sunak himself why he was doing it and to be honest, why he hated young people so much.”
Hassell asked the prime minister “I’ve volunteered all my life, why do I have to do it all again when I’m finally coming out of education?” to which Sunak replied “I wouldn’t view it like that. A culture of service is a good thing for our country”
Of Sunak’s response, Hassell added: “I thought he was trying to escape the question”. At the time he said to Sunak “You’re waffling.”
Rishi Sunak, in questions from broadcasters, was also critical of plans announced by Labour to increase the percentage of people employed from 75% to 80%.
The prime minister told broadcasters “They might say a lot of things but the question is, ‘what are they actually going to do when it comes to people’s standard of living?’
“They’re not going to help anyone build any wealth or have security in retirement. When it comes to getting people back to work, I set out a few weeks ago the most comprehensive set of reforms to our welfare system in an incredibly long time to get people off welfare and into work. And you know what, the Labour party criticised me for those plans, didn’t support any of those plans.”
Labour this morning announced a Back to Work plan, which aims to get 2 million more people into work. The initiative would include a combined national jobs and careers service, devolved funding and leadership from mayors to “get more people with health conditions and disabilities into work” and opportunities for 18- to 21-year-olds to access training and apprenticeships.
In a statement, Starmer said: “With Labour, those who can work, will work. We want more people into work, to get on at work and to get the benefits bill down. Under the Tories, there are too many people who are not in work, who should be.
“Too many people stuck in jobs with no promise of earning a better income. Young people who are yet to experience work, at risk of falling off the radar. We can’t go on like this. It’s time for change.”
With the whole D:Ream saga going on, PA noted that the songs played at the Conservatives battlebus launch were “a soundtrack of indie and pop from the 2000s and 2010s” including Mr Brightside by the Killers and Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People.
Speaking in Redcar, Rishi Sunak has defended his announcement of a promise of new levelling up cash for 30 towns across the UK, saying it was “on top of the 70 towns that have been announced.”
He denied a question from broadcasters that it was just an attempt to buy votes, saying:
100 towns across our country that are going to receive £2m each. Crucially, it will be local people in all those areas that are in charge of how to spend that money, to make sure it’s spent and invested on their priorities – an example of us levelling up everywhere, backing local people and their priorities, and giving them the long-term funding and assurance to do so. I’m not going to make any apology for supporting towns.
Sunak, who party have been in power for 14 years, said towns were “neglected” under the previous Labour government.
Sunak: Starmer has given in to Angela Rayner and the left of the Labour party over Diane Abbott selection row
Rishi Sunak has accused Keir Starmer of giving in to Angela Rayner and the left of the Labour party over the selection of Diane Abbott as a Labour candidate, and told Conservative activists in Redcar that if Starmer became prime minister, he would give in to to them in government.
Speaking as the Conservative party launched its election battlebus in Redcar in England, the prime minister said Starmer didn’t stand for anything, and that “if he was happy to abandon every promise that he made to become Labour leader as soon as he got that job, what makes you think that he wouldn’t do exactly the same thing all over again if he became prime minister?”
Sunak said:
Just see what’s happened over this Diane Abbott situation, right. And it confirms what we know about him. It’s that he doesn’t stick by anything he says. Just constantly changes his mind.
And it’s clear that Angela Rayner is in charge of the Labour party, and not him at the end of the day. And if he’s given into her and the left on that, imagine what he’ll give in to when it comes to higher taxes, the unions’ demands, or weakening our defence and security.
“If he doesn’t stand for anything himself, how can he stand up for all of you?” Sunak asked.
Asked again about the selection of Diane Abbott while campaigning in Uxbridge this morning, Starmer refused to be drawn further on the issue, saying “I dealt with that issue yesterday.”
Yesterday the Conservatives used an image of Rayner on her phone in a social media attack on the Labour party over the Diane Abbott row.
Sunak launches Conservative battlebus with speech in Redcar
Rishi Sunak’s speech touched on the same themes he was been campaigning on all week, and used several phrases and passages that we have heard at events already.
He spoke specifically about how Russia, Iran, North Korea and China were hostile powers “acting in a way that’s threatening our values and our interests abroad and at home”. He said across Europe that the “penny has dropped” that the Conservatives’ plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda was the right approach, and said “We’re the ones taking bold action, getting the planes off to Rwanda, establishing that deterrent, so that people know that if they come here illegally, they can’t stay.”
He said that Labour would, by contrast, make the UK “a soft touch of Europe when it comes to asylum seekers.”
He again criticised Keir Starmer for wanting people to believe “this election is over before it’s even started” and “the result is a foregone conclusion”, again saying “I’m gonna work my socks off every day of this campaign, talk to as many people as I can, earn the trust of the public.”
The Guardian’s aggregate poll tracker at the moment puts voting intention for Labour on 44.7%, 20.7% ahead of the Tories.
He contrasted the announcements that Conservatives were making on national service, the pension triple lock plus and 100,000 new apprenticeships with the fact, he claimed, “we’ve heard nothing from Keir Starmer, and the Labour party. Not a single new idea about what they would do in the future.”
The Conservatives have previously published a 24 page booklet which they said were costings by Treasury officials of Labour policy promises.
Sunak ends his stump speech by saying:
We’re working for a Britain where we have a renewed sense of confidence in our communities, a pride in our country. A Britain where your hard work, everyone’s hard work, is rewarded. Where the opportunities that were there for the previous generation are there for the next. And a Britain, where above all, your safety, our security is assured. That’s the secure future that we’re fighting for this election.
The Conservative bus has got “Clear plan, bold action, secure future” emblazoned on it. Rishi Sunak finishes his speech by saying “let’s go out there and smash it!” to activists.
Rishi Sunak is currently talking at an event to launch the Conservative battlebus. I will bring you the key lines that emerge, but it appears to me to be exactly the same stump speech he has delivered several times already this week.
Regular readers will know that I always enjoy managing to shoehorn some football into a politics live blog, and the Liberal Democrats have obliged me today, by announcing a new manifesto pledge for 10 Premier League games a season available to watch on free-to-air TV.
Speaking on Sky News, former leader Tim Farron immediately conceded it was “the most important of unimportant things” and that football was not “the be-all and end-all”, but he explained:
If you have a comprehensive manifesto, you also cover these issues. I think the slide away from accessible football on our televisions over the last generation is an indicator of unfairness and injustice. And I think government’s job is to act as referee and to bring these things to an end, and bring football back to the people. It’s not the most important thing, I grant you, but it’s not unimportant.
In a statement announcing the pledge, leader Ed Davey accused broadcasters and Premier League clubs of being “money-grabbing” and said “The Conservative government has completely failed football fans, from breaking their promise to create a football regulator, to allowing greedy broadcasters to hide Premier League football away from millions.”
