Early evening summary
Keir Starmer has suggested that Andy Burnham would do as much damage to the economy as Liz Truss did if he were to become prime minister. Starmer has been doing a round of regional TV interviews and, speaking to ITV Granada, he responded to Burnham’s comment in an interview yesterday that “being in hock to the bond markets” was wrong. (See 5.05pm.) Asked if he felt threatened by a potential Burnham leadership challenge, Starmer replied:
I’m not going to get drawn into commenting on the mayor’s personal ambitions, but I do want to be really clear about our fiscal rules, because economic stability is the foundational stone of this government.
It was three years this week ago that Liz Truss shows what happens if you abandon fiscal rules. Now, in her case, she did that for tax cuts. But the same would happen if it was spending. And, we saw what happened to working people three years ago, the infliction of harm on them.
I’m not prepared to let a Labour government ever inflict that harm on working people. Which is why I’ve always been clear our fiscal rules are ironclad. And that is because they protect working people.
And there’s nothing progressive about borrowing more than we need to. It’s nothing progressive about abandoning fiscal rules. They’re the foundational stone of this government.
Starmer has said the next election will be a choice between “patriotic national renewal” under the Labour government, and “the politics of grievance, of toxic divide, which is what Reform are all about”. He said he would be “lead from the front into the next election”. And, on the Tories, he told ITV Anglia: “I think the Conservative party is basically dead.”
Starmer has described Donald Trump’s claim that London “wants to go to sharia law” as “ridiculous nonsense”. He told BBC London:
You saw from the state visit last week that there are plenty of things on which the president and I agree and we’re working together.
There are some issues on which we disagree. And what the president said about the mayor, who’s doing a really good job, in fact driving down serious crime, what he said about the introduction of sharia law was ridiculous nonsense.
The government has announced it will spend up to £5bn on reviving high streets, parks and public spaces, PA Media reports. PA says:
The investment aims to support people across 339 neighbourhoods to lead the renewal in their local areas as part of the government’s new Pride in Place programme.
As part of the fund, 169 areas will receive £2m every year for a decade to give them certainty when planning for the future, totalling £3.5bn.
This is on top of an existing commitment to 75 areas, costing £1.5bn.
Separately, a further 95 areas will receive an immediate £1.5m cash injection to upgrade public spaces with new green spaces, play areas and sports and leisure facilities.
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Lucy Powell denounces Farage as 'love child of Thatcher and Enoch Power' and says triangulating against him won't work
Lucy Powell, the former Commons leader and candidate for Labour’s deputy leadership, has said the party must have the confidence to properly denounce Nigel Farage. Describing the Reform UK leader as the “love child of Margaret Thatcher and Enoch Powell” (metaphorical, obviously), she implies that Labour has been triangulating with Farage, and she says it is time to stop.
(Triangulation is a political strategy that involves, not opposing another party outright, but finding a half-way house between their policy and your policy, in the hope that the compromise position will be the most popular one. Arguably New Labour was almost entirely the product of triangulation, between Thatcherism and Old Labour.)
Powell has made the case in an article for the Guardian. Here is an extract.
Taking on Reform UK is the battle of our political age, but we shouldn’t end up arguing on their terms, using their language. We need to wrest back control of the political megaphone that Farage brandishes and use it to amplify a Labour message based on the values we cherish – and that the British people share. As Labour’s deputy leader I would take the fight to Farage in a way that would energise our movement and expose the mendacity his populist rhetoric disguises.
This week, the Reform leader announced he would deport millions of people who live here legally, rounding up law-abiding residents with settled status who work hard, pay their taxes and help make our country great. It was the most outrageous political announcement of my lifetime, raising the prospect of US-style immigration raids on homes and workplaces. The parents we meet outside the school gates, the neighbours we chat to on the street and the colleagues we share a drink with after work could be tracked down, arrested and disappeared. It is a disgraceful scheme cooked up by a man who is the love child of Margaret Thatcher and Enoch Powell. No amount of posing with pint in hand and fag in mouth can mask the malice, division and hatred that drives it.
We need to call out Farage for what he is, strongly and unashamedly. When the US president lies about London wanting to “go to sharia law” under mayor Sadiq Khan, we have to call it out. When billionaires like Elon Musk encourage violence in our communities, we have to face up and fight. There can be no triangulation in the face of the hard right.
We need to rediscover the intellectual self-confidence to take the fight to Farage and set out the solutions the country needs to tackle the deep-seated problems holding Britain back.
And here is the full article.
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