Afternoon summary
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The bereaved parents of children whose deaths were linked to social media were told during a meeting with Keir Starmer that some form of crackdown would be announced within weeks. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Ellen Roome, whose son Jools Sweeney died aged 14, said:
We have been campaigning for years and been crying out for action. They now need to step up and do something.
I’d love to have come out right now as a: ‘Yes they’re going to do something and it’s really positive’. I pushed quite hard on why haven’t they done something now, and this whole thing around the consultation was because various charities have said they need to consider their views.
While we’re waiting, more and more children are dying. They need to take action – apparently that will be weeks, not months.
For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.
Reform UK's Makerfield candidate does not deny not voting for Brexit in online spat with Restore Britain's Rupert Lowe
While Labour now does not have to worry excessively about the progressive vote being split in Makerfield, because of the tactics adopted by the Green party (see 4.47pm), on the right there is a bitter feud underway. As Helena Horton reports, Reform UK worries that it might lose because of the aggressive campaign being waged in the constituency by Restore Britain, the far-right party set up by Rupert Lowe after he left Reform UK having falling out with Nigel Farage.
Yesterday Charlie Simpson, a rightwing “independent journalist”, put a post on social media claiming a Reform UK contact told him the party’s internal canvass returns had Restore Britain at 18% in the constituency. (Survation at the weekend had Restore Britain at just 7%.)
Simpson is a teenager whose predictions don’t always come to pass. But, as Ben Quinn explained in this profile earlier this year, Simpson also scooped the entire lobby when he revealed in January that Andrew Rosindell was going to defect from the Tories to Reform UK. So it is fair to assume that at least some of his sources in the Farage camp are pretty good.
Robert Kenyon, the Reform UK candidate in Makerfield, has not been tweeting much recently (for obvious reasons – see 12.09pm), but today he has been online having a row with Lowe – suggesting that Reform UK is rattled by Restore Britain.
In response to a Times report about another of Kenyon’s past social media posts, Lowe said:
The Times is reporting that Reform’s Makerfield candidate didn’t vote for Brexit and supported EU open borders/mass immigration.
This is insanity.
Mass immigration has decimated Britain, and anyone saying otherwise does not deserve your vote.
That prompted Kenyon to say:
I used to respect you Rupert.
Restore have never wanted anything to do with this area. But now someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth is trying to lie about the only working class local man in the race.
I want net negative immigration.
In her Times story, Geraldine Scott said that an account linked to Kenyon on a forum for rugby fans posted a message in March 2019 saying:
So anyone who thinks I love Trump, voted Brexit, read the Daily Mail, live in the 1950s, a Tory and 103 is wrong. I’m none of the above.
Greens to run scaled-back campaign in Makerfield byelection in potential boost for Burnham
The Greens have decided to devote only limited resources to next month’s Makerfield byelection, the Guardian has learned, in a potentially significant boost to Andy Burnham’s chances of winning the seat. Peter Walker has the story.
At the weekend the Sunday Times published a Survation poll from the Makerfield byelection suggesting that Labour’s Andy Burnham is three points ahead of Reform UK’s Robert Kenyon. In a post on his Substack blog, Peter Kellner, the polling expert and former YouGov president, says he thinks these figures may understate Burnham’s lead. “After going through Survation’s data in detail, I reckon Burnham is on his way to parliament and Downing Street, for his true lead could be as much as 10%,” Kellner writes.
Kellner explains his reasoning in detail but, in essence, he thinks Survation may have underestimated the impact Burnham being on the ballot would have on Labour turnout and over-adjusted in favour of Reform UK when weighting by how people voted in 2024.
Keir Starmer told families who have lost children as a result of social media “it is important we act and we will act” when he met them in Downing Street today.
According to the Press Association, he told the parents:
It is important for me to hear from you and to listen to all of you. I have read the stories of all your family members.
It is important that we act and we will act. I can absolutely assure you of that.
One in five people arrested over 2024 riots have since been reported for domestic abuse
One out of every five people arrested after their participation in the 2024 summer riots has since been reported to the police for domestic abuse, Nic Murray and Rajeev Syal report.
Polish PM describes defence and security treaty he's signing with UK as 'historic'
Jakub Krupa writes the Guardian’s Europe live blog.
The UK and Poland are set to sign a defence and security treaty tomorrow.
The document, which was expected last year but has been delayed multiple times, will be signed by the two prime ministers, Keir Starmer and Donald Tusk, at a ceremony in London.
It will be Britain’s third agreement of this kind with another EU country, following similar deals with France and Germany. It is understood that it will build on existing defence and security commitments between the two countries, including on cyberdefence.
The text is also expected to include provisions for tightening military cooperation, including procurement.
Speaking before the weekly cabinet meeting, Poland’s Tusk hailed the agreement as “historic” and praised the UK for being “one of the most solid, most involved partners of Ukraine”.
In what read as a barbed reference to a 1939 military agreement with the UK, Tusk said, with a wry smile, “we know well that history teaches us caution and scepticism regarding the effectiveness of treaties.”
But he added that the agreed text would include “specific” actions “genuinely increasing Poland’s security”, and that closer alliances were needed given the growing instability in the world.
Tusk first revealed that the defence pact was being signed tomorrow when he and Starmer met at the European Political Community summit earlier this month.
In a column for the Telegraph, James Kirkup, the journalist and former head of the Social Market Foundation thinktank, argues that, if Andy Burnham does become PM soon, he should call an early election.
He argues that “no prime minister is ever more popular than in the first few months after taking office” and that Labour would be in a better position, organisationally, to fight an election this year than Reform UK. Burnham could campaign with the slogan, “Keep Farage Out, Make Things Better”, Kirkup says.
Kirkup says Labour would probably not win a majority in an autumn byelection. But it would have a strong chance of being the largest party, and able to govern in coalition, he says. And he argues that this would be better than the alternative.
A Burnham government limps on until 2028 or 2029, hoping something will turn up. It would mean at least two years of being taunted by Farage, the most effective opposition politician in modern British history. Those would be years in which Reform raises more money; professionalises; recruits candidates; and builds local infrastructure.
Better to roll the dice early. Better to make a grab for five years of an uncomfortable progressive coalition than settle for two years of political captivity and decline.
And keeping Farage out for another five years could prove pivotal. Farage is already 62 and has been a fixture on the national stage for nearly 20 years. Can he really sustain his current energy indefinitely? Can he remain dominant into a third decade? Would voters still find him fresh and insurgent at 67 in 2031?
On Bluesky the politics professor Rob Ford says this won’t happen.
No there will not be an early election. A man with 400 seats will not risk half of them three years early to satisfy columnists’ belief in mandate fairies.
Only one PM since the 1950s went along with the mandate fairy theory of Parliamentary democracy: Theresa May. And she pulled the trigger when 20 points ahead on the polls running against a guy universally dismissed by the columnist class as unelectable. Remind me: how did that turn out?
A bit more on why this is just a daft idea which will not fly. 1. Scotland and Wales: the SNP just crushed Scottish Labour; Plaid Cymru just crushed Welsh Labour. Labour has 37 Westminster Scotland & 27 in Wales. How many of these does it hold in an early election during a honeymoon for nats?
The elections expert Matt Singh also thinks an early election won’t happen.
Since the War, two conditions for an early* election have always been met: The government:
(1) Lacked a working majority and
(2) Thought it would gain seats
Right now the exact opposite of BOTH of these exists
*before 3/4 of the term, as in 1951, 1966, Oct 1974, 2017 and 2019
But Sam Freedman, the commentator and co-author of the Comment is Freed Substack, thinks Kirkup may have a point about the alternative to an early election not looking appealing.
I have a slightly different take from the general consensus around the early election question on here yesterday.
Not that he needs a “mandate” or that it’s necessarily a good idea. More than the alternative is going to seem so grim when/if he gets to number 10.
UK may be ‘tipped into a general election’ if Burnham replaces Starmer, says Harman
The UK may find itself “tipped into a general election” if Andy Burnham replaces Keir Starmer as prime minister, Labour’s former deputy leader Harriet Harman said in an event at the Hay literary festival today. Ella Creamer has the story.
Harman said she thought, if Burnham did become PM and decide to call an early election, that would be a mistake. But in her latest Guardian column, Polly Toynbee takes the opposite view. She says Burnham should go to the polls early to get a mandate to introduce proportional representation.
Here’s an extract.
Burnham has spoken to me of his experience standing as Greater Manchester mayor, which has previously used a supplementary vote system, meaning voters get a first and second choice. “It completely changes the way you discuss politics with voters,” he says. When canvassing, if someone won’t be voting for him, he solicits their second choice, which opens a whole new conversation that he described last week as “less point-scoring, more problem-solving”. The most unpopular candidates can never win, obliging them to open their minds and avoid extremes.
A monumental constitutional reform such as PR would need the legitimacy of writing it into a manifesto, Burnham says. If he arrives in No 10, he should speedily summon a national commission as demanded last week by more than 60 Labour MPs. Let some wise head such as Sir John Curtice lead it to rapidly select a system: years of discussion and the previous Jenkins commission have left ready-made PR options.
Then call an election promptly: prime-ministerial honeymoons are becoming vanishingly short. Writing a new manifesto would earn Burnham personal authenticity and give him the authority to affirm his policies.
And here’s the full column.
Labour says Reform UK 'in chaos' as Zia Yusuf tells Jenrick on social media he's got party's deportation policy wrong
The must-read UK politics book of the summer is probably What If Reform Wins by Peter Chappell, a book that imagines Nigel Farage winning a general election in June 2029 with a majority of 20. Gaby Hinsliff reviewed it for the Guardian here. Although technically fiction, it is based on thorough research into the party (its policies and personalities) and Chappell, a Times journalist, takes a close interest in the constitutional guardrails that might hold Farage back, and what he might to to get round them. It’s gripping, and highly plausible. Every MP should read it.
In Chappell’s scenario, the Reform UK government collapses after 18 months, in part because of infighting. A tweet today suggests he might have been too generous to the Farage crew. Zia Yusuf, the party’s home affairs spokesperson, has put a message on social media saying that when Robert Jenrick, the Treasury spokesperson told Sky News on Sunday that Reform UK would not automatically deport a foreign-born person living in the UK just on the grounds they were living in social housing, he was wrong.
In response, Yusuf said:
Robert’s answer is not Reform policy.
As the person responsible for our deportation plan I want ensure people know where we stand:
If a foreign national lives in social housing at taxpayer expense, they automatically fail our economic test and will be deported.
In Labour party terms, this is the equivalent of Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, going on social media to say that Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is talking nonsense.
Jenrick (who in Chappell’s scenario has already been demoted by the time of the 2029 for plotting against Farage) has not responded publicly to his colleague.
But Labour is not holding back. This is from Mike Tapp, a Home Office minister.
Reform don’t have a plan and while they squabble amongst themselves, the Government is actually bringing down immigration.
The Reform rag tag are in chaos, making it up as they go along.
Updated
John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, has said Scots will “resoundingly” back the “golden opportunity” of independence if a second referendum takes place.
He made the claim in a statement to MSPs, ahead of a debate on an SNP motion calling for the UK goverment to give Holyrood the power to organise its own independence referendum. The UK government has said it won’t do that.
Swinney said independence would offer Scotland “a golden opportunity, and it is one that I believe people will vote for resoundingly when our nation has, once again, the ability to decide our own future in an independence referendum”.
He said that while he accepted “Westminster currently says no” to demands for another referendum, today’s debate was “the start of a process” that could lead to Westminster changing its mind.
Almost half of GPs say they see young people with problems linked to screen use multiple times per week, report says
As we reported in our overnight story on the potential social media ban for children under the age of 16, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges has said that action is definitely needed.
The academy has published its submission to the government’s consultation online, and it is powerful. Here is an extract from the foreword by Jeanette Dickson, the chair of the academy.
There can be few issues which have united clinicians so resoundingly in recent years as the impact that unfettered exposure to tech and devices is currently having on children and young people’s health. It ranks alongside smoking and wearing seatbelts in cars as a unifying force for the medical profession.
And while there are those that may argue about a correlation rather than direct evidence of causation as some did in the sixties and seventies with smoking and seatbelts, there is, I think, an overwhelming consensus that excessive screen time can harm children and young people and we need to call this out unflinchingly rather than passively wait for someone else to prove causation.
Describing a meeting the academy held last year to discuss the issue, she says:
By any measure, it was an extraordinary meeting not just because of the moving personal testimony of the many clinicians attending, but because it gave participants a glimpse of the cross-specialty reach and sheer scale of the problem. Then, as now, it seemed not a single branch of medicine was immune from the issue. From the GP dealing with a dramatic rise in adolescents seeking help for their anxiety or body image issues, to emergency department doctors dealing with teenagers being rushed in with loss of vision or hearing — symptoms of non-fatal strangulation. Paediatricians, psychiatrists, pptometrists, obstetricians and gynaecologists, as this submission shows, all reported seeing some form of health harm to a child or young person daily.
The report does not make specific recommendations about a ban. It says that it is for the government to decide what must be done. But it says clinicians need more guidance on how to deal with the problems caused by children using social media, and it includes compelling evidence of the scale of the problem.
This chart shows that four out of 10 GPs say that they see young people with medical problems linked to screen use multiple times a week.
And here is an extract from the report’s conclusion.
From the family of four sat in a pizza restaurant not speaking to each other because they are ‘on their phones’ to the toddler screaming in the GP’s surgery as its worried parent tries to prise it away from its iPad in readiness for a physical examination, to an anxious teenager simply too scared to go to school — the signs of an entire generation’s inability to cope without being permanently hooked up to a digital world are part of our everyday experience.
Yet successive governments have so far chosen to do nothing, the UK is behind other countries in tackling the issue, but not excessively so …
In the last five years alone, around ten so-called nominative laws have been enacted mostly to protect children [like Natasha’s law on allergies, or Charlie’s law on alternative treatments, or Martyn’s law on venue safety] … All measures that were arguably long overdue.
On this issue though, successive governments have made an art form of inaction, carefully filing ‘meaningful’ reform in the ‘too difficult’ box.
And as the medical profession, we have been here before. We said the same things about seatbelts. We said the same things about smoking. In both cases, the causal mechanism was hiding in plain sight — and the population paid the price while we didn’t pursue the argument robustly.
The difference now is that the harm being done to children online is not hypothetical, not statistical, and not waiting for proof offered by peer-reviewed studies of certain causation. It is immediate, it is documented, and it is happening at scale.
Updated
The Conservatives say that, if Keir Starmer does ban social media for children under the age of 16, it will be down to them, and the way Tory peers repeatedly defeated the government on this in the Lords. In a statement, Laura Trott, the shadow education secretary, said:
Just months ago Labour said a social-media ban wasn’t on the table. But the Conservatives refused to let Labour get away with doing nothing. Kemi Badenoch has secured this consultation by forcing the issue - and Keir Starmer only gave in because he risked losing a Commons vote.
There should be no more excuses and no more delay. The evidence is clear. Every day we fail to act, more children are harmed.
Starmer says he wants his social media crackdown for teenagers to be 'game changer'
This morning Keir Starmer said that he wanted the government social media crackdown for teenagers, to be announced shortly, to be a “game changer”. (See 11.33am.) At the Downing Street lobby briefing, when asked to explain what Starmer meant by this, the No 10 spokesperson was unable to give details.
The spokesperson said:
[Starmer] was referring to the fact that this demands a big response. It is a big issue. It is an issue that is growing, and the risks are growing. So I would just point you back to what he said.
With many Labour MPs now thinking Keir Starmer will be out of office within months, the PM is reportedly looking for decisions to take that would build up his claims to have left a political legacy. In the Observer at the weekend, Rachel Sylvester put it like this.
Inside Downing Street there is a belated radicalism. Keir Starmer has insisted publicly that he wants a decade as prime minister but those close to him say he has accepted in recent days that his time in No 10 is almost certainly coming to an end and is determined to secure a legacy.
Others say the alternative visions being set out by Andy Burnham and Wes Streeting are prompting Starmer to put caution aside. “There’s definitely a feeling that we need to get on and do big stuff,” a No 10 source said. “No point in dilly-dallying around.”
Starmer says SNP leaders need to explain why they did not realise Peter Murrell was stealing from their party
Keir Starmer has said that SNP leaders need to explain why they did not realise that Peter Murrell was stealing more than £400,000 from the party.
Asked about yesterday’s court proceedings in Edinburgh, where Murrell admitting embezzling money from the party to spend on luxury goods, Starmer said:
I think anybody looking at what’s happening up in Scotland will be baffled that those at the top of the SNP say they didn’t know anything about what was going on, so clearly there are questions that need to be answered.
For most of the period when the offending took place, Murrell was married to Nicola Sturgeon and she was SNP leader and first minister. The couple have subsequently separated. Sturgeon stood down as first minister in 2023 and is no longer an MSP. But John Swinney, the current first minister and SNP leader, was Sturgeon’s deputy.
Sturgeon and Swinney have both said they did not know what Murrell was doing. Sturgeon said that she was unaware of some of Murrell’s purchases, and that in the case of others she thought he was spending his own money. Swinney said he was “gutted” to learn how Murrell had been using money donated by party members.
Labour says Farage needs to explain why he's happy to have sexist as his candidate in Makerfield
Anna Turley, the Labour party chair, has also commented on the latest past social media revelations about Robert Kenyon, the Reform UK candidate in Makerfield. (See 12.09pm.) She says Nigel Farage needs to explain why he is happy to have a sexist as a candidate. She says:
Nigel Farage needs to urgently explain why he’s happy for a man who proudly admits he’s sexist to represent the people of Makerfield. Robert Kenyon’s comments on women are degrading and an insult to the women and girls who live and work in Makerfield.
Nigel Farage needs to stop selecting people with such retrograde views from standing for public office for Reform.
Reform UK has been approached for a comment.
Reform UK's 'locker room banter' defence of candidate's comments 'pathetic excuse for misogyny', says Labour MP
Robert Kenyon, the Reform UK candidate in Makerfield, has been a profilic user of social media. His online history has now become a serious problem for him in the byelection.
As he was unveiled as the party’s byelection candidate, it was revealed that he had previously deleted an account on X and a Facebook page linked to embarrassing content from the past.
Then Hope Not Hate, the anti-racist campaign group, discovered a second X account that belonged to Kenyon that had been deleted. It featured “creepy comments about women” and conspirarcy theories about Covid, Hope Not Hate said. One of these comments has led to Carol Vorderman saying Kenyon owes her an apology.
Asked about these comments, Reform UK has not endorsed everything Kenyon said, but it has stressed that Kenyon was not a public figure when he made these remarks, and it has described him as someone who is not a professional politician, but an ordinary working man.
Kenyon also posted on an online rugby forum. In an article for the Independent, Athena Stavrou says that an account linked to Kenyon posted various sexist messages including one saying that women can’t “ref, drive or give directions” and another saying: “I’m sexist, sorry but I am.”
Asked by the Independent about the comments, a Reform UK spokesperson did not dispute that Kenyon had made them but described them as “locker room banter”.
In a separate report for the i, Arj Singh and Sanya Burgess say that in the same forum Kenyon expressed very strong anti-abortion views, claiming women had abortions for “vanity purposes” and used them as a “secondary form of contraception”.
Reform UK told the i that Kenyon was entitled to his views on abortion and that abortion policy has always been a conscience matter for MPs in Britain.
This morning the Labour MP Luke Charters said that to describe Kenyon’s comments as ‘locker room banter” was a pathetic excuse for misogyny. He said:
“Locker-room banter” is a pathetic excuse for blatant misogyny from a grown man.
Reform could have called out the overt sexism and condemned it. Instead, they framed it as an “establishment hit job”.
Tells you everything you need to know about them.
Updated
Starmer says crackdown affecting teenagers using social media to come 'very quickly' after consultation ends tonight
Keir Starmer has said that the government will impose a crackdown affecting teenagers using social media “very quickly” after the government’s consultation on the topic ends tonight.
Speaking during a visit to a nursery in East Sussex today, Starmer said:
The consultation on children and social media is closing this evening. We’ve had very, very many people being part of the process, either responding or in discussions with me and with others.
I’m meeting some of the parents this afternoon.
I’ll be really clear, the question now is not whether we do something, we are going to act, I’m absolutely clear that this needs to be something where there’s a game changer.
So, we will be acting. The question is only what we do, and that will be coming very quickly, because we took powers earlier this year to make sure we can act very, very quickly.
Starmer did not say which of the various crackdown options being considered the government would choose.
Starmer says court of appeal to review rape sentences of teenage boys
Keir Starmer has now confirmed that Lord Hermer, the attorney general, has referred the sentences given to three teenage boys who avoided custody for the rape of two girls to the court of appeal on the grounds that the sentences were too lenient. Haroon Siddique has the story.
Carol Vorderman demands apology from Reform candidate in Makerfield over his support for sexually explicit post about her
Carol Vorderman has demanded an apology from a “cowardly” Reform UK candidate in the Makerfield by-election who supported an sexually explicit post about her, the Press Association is reporting. PA says:
Robert Kenyon, who is standing against Labour’s Andy Burnham in the 18 June contest, used a now-deleted X account to support an offensive post about the Welsh broadcaster.
Messages published by campaign group Hope Not Hate showed that Kenyon responded on Christmas Eve 2021 to another person’s post including graphic sexual language about the presenter, who made her name as the maths expert on Channel 4’s Countdown.
Alongside a thumbs up and a laughing emoji, the plumber wrote: “He’s only saying what we’re all thinking.”
Vorderman told the Mirror: “I want an apology from Rob Kenyon, to me, and to all the other people he’s abused online.”
Yesterday Reform UK MP Danny Kruger described Kenyon’s social media posts as “inappropriate”, but sought to defend the “private” comments of “an ordinary man”.
Asked about the message, Kruger told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “The great challenge for social media for private people is that they use it as if they are chatting to their friends in the park.
“Clearly an inappropriate thing to say publicly.
“I’m not going to judge people for their what are essentially regarded at the time and intended as private conversations.”
Asked about Kruger’s defence of his party’s candidate, Vorderman told the Mirror: “I’m sorry, Kenyon isn’t an ordinary man. He’s a cowardly man which is why he deleted one of his social media accounts.
“They are public comments on a public platform and if Danny Kruger thinks online abuse is OK then Reform are therefore stating online abuse against women is OK, then all women in Makerfield need to know that.”
Updated
Greens announce new Makerfield candidate, after ex-leader says party should not run 'full campaign' against Burnham
At the weekend the former Green party co-leader Jonathan Bartley was among a group of prominent Green activists and progressives who signed an open statement saying that, if Andy Burnham commits to putting proportional representation in Labour’s next manifesto, the Green party should not run a “full campaign” against him in Makerfield.
Burnham has said recently that he would like to commit to PR at the next election (he has been a supporter of PR for years) – but he did not present that as a specific offer to the Green party.
Anyone hoping that the Green party would decide not to put up a candidate in Makerfield will be disappointed. As Jessica Elgot reports, this morning the party has announced that Sarah Wakefield will be the Green candidate. She replaces Chris Kennedy, who withdrew from the contest last week after the Times discovered that he had posted conspiracy theories on social media about the attack on Jewish community ambulances.
In a statement, Wakefield, who is a Manchester city councillor and who is on maternity leave from her job as a charity director, said:
It is vital in a democracy that voters are given a choice of who they want to vote for. Together we can bring back the hope that politics can create a better life for ourselves and our children. This is what the Green party represents.
We showed in Gorton and Denton we can take on and beat Reform, whose backward-looking and divisive politics needs to be challenged head-on with a message that the future can be better and fairer than the failed status quo. Don’t vote in anger, vote in hope.
What is not yet clear is how much effort the party will put in to contesting the seat. The Greens only got 4% of the vote there at the 2024 general election. But some in the part fear that, in a close contest between Labour’s Andy Burnham and Reform UK, a strong Green performance could cost Labour the seat.
Updated
Mother of boy who may have died in TikTok challenge urges No 10 to ban social media
Wes Streeting is not the only person saying this morning that the government has been too slow to implement a ban on social media for under-16s. As Jessica Elgot reports, Ellen Roome, who believes her teenage son died in a TikTok challenge that went wrong, has been making the same argument.
Roome will be one of the parents meeting Keir Starmer to discuss this issue at a roundtable in Downing Street this afternoon.
Streeting accuses social media companies of ignoring their 'moral duty' to protect children
In his Today interview, Wes Streeting stressed that he was not just blaming governments for their failure to regulate social media companies more effectively. The firms themselves were also at fault, he said.
Markets are great things. They drive innovation, creativity, new products, and many of the aspects of social media and technology more broadly have have been life changing in a positive way.
But markets do not have a set of morals and values at their heart. That is where the public sphere comes in. That’s where government, and the state, has a role to play to make sure that markets are working to a set of rules that are in the interests of society as a whole.
And I’m afraid what we’ve seen too often in relation to Big Tech is a model which is driven entirely by making the greatest amount of money as quickly as possible, without thinking through the consequences for society.
And I think they have a moral duty to think more carefully about harm. And governments have a responsibility to act, particularly to protect children and young people from harm.
Streeting is on the right of the Labour party and, in a leadership contest, this would be a problem because many party members identify more with the centre left. Social media is a good issue for him in this context because, by attacking the tech companies in this way, he sounds a bit more leftwing.
(This is worth noting, but it would be a mistake to get too conspiratorial. The main reason why Streeting is saying this is, almost certainly, because it is what he thinks.)
Wes Streeting says Starmer ‘behind the curve’ on under-16s social media ban
Good morning. The government has been consulting on whether to follow Australia and impose a ban on social media for under-16s, or whether to opt for other restrictions, and the consultation ends at 11.59pm tonight. Keir Starmer is expected to announce the government’s response soon afterwards. He has already said that there will be action of some sort. Last year ministers were sceptical about following the Australian example, but this is an issue where opinion – both in government, and in society more broadly – has been shifting very quickly.
This morning Wes Streeting, the former health secretary who is running what is in effect a leadership campaign, has intervened. As the Guardian reports, he has said that a social media ban for under-16s “must be the start, not the end” and he has compared the sector to the tobacco industry.
In an interview this morning on the Today programme, Streeting went further, saying that when he was in cabinet he was arguing unsuccessfully for tougher action and accusing Keir Starmer of being “behind the curve” on this issue.
Here are some of the main lines from his interview.
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Streeting restated his claim that social media is like the tobacco industry and suggested that, just as tobacco bosses did in the mid-20th century, social media executives have been suppressing evidence about the full extent of the harm caused by their products. He said:
What we’ve seen from Big Tech is behaviour akin to Big Tobacco … We know from whistleblowers that in the tech industry, among those who are responsible for designing technology, including social media platforms, that are changing every aspect of our lives, they know that the product they’re designing is addictive, they know that it is harmful, and the business model is orientated towards getting kids while they’re young, addicting them with the design features that are designed for addiction, to grab your attention and keep you on their platform for as long as possible.
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He said there was a “growing body of evidence” about the ways in which social media is harmful.
And then we see the consequences beginning to emerge through the growing body of evidence about the impact of this technology on childhood, whether that is sleep, concentration, learning, health, wellbeing, including mental health.
The harms are evident.
And the precautionary principle should apply here. So yes, it is true to say that the evidence is still emerging, but I think people have got eyes and ears and they can see the consequences of this unchecked harm.
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He claimed governmments around the world had been “asleep at the wheel” on this issue. “Frankly, legislators, regulators, have been asleep at the wheel on this,” he said.
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He suggested that Keir Starmer had been “behind the curve” on this issue. While he was not overly criticial of the PM on this issue, suggesting that governments around the world have been slow to confront social media companies on this issue, he made it clear that he thought the Starmer government could have acted more quickly. He said that he was speaking out now because he was “liberated from the obligations of collective responsibility”. He said the arguments he was making in public today were the ones he was making privately in government, “in a number of cabinet committees and meetings”, and that he “pushed as hard as I could”. He said the government was now moving to a “better position”, but he suggested Starmer could have acted more quickly.
To be fair to Liz Kendall, the science and technology secretary, she came into office [in September last year], she’s gripped this, she’s chosen to run a rapid consultation with the principle of how to implement restrictions, rather than whether. That’s all positive. And I trust Liz Kendall to act quickly following the closure of the consultation today.
And we must, because, as I say, we’re behind the curve.
Of course, there is no actual leadership election taking part in the Labour party yet. Streeting is not officially a candidate. But, in his Today interview, he said that he definitely had the 81 Labour MPs names he needed to launch a leadership challenge and he said he was only holding back to allow Andy Burnham the chance to return to parliament, in the Makerfield byelection on 18 June.
Here is the agenda for the day.
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a visit in East Sussex, to promote a government announcement about a competition review of the childcare sector, where he is due to speak to the media.
Noon: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
After 2pm: MSPs debate a Scottish government motion saying the UK government should give Holyrood the power to hold a referendum on Scottish independence. The vote is due at 5pm.
Afternoon: Starmer is meeting bereaved parents who blame social media for the death of their children at a roundtable event in Downing Street. A government consultation on a potential ban on social media for under-16s ends tonight, and Starmer is expected to government action shortly.
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