Rishi Sunak refuses to criticise Tory MP who said struggling children in his town were ‘products of crap parents’ – UK politics live | Politics

In her GB News interview, Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, also criticised Sir Howard Davies, the chair of NatWest, for saying it is not hard to get a mortgage now.

As Mark Sweney reports, Davies told the Today programme this morning it was not “that difficult” to get on the property ladder, despite the number of first-time buyers with a mortgage falling to the lowest level in a decade.

“I don’t think it is that difficult at the moment,” Davies said. When pressed about this assertion, he added: “You have to save, and that is the way it always used to be.”

When asked for her response, Reeves said:

I don’t think those comments are in tune with the reality faced by millions of people in Britain. There are many people who do own their own home but are struggling with the higher mortgage costs. And there are many people who are struggling to get on the housing ladder because of higher interest rates, which were brought about because of Liz Truss and the Conservative party’s management of the economy. So, I know that many, many people will find those remarks quite out of touch with the situation that they and their family face.

Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, has been campaigning in Wellingborough today ahead of the byelection triggered by the recall petition against Peter Bone, who won the seat for the Tories in 2019 with a majority of 18,540.

In an interview with GB News she said she would like to see taxes lower. Asked if she would cut taxes as chancellor, she replied:

My instinct is that taxes on working people should be lower than they are today. We’ve had 25 Tory tax rises in this parliament and this year an average working family is going to be paying £1,200 more in tax. That doesn’t sit comfortably with me. I would like taxes on working people to be lower.

But this is one thing I’m not going to do, I’m not going to make any unfunded commitments to reduce tax because that’s what Liz Truss and the Conservatives did just over a year ago and that ended up pushing up mortgage rates, which meant that working people are worse off, not better off as a result.

Asked if Labour would reduce taxation as a proportion of GDP by the end of its first term in office, she replied:

I would like taxes on working people to be lower. I’d like people to have more of their own money in their pockets to spend in the way that they choose. But to be able to do that in a way that’s affordable, sustainable and fair, you’ve got to grow the economy. And that’s why all of my plans, all of Keir (Starmer’s) plans, are focused on getting that economic growth.

This is more or less exactly what Keir Starmer said at his Q&A with journalists yesterday.

Rishi Sunak was booed as he left a cafe in Stockport, Joseph Timan from the Manchester Evening News reports. There were also calls for him to resign and “leave now”.

Sunak had been in the cafe meeting Conservative activists from the Hazel Grove constituency, where the party is defending a 4,423 majority over the Liberal Democrats.

The video suggests only a very small number of people were shouting at Sunak. But they seem to be ordinary members of the public who were passing by, rather than political activists who had turned up especially to protest.

In his story about the visit, Timan quotes one of the people who booed as saying, when asked why he did it:

Because they’ve broken the country haven’t they? Public services crumbling, health service is crumbling, economy crumbling. We’ve had enough of them.

Timan also says Sunak received a warm reception from the Tory members he was meeting.

Gordon Brown has joined Labour figures paying tribute to Derek Draper. The former PM posted this on X.

So sad that after such a brave struggle Derek Draper has lost his life as a result of Covid. I will remember him as brilliant, creative and multitalented, and our thoughts are with Kate, Darcey and Billy. RIP Derek

Rishi Sunak has said that people affected by flooding should be “reassured” that Environment Agency staff are working urgently on the problems.

The opposition parties have accused Sunak of not taking the crisis seriously enough. Labour said in a statement that Sunak had been “asleep at the wheel and must act now or risk further damage to lives and livelihoods”. The Liberal Democrats said Sunak should have been visiting flood victims today (see 10.59am).

In a broadcast interview this morning, asked about the government’s response to the flooding, Sunak said:

I spoke to people in the East Midlands yesterday who had been affected and talking to them about how devastating the impact of flooding is.

I just want people to be reassured that the Environment Agency has got people on the ground in all the affected areas, also hundreds of high volume pumps are in practice right now making a difference and it is important that people follow the advice that has been given in local areas where there are flood warnings that have been given.

People should be reassured. The Environment Agency have people on the ground everywhere, absolutely recognise the urgency of what is happening and they are responding appropriately and with all due haste.

Geneva Abdul has full coverage of the flooding on a seperate live blog.

Rishi Sunak has declined an invitation to criticise the Conservative MP who said most of the children struggling in his town were “products of crap parents”.

James Daly, the MP for Bury North, made the comment in a newspaper interview published last week.

Today, asked if he agreed with Daly while he was on a visit to Stockport, Sunak ignored the question and said:

No one wants to see any child grow up in poverty. I certainly don’t. The best way we can help families is to make sure that those parents are in great jobs and are well-paid and that we are cutting their taxes. That is exactly what we are doing, starting from tomorrow.

Asked what explanation he had for almost a quarter of children in Bury growing up in poverty, if it was not “crap” parenting, Sunak replied:

All the evidence and the research shows that the best way to ensure that children don’t grow up in poverty is to make sure that they are not growing up in a household where no one is working. A child where neither of their parents are working are five times more likely to grow up in poverty.

No one wants to see that. And that is why it is important that we create fantastic jobs for parents everywhere, that we make it easier for those parents to get those jobs, which is why we are investing in childcare and in particular the largest expansion of childcare that we have ever seen, and also to make sure that those jobs are well-paid.

The national living wage is going up an almost record amount in the spring, it has already gone up a record amount in the past year, and we are now cutting people’s taxes, a £450 tax cut for an average person in work, kicking in tomorrow.

Tony Blair has also issued a tribute to Derek Draper. He said:

I am so sad to hear the news about Derek. My heart goes out to Kate and their children William and Darcey. It is extraordinary and remarkable that Derek survived so long after the ravages of Covid. And that was in large measure due to the love Derek had for his family and they for him. This also says something very special about Derek. He was a tough sometimes ruthless political operative, a brilliant adviser and someone you always wanted on your side. But underneath that tough exterior he was a loving, kind, generous and good natured man you wanted as a friend. He was an important part of the New Labour story, at the centre of things right at the beginning. But most important of all, he was a good colleague and great friend. And we will miss him deeply.

Labour figures and others have been paying tribute to Derek Draper.

From Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former communications chief

Very sad to hear the news about Derek Draper. He was a huge character, a giver not a taker, and had so much more to give before Covid took its toll. Sad above all for @kategarraway and the children. Their love and support was profound and unshakeable to the end. RIP

From John Mann, the former Labour MP

I have know Derek Draper since his early Chorley days as a teenage Labour activist. He was far more influential on New Labour than has ever been acknowledged. A brilliant and loyal friend.

From Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary

So sad to hear this news this morning.

When I was a student at Manchester Derek was still talked about around @ManchesterSU. When I met him I always found him thoughtful and kind, quite different to his public image at the time.

Prayers for him and his family

From Mark Ferguson, the former LabourList editor

Very sad to hear that Derek Draper has passed away. He was the founder and first editor of LabourList and he was always honest, friendly and kind to me. Thinking of his family and everyone who knew him today

From Adrian McMenamin, a former Labour adviser

Such terrible, awful news about Derek Draper. I think of the fun we had together, the arguments too and the sense that Derek could always bounce back. But sadly not this time.

From Nigel Evans, the Conservative MP and Commons deputy speaker

Saddened by the news of the death of Derek Draper. Derek had worked in the political arena for many years, and I knew him when I was first elected decades ago – public spirited and such a super guy. Deepest condolences to Kate…. My heart goes out to her.

From the Daily Mirror’s Kevin Maguire

From Matthew d’Ancona, the former Spectator editor

Derek Draper will always incarnate for me the upstart energy and vivid excitement of the Nineties. And a very nice guy. Condolences to @kategarraway and family.

From Joe Murphy, the former Evening Standard political editor

From my colleague Owen Jones

I’m so sad to hear about this.

Derek Draper came from a different Labour tradition to me, but he was always really charming, intellectually curious and mischievous.

All my thoughts with the really lovely Kate Garraway, who gave everything to care for him. They were clearly completely in love to the very end.

RIP

Derek Draper, the former political adviser and lobbyist who became a therapist, has died at the age of 56. The news was announced by his wife, the Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway.

Draper had been extremely ill ever since getting Covid soon after the pandemic struck. Although he was best known in recent years because of his marriage to Garraway, who cared for him through his debilitating illness, in the political world he first became prominent as a New Labour spin doctor, working for Peter Mandelson before the party won the 1997 election.

Subsequently he was embroiled in one of the party’s first lobbying scandals. At that stage he was a lobbyist, and he was caught boasting: “There are 17 people who count in this government, and to say I am intimate with all of them is the understatement of the century.”

Like his former boss, Draper staged a comeback as a political operative – only to resign from another post in 2009, after being linked to the Damian McBride smear scandal.

In a post on Instagram Garraway said:

I’m sad to have to tell you all that my darling husband Derek has passed away.

As some of you may know he has been critically ill following a cardiac arrest in early December which, because of the damage inflicted by Covid in March 2020, led to further complications.

Derek was surrounded by his family in his final days and I was by his side holding his hand throughout the last long hours and when he passed.

I have so much more to say, and of course I will do so in due course, but for now I just want to thank all the medical teams who fought so hard to save him and to make his final moments as comfortable and dignified as possible.

Sending so much love and thanks to all of you who have so generously given our family so much support. Rest gently and peacefully now Derek, my love, I was so lucky to have you in my life.

A reader asks:

Genuine question. Why would a bill for assisted dying need to be a private member’s bill? Surely the government of the day can table it and then allow a free vote anyway?

That’s a good question. In practice, there is no reason why the government shouldn’t make it a government bill – subject to a free vote. In some respects that would be preferable because government departments are more inclined to work on government bills (although in practice they do help out with private members’ bills, when they are on matters that have government support) and this is an area where you would want to be sure the legislation was legally robust. That means you would want it drafted by parliamentary counsel, the lawyers who write government bills, not some random backbencher.

But Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have both said recently any change on assisted dying should be via a private member’s bill. And that is what leaders normally say on proposals to change the law on “conscience matters” – matters traditionally subject to a free vote, normally because they involve moral choices problematic for some religious groups.

Partly they are saying this because, generally, this is what always happens. “This is the way we have always done it” is a surprisingly powerful argument in Westminster politics – despite, rationally, being a very bad one. The landmark liberal changes introduced by the Wilson government in the late 1960s – legalisation of abortion, divorce reform, partial legalisation of homosexuality etc – were private members’ bills.

(When the abortion law was revised in 1990, with the 28-week limit reduce to 24 weeks, it was still a free vote, but this time they were voting an amendment to a government bill.)

But the reason these were private members’ bills in the 1960s was because Harold Wilson was wary of adopting them as official government/Labour causes, and the same argument applies today. Starmer would be happy for MPs to back assisted dying. But he might be more nervous about Labour adopting that as a policy, because then anyone opposed to the idea would have a good reason not to vote for his party. In theory, making it a government bill subject to a free vote ought to neutralise that line of attack, but in practice it wouldn’t, because opponents would just say it was a government bill. If Starmer were to make it a government bill, it is not hard to imagine the Conservatives whipping their MPs against it, particularly if led by a social conservative like Miriam Cates. Then it would become fully party political, and the chances of it passing the Commons would be reduced.

During his LBC phone-in Keir Starmer said Israel alone should not be allowed to decide what happens to Gaza once its war with Hamas is over.

As PA Media reports, Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has outlined proposals for Israel to keep security control of Gaza once Hamas is defeated, while a Palestinian body runs day-to-day administration.

Asked about the plans, Starmer said:

We cannot have Israeli occupation, we cannot have people displaced who cannot go back to where they came (from), because two million have been displaced in the last four months, that is intolerable.

I don’t think, frankly, it is for Israel to determine what happens in Gaza. There has got to be much more international agreement on this, otherwise it simply isn’t going to work.

Starmer cited the rulers of Qatar and Jordan as among those who should be involved in negotiating a peace solution.

He also reiterated his call for a humanitarian truce, saying he would like to see that lead to a ceasefire. He told LBC:

At the moment what we are seeing is a horror that has gone on for the last few months, far too many civilians being killed in Gaza, far too many people displaced, and not enough aid going in.

We all want to get to a ceasefire. So the question is: how do we get there?

I think we need a humanitarian truce. We did have a short truce earlier on, let’s get back to that immediately.

Let’s use that for intense diplomacy to deal with the obvious issues – Hamas has got to release the hostages, aid has got to get in – and to work our way to a political process for a two-state solution.

This is what Keir Starmer said in his LBC phone-in about a Labour government making time for MPs to fully debate a private member’s bill to allow assisted dying.

When I was chief prosecutor, director of public prosecutions, I looked at every single case that the police investigated of assisted dying … So I’ve looked at probably more files or circumstances here than many others.

And I, as a chief prosecutor, drew up guidelines to try to make the law we’ve got work reasonably well, on the basis that we had to protect people from being exploited. But on the other hand, there were obvious cases of compassionate acts, usually by loving family members, in accordance with the wishes of somebody who wanted to end their own life.

We tried to make the current law work. I totally feel that we ought to actually change the law. It shouldn’t really be for the prosecutor to try and make the law work when it doesn’t really. It’d be better for parliament to actually change the law.

So I am an advocate of a change to the law. Obviously that change has to be very carefully crafted.

And I think the best route would probably be a private member’s bill, which is normally dealt with on a Friday in parliament. And yes, I would be open to making time for that. I think it should be a free vote.

Asked to confirm he would vote to change the law, Starmer said he would, “subject to it being the right change”.