Must say the staff:attendee ratio at #LabourLive is a winning formula. Queue time approx 10 seconds.
As a vegetarian, I thought I’d be able to count on #LabourLive booking a falafel van... No heed paid either to Jay-C’s paean to salad (Kebab Awards 2016)
A gender normative attitude toward loos at #LabourLive
Decent turnout for Barry Gardiner, Dawn Butler, Ian Lavery & Len McCluskey in the Solidarity Tent #LabourLive
Slightly less interest in Declan McKenna (no, me neither) heading up the Pyramid stage at #LabourLive.
He’s singing a jaunty tune: “Gonna kick those posh boys up the arse. You toffs, you can naff off back to Eton”
The Labour-branded teddy bears on sale at #LabourLive are made in China and sold wholesale in UK for £3 to £4.50... Ethically made? I’ve asked Labour (will tweet the answer).
The Literary Tent is popular at #LabourLive. “It’s like a socialist Hay festival,” enthuses one party aide. The talks & panels are rammed, the music stages much sparser.
A-listers gutted to be missing out as reports of #LabourLive spread
McDonnell playing warm up act for Corbyn here at #LabourLive. “We have a dream”, he says, of a society that’s “radically more democratic”.
Headliner Corbyn finally arrives on the Pyramid stage at #LabourLive and launches into an Arundhati Roy quote: “Friends! Friends! Friends! To love, to be loved...”. Those near the front love massively excited, response where I’m standing a bit timer...
Good crowd now at #LabourLive. As of late afternoon, Labour sources said 13,000 of 20,000 tickets were nabbed.
Asked if that included freebies and “donated” passes, a Labour spokesman coughed: “It includes tickets arranged via an array of concessionary schemes.”
Corbyn was almost late to #LabourLive as he was working on his allotment today, according to insiders. His wife couldn’t get through to him on his mobile when the car turned up to his empty home, so she redirected it to collect him from him gardening activities.
Marc Wadsworth, who was expelled from Labour earlier this year following antisemitism allegations (which he denied), is at #LabourLive. He told me he has 24 Constituency Labour Parties backing his readmission and is considering his legal options, with £26k in a fighting fund.
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🚨 Give me until end of 2023 before you judge me, Liz Truss tells public
Asked for deadline by which voters can judge her programme, PM tells @TimesRadio her priorities are helping Britons through this winter and getting economy moving. ‘I’d expect that to happen during 2023.’
PM distances herself from Chx’s hint of more to come re tax cuts
Does she agree with Andrew Griffith that she’d like to cut inheritance tax?
‘We have been clear about our tax plans - keeping corp tax low & reversing the NI increase… We have no more plans on that front.’
Truss insists no cuts to frontline services
Do you stand by your July vow ‘I’m not planning public spending reductions’?
PM: ‘I do… There will be some… projects the govt is doing that we don’t think should go ahead. What I’m not talking about is reducing frontline services.’
Exc: Ministers have raised concerns about Ireland’s open-door policy to Ukrainian refugees, arguing it creates UK security risk.
Dublin joined EU-wide scheme welcoming refugees for 3 years, via which Ukrainians can travel to UK (Common Travel Area) without biometric checks
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Govt source: “Ireland has basically opened the door to everyone in Ukraine, which creates a problem due to the CTA.
“We've seen before with migrants from Albania that they hv come through Dublin, into Belfast & across to the mainland to L'pool. That's created a drug cartel route
Source adds: “It's the Home Office that will get the blame if in three or fives’ years time there are problems with those who come. That’s why the security checks have to be done carefully now.”
Ireland has said it expects to welcome more than 100,000 Ukrainian refugees
Invasion has reduced both ministerial bandwidth & appetite for major political row with EU before purdah starts on March 26
Gvt source says momentum had been growing for "narrow" triggering of A16 on food, as "v difficult for the EU to argue against without looking unreasonable"
Senior Govt source says: “Before the Ukraine war, it was more likely that we could have triggered Article 16 before purdah kicks in. But now it's looking pretty uncertain.
"The whole of Govt is entirely focused on the Ukraine war, there's very little ministerial capacity"