Key phrase from Rachel Reeves’ speech - “the everyday economy” - has a good ring to it: shifting the economy to one that works for ordinary working people, taxes tech giants, cutting business rates for high street #Lab21
Reeves accuses Chancellor Rishi Sunak of being “missing in action” over the fuel crisis and says “the Tories have lost control”. #lab21
It might be her day to get the headlines but I think Keir Starmer needs to grasp the fuel crisis too today - call on the PM to convene Cobra etc
At the next election, what will voters remember about autumn 2021? It will be the fuel crisis (and pandemic) - and Starmer needs to play a major part of the debate now so people can judge where he was in the crisis
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Greg Clark confirms that despite agreeing to at his committee appearance, Dominic Cummings has not provided any evidence to back up his allegations against Matt Hancock in time for today’s hearing, nor has he provided an explanation
Hancock says “no” to question of did he say anything to PM that he knew to be untrue
Did he say people got the treatment they deserved knowing it to be untrue? Says no, he was advised at time that people were getting treatment they deserved
Since reading Gareth Southgate’s Dear England piece, this line - “we are independent thinkers” - has stayed with me. That’s it isn’t it?
We lament division, rightly, when it causes harm but we have always embraced debate, constantly questioning group think. This isn’t unique to England or the U.K. of course, but diversity of opinion has been a common quality of successful political parties, culture, the arts
We’ve always embraced individuality and questioning of authority. It’s why tribal politics makes me - and many others - feel a bit itchy. The MPs I admire the most are those who challenge their own parties’ orthodoxy.
At the daily Downing St press conference on Sunday 5 April 2020 I tried to ask Jenny Harries, alongside Matt Hancock, what the plan was for testing in care homes. I always remember this because I had to follow up twice to get an answer because she wasn’t completely clear 1/
The answer in the end was they were doing 5 in each setting & where there had been outbreaks. Harries said “we wouldn’t necessarily test everybody”. This sounded odd at the time - this isn’t hindsight - & I kept asking when there would be a plan to do proper testing in care homes
Anyway, if anyone is interested, here is the transcript courtesy of rev.com - it’s quite long
I feel like I might be in a minority but I’m approaching the Cummings hearing like this: he’s a super-whistleblower offering us a dress rehearsal for the full public inquiry
Huge admission right at start: “the truth is senior ministers, senior officials senior advisers like me tell disastrously short of the standards that the public has a right to expect of its government in a crisis like this. When the public needed us most the government failed”
“I’d like to say to all the families of those who died unnecessarily how sorry I am for the mistakes that we made and for my own mistakes at that”
BREAKING: I’ve learnt that Sage are holding an urgent meeting tomorrow to discuss a dramatic rise in cases of the Indian variant, with some scientists fearing delays to roadmap: inews.co.uk/news/scientist…
Cases to be published tomorrow are expected to show a tripling of B1617.2 in the past week inews.co.uk/news/scientist…
The PM warned today that this variant is of “increasing concern here in the U.K.” Next Monday lifting will go ahead but possible of delays to easement for 21 June inews.co.uk/news/scientist…