Inside Politics: Queen tells Cop26 leaders to ‘achieve true statesmanship’ as PM criticised over flight home

Her Majesty says leaders must act for the sake of our grandchildren, and No 10 insists PM needs to use private jet for four-hour rail journey, writes Matt Mathers

(PA)

Tuesday is once again all about Cop26, with both Boris Johnson and US President Joe Biden hosting events as the crucial climate talks continue in Glasgow. India has committed to net zero, but not until 2070 – two decades after the key 2050 date and world leaders will today vow to stop deforestation. Elsewhere, the PM has been criticised for his plan to fly home from the summit and there has been a deescalation in the fishing wars between the UK and France.

Inside the bubble

Our chief political commentator John Rentoul on what to look out for:

Boris Johnson has breakfast in Glasgow with the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. He will chair a meeting on forests, co-host a meeting about small islands with Narendra Modi, prime minister of India, attend a meeting hosted by Joe Biden on green tech, and hold one-to-one meetings with several national leaders.

Meanwhile in Westminster, Sajid Javid makes his first appearance before health and social care committee at 11am. Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, answers questions in the Commons at 11.30am, followed by a grilling by the Treasury committee at 3pm.

Coming up:

– Shadow environment secretary Luke Pollard on Sky News at 8.05am

– Environment secretary George Eustice on ITV GMB at 8.30am

Daily Briefing

HER MAJESTY: The Green, is the play on words featuring on a few front pages this morning as the monarch calls on world leaders at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow to “rise above the politics of the moment” for the “sake of our children and children’s children”. In a video message delivered to the conference, the Queen, who is unable to attend because of medical advice, urged prime ministers and presidents to “achieve true statesmanship” to create a “safer, stabler future” for the planet. The “time for words has now moved to the time for action,” the monarch added. We’ll be bringing you all today’s action from Glasgow as it happens.

BREATH OF FRESH AIR: Day one of world leaders being at the crunch talks in Scotland produced an avalanche of news, some of it good, much of it less so. Let’s start with the more positive updates: more than 100 national leaders will make a promise today to stop deforestation and begin restoring the world’s forests by 2030, the UK government announced overnight. Leaders representing countries that are home to 85 per cent of the planet’s forests – including Brazil – will commit to “halt and reverse” deforestation by the end of the decade at an event convened by Johnson in Glasgow on Tuesday. Downing Street said the pledge was backed by $12bn (£8.75bn) of public funding from governments aimed at restoring ripped-up land, with a further $7.2bn (£5.3bn) coming from private investment.

DO AS I SAY: Not as I do, is a phrase observers have used to describe the approach of some MPs to dealing with Covid in the Commons of late, and it is one that springs to mind again this morning following the news that the PM will fly home from Glasgow by private jet. Just hours after Johnson lectured world leaders on emissions, warning them not to “fluff our lines or miss our cue” at the summit, Johnson’s official spokesman confirmed the PM would not travel back to London by train. “It is important that the prime minister is able to move around the country and we have obviously faced significant time restraints,” he added. Of course, everybody appreciates that the PM is an extremely busy man who has the small task of running the country, but was it really necessary to use a plane for a 400-mile journey that would have taken only four hours by rail anyway? Downing Street did not set out exactly what time constraints Johnson faced. With the world’s eyes on the summit, it is at best bad PR and at worst sends out a terrible message to the British public. Critics will once again accuse the PM of being all talk no action on the climate.

SPIN WHEN YOU’RE LOSING? One of the other major stories to come out of yesterday’s events was that India has committed to net zero by 2070, which is halfway between good news and bad news: prime minister Narendra Modi’s pledge is the first time India has set a target, which is positive, but the goal of achieving it by 2070 is two decades later than the 2050 date scientists say is crucial for stopping temperatures soaring 1.5C above what they were in the pre-industrial era. Modi made five other promises yesterday, including one to get 50 per cent of India’s energy from renewable resources by 2030, and by the same year to reduce total projected carbon emissions by one billion tonnes. Blindsided by the less ambitious goal, the Downing Street spin machine was in overdrive following the announcement, pointing to Modi’s other promises as evidence of India’s commitment on climate change, saying his promises lifted the gloom from Monday’s talks. But with India being the world’s fourth-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, its pledges on net zero – or lack of them – are a major blow to the success of the summit.

FISHING WARS LATEST: President Emmanuel Macron has postponed threatened sanctions in the row over post-Brexit fishing rights in the English Channel, giving Britain until Thursday to reach a resolution. The partial climbdown came three hours before Paris was expected to begin retaliatory measures, such as closing French ports to UK fishing boats and imposing tighter checks on goods coming from Britain – or even targeting electricity supplies to the Channel Islands. Talks to end the deadlock over French access to waters around Jersey and Guernsey have resumed, Macron said. A Downing Street spokesperson welcomed the move, which postpones French sanctions until after a planned meeting on Thursday between Brexit minister Lord Frost and his French counterpart, Clement Beaune. It came after Jersey awarded 49 new licences to French boats.

TAXING ENCOUNTER: Chancellor Rishi Sunak was grilled by MPs on the Commons Treasury committee yesterday on his Budget and running of the economy. He defended what MPs describe as the government’s failure to improve UK living standards and acknowledged that hitting targets set out in his spending plans would be difficult. Labour’s Angela Eagle pointed out that workers had experienced more than a decade of stagnation with the government’s own forecasters predicting several more years of low earnings growth. Between 1992 and 2008, real wages went up by 36 per cent but in the years from 2008 to 2024, the Office for Budget Responsibility expects a rise of just 2.4 per cent, Ms Eagle said. The chancellor argued the UK was “not alone” in experiencing lacklustre wage growth. He pointed to reasons for optimism such as increases in the minimum wage and government investment in research, development and skills. However, he conceded that it had been “a struggle to get to some of the growth rates we saw previously”.

HARASSMENT MP REINSTATED: Rob Roberts has been given his Conservative Party membership back despite a warning the move would let the disgraced MP “off the hook” for sexually harassing a member of staff. The Conservatives confirmed on Monday morning that Mr Roberts was a member again following his 12-week suspension. The MP for Delyn in North Wales will continue to sit as an independent, since the Tories are still withholding the party whip in the House of Commons. Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said on Monday that the end of Mr Roberts’ suspension was a “disgrace”, adding: “Rob Roberts has no place in parliament, politics or public life.”

On the record

“The people who will judge us are children not yet born – and their children. We mustn’t fluff our lines or miss our cue. If we fail they will not forgive us. They will judge us with a bitterness and a resentment that eclipses any climate activist of today. And they will be right.”

Johnson in his Cop26 speech...hours before his spokesman confirms he’ll take a private jet home.

From the Twitterati

“Oh he did?”

Times Radio chief political commentator Tom Newton Dunn on No 10 read out of Johnson/Modi bilat, which said the PM “highlighted India’s global leadership on climate change”.

Essential reading

• Caroline Lucas, The Independent: No wonder Boris Johnson is saying it’s ‘touch and go’ for a successful Cop26
• Sean O’Grady, The Independent: A referendum on Britain’s net zero policy? It’s Brexit all over again
• Matthew Lynn, The Telegraph: Corporate grandstanding will do nothing to tackle climate change
• Ido Voc, The New Statesman: The Franco-British chill runs deeper than a letter

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