Inside Politics: Rishi Sunak under pressure to drop public sector pay freeze

Having vowed to protect jobs, Labour and the unions are asking the chancellor to protect pay levels too, writes Adam Forrest

Chancellor Rishi Sunak prepares for his spending review statement (Treasury)

It doesn’t look like Meghan and Harry will be forming a bubble with their dreaded in-laws this Christmas. A removals van was spotted near Frogmore Cottage, as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex finally quit the royal crib for good. The rest of Her Majesty’s subjects have been gifted the chance to bubble up with two other households, after leaders across the four nations actually managed to agree on something. A Christmas miracle? All eyes now turn to chancellor Rishi Sunak, to see if any more miracles can be conjured up at today’s spending review.

 

Inside the bubble

 

Our political commentator Andrew Grice on what to look out for today:

The government’s scientific and medical advisers will hold a Downing Street briefing on the latest coronavirus data. Boris Johnson is answering PMQs virtually on his final day of self-isolation in No 10. Rishi Sunak will then unveil his government-wide spending review in a Commons statement at 12.30pm, before the Office for Budget Responsibility lays bare the scale of the pandemic’s impact on the economy.

 

Daily briefing

 

COBRA AYE: Families can now make plans for a unique Christmas, after leaders from the four nations held a Cobra meeting and said yes to three-household get-togethers between 23 and 27 December. Travel restrictions have been lifted to allow people to form “exclusive” bubbles with relatives in other parts of the country. Scotland’s first minister Nicola Sturgeon sounded reluctant about the whole thing, saying she would “continue to ask people to err on the side of caution”. Welsh counterpart Mark Drakeford complained about Boris Johnson’s failure to show up for the Cobra meeting. “You might think … he would choose to be engaged.” Meanwhile, London Tory MPs are desperately lobbying for the capital to be kept out of tier 3 ahead of the Thursday announcement. Sir Graham Brady, 1922 Committee chair, said he is “inclined” to vote against the post-lockdown tiers. A revolt could leave the PM reliant on Labour votes – with Keir Starmer yet to guarantee his own party’s support.

 

THE BIG FREEZE: Another big day for Rishi Sunak – so we were treated to some photos of the chancellor burning the midnight oil in nifty leisurewear as he prepared today’s spending review. We know there will be £2.9bn set aside for a new “restart” jobs scheme and £1.4bn to expand the Jobcentre Plus agency. The chancellor has come under intense pressure to ditch any planned public sector pay freeze, condemned by the Unite union as “economic madness”. Meanwhile, five former prime ministers have all called on Sunak not to cut the foreign aid budget, with Sir John Major calling the idea of breaking commitments “morally wrong”. Although it’s a relatively small sum, the decision to find £29m for the “Festival of Brexit” may also raise a few eyebrows. But it will be some of the big, depressing numbers set out by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that will get most the headlines. “It’s going to look horrible,” said one Tory MP.

 

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED: The OBR will also publish an estimate of the impact of a no-deal Brexit today – which will no doubt ruffle a few feathers as the clock ticks down on trade deal negotiations. It comes as a leaked Cabinet Office briefing shows that the government is worried about a “systemic economic crisis” as the UK ends the Brexit transition in the middle of the pandemic. The confidential report seen by The Guardian warns about a potential fall in medicine imports, with “a reasonable worst-case flow rate of 60-80% of current levels”. Ministers have also been warned by haulage bosses of “mayhem” at Holyhead port from January – even if a UK-EU trade deal is struck. The Irish Road Haulage Association said the first six months of 2021 would be “terrible” due to the lack of preparations. “Even though it’s called a transition period, there has been no transition,” said IHRA’s Eugene Drennan.

 

FRACTION ENGINE: It’s all turned a bit People’s Front of Judea vs Judean People’s Front in the Labour party. Although it’s been like that for years, to be fair. Left-wing members on Labour’s ruling NEC still loyal to Jeremy Corbyn staged a walk-out at a virtual meeting, in protest over his exclusion from the parliamentary party. The 13 representatives said Keir Starmer’s decision not to re-instate the whip to Corbyn in the bitter antisemitism row was a “factional” move. Laura Pidcock, issued a statement saying they wanted to “show very clearly how factional the decisions of the current Labour leader have become”. Splitters! Even Jon Lansman, founder of the pro-Corbyn Momentum group, advised fellow left-wingers to “get over themselves”. The leftist group are also angry at the election of veteran MP Dame Margaret Beckett as chair of the ruling body, claiming it was a breach of protocol.

 

HOW VERY PECULIAR: Matt Hancock has said people should stop “soldiering on” by going to work when sick and making colleagues ill. The health secretary said we Brits were “peculiarly unusual” for working when unwell, as he told MPs the UK’s new mass testing capacity could be used to diagnose a wider range of illnesses – including the flu – after the pandemic. Speaking of peculiar, Tory MP Ben Bradly managed to get into a dispute with Martin Luther King’s daughter on Twitter, after he offered his own interpretation of the civil rights leader’s “I have a dream” speech. The Conservative politician claimed: “His point was than [sic] skin colour doesn’t matter.” Following criticism from Bernice King – who said we could not simply “ignore racism” – Bradley refused to back down. The MP told The Independent: “I don’t see how it’s helpful to bring every discussion back to singling people out by their skin colour.”

 

GUESS WHO’S BACK: Joe Biden has sent a clear, if slightly crass signal that his administration will be very different to Trump’s. “America is back,” he said. “Ready to lead the world, not retreat from it.” The president-elect picked Avril Haines as the first female director of national intelligence, and Alejandro Mayorkas will be the first Latino homeland security boss. But progressive Democrats are disappointed at Biden’s safe, staid appointments – complaining that the cabinet will be full of “Clinton and Obama re-treads”. Biden had a few words of warning for Downing Street about the Brexit process, telling reporters that that he does not want the return of a “guarded border” in Ireland. “We’ve worked too long to get Ireland worked out. The idea of having a border north and south once again being closed is just not right, we’ve just got to keep the border open.”

 

On the record

 

“The virus is not going to be taking Christmas off, so although we want to give a little bit of flexibility for Christmas, we are still urging people to be very cautious.”

Nicola Sturgeon asks us to think about whether we really have to visit relatives.

 

From the Twitterati

 

“WHAT THERE ISN’T MONEY FOR: Paying public sector workers. WHAT THERE IS MONEY FOR: Celebrating the catastrof*** that’s wrecked our country.”

David Schneider is amazed there’s money to spend on Festival of Brexit…

 

“Having a Festival of Brexit sounds about as appropriate as a Festival of Icebergs after the Titanic.”

…and Katy Jayne is amazed it’s happening at all.

 

Essential reading

 

Jeremy Hunt, The Independent: Why the blame culture within the NHS needs to change

 

Tom Peck, The Independent: The seasons change, but Hancock styles out the latest failings

 

Ailbhe Rea, New Statesman: How will Labour vote on a possible Brexit deal?

 

Graeme Wood, The Atlantic: Biden’s sleepily reassuring appointments

 

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