UK politics - live: Truss mocked over plea to Starmer, minister apologises during fresh farmer protest
The president-elect has hinted at military action to take Greenland and the Panama Canal under US control
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Your support makes all the difference.Former prime minister Liz Truss has been mocked for issuing Sir Keir Starmer with a cease and desist letter, warning him to stop saying she “crashed the economy”.
The former prime minister’s lawyers have said the remarks - made since the lead up to the general election - are likely to “cause serious harm to her reputation”, claiming they are “false and defamatory”.
One X (Twitter) user joked the former PM has “thrown a new year bone to all the Truss satirists who miss her terribly.”
Sir Keir has repeatedly claimed the former prime minister crashed the economy, referring to the weeks after her 2022 mini-budget which sparked gilt market freefall and a run on sterling after she introduced unfunded tax cuts.
Meanwhile, environment secretary Steve Reed apologised to farmers at the Oxford Farming Conference that actions such as changes to inheritance tax taken by the new Government had “shocked” the industry.
He pointed to farmers battling input costs, tight margins, unfair supply chains, a shortage of skilled workers, growing concerns about extreme weather, and issues with access to European markets and with post-Brexit trade deals.
Education secretary accuses Tories of ‘chasing headlines’ as she introduces children’s safety bill
The Conservatives are “chasing headlines” with their amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which would decline to give it a second reading, the education secretary has alleged.
Introducing the Bill, Bridget Phillipson told the Commons: “No more lessons learned, no more paper pushing, no more foot-dragging. It is time for government to act.”
She listed the new measures in the Bill to protect children, including “a new legal obligation for safeguarding partners to work hand-in-hand with education”, a duty to establish multi-agency child protection teams, and a new compulsory not-in-school register in every area of England.
Ms Phillipson told MPs: “A vote against this Bill today is a vote against the safety of our children, a vote against their childhoods and against their futures.
“Today, Conservative MPs have a choice. They can choose to back measures to protect children or they can choose to chase headlines. They can choose to transform the lives of the most vulnerable young people in this country, or they can choose to sacrifice their safety for political gain.”
She continued: “I want to be very clear about the conduct of politicians be they on the benches opposite or anywhere else who put the pursuit of headlines today above the safety of children tomorrow - it is sickening and it is shameful.”
Jeremy Corbyn has accused Keir Starmer of “betraying” the health service with a much greater role for the private sector, which he warns will hollow out the NHS.
In one of his first major interventions on an issue outside of the crisis in the Middle East, the former Labour leader also accused Sir Keir of “abandoning” working class voters with a series of broken pledges, in an article for The Independent.
It comes after the Labour leader announced on Monday that private hospitals will provide up to a million extra appointments, scans and operations a year as the government scrambles to cut sky-high waiting lists.
The move is a significant expansion of the independent sector’s role in tackling long delays that have built up in part because of the Covid pandemic.
Our Whitehall editor Kate Devlin reports:
Corbyn accuses Starmer of ‘betraying’ NHS with greater role for private sector
Exclusive: Former Labour leader hits out, accusing prime minister of ‘broken pledges’ on the two-child benefit cap, winter fuel and ‘selling off’ the health service
Downing street indicates it is open to a further inquiry into child sexual abuse
The Government is “open-minded” about the possibility of a further national inquiry into child sexual abuse, No 10 indicated.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman was asked about Home Office minister Jess Phillips’ suggestion in a broadcast interview that nothing was off the table to deal with the legacy of the scandal.
He responded: “The Prime Minister’s position is the same as Jess Phillips’, which is we are open of course and will always listen to what victims want in this case.
“What we have heard from our engagement with victims and survivors group is they want to see action. That is why we are focused on following up the recommendations of Professor Alexis Jay and taking the actions we need to deliver justice.”
Pressed about the matter, he added that “significant” engagement with victims groups had shown “they do not want to see a national inquiry, they want action taken to deliver justice”.
He added: “But as the Prime Minister said on Monday we will always remain open-minded. We will always listen to local authorities who want to take forward inquiries, or indeed further allegations that need to be followed up.”
Starmer insists minister Tulip Siddiq ‘acted appropriately’ after watchdog self-referral
Sir Keir Starmer said Treasury minster Tulip Siddiq has “acted appropriately” in referring herself for investigation over links with the deposed former prime minister of Bangladesh.
Tory MP Gregory Stafford told the Commons: “First of all, we had a Chancellor who embellished her CV, then we had a transport secretary with a fraud conviction, and now we’ve got an anti-corruption minister who is being investigated for corruption.
“Now, I know the prime minister likes living in free accommodation, but does he really think it’s appropriate that his minister is being given free housing by the political allies of some very dubious foreign regimes?”
Sir Keir replied: “The City minister has acted appropriately by referring herself to the independent adviser. We brought in our new ministerial code to allow ministers to establish the facts and I’m not going to give a running commentary on that.”
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