Allegations about Farage’s conduct as schoolboy ‘disturbing’, says No 10 – UK politics live | Politics
No 10 says allegations about Farage’s conduct as a schoolboy ‘disturbing’ and Reform UK ‘dragging politics into dark place’ Peter Walker Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent. At the post-PMQs lobby briefing the PM’s press secretary went a bit further than Keir Starmer did in the chamber in criticising the new allegations about…
No 10 says allegations about Farage’s conduct as a schoolboy ‘disturbing’ and Reform UK ‘dragging politics into dark place’
Peter Walker
Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.
At the post-PMQs lobby briefing the PM’s press secretary went a bit further than Keir Starmer did in the chamber in criticising the new allegations about Nigel Farage’s racism when he was at school. (See 1.15pm.) She said:
These are disturbing allegations and it’s vital that Nigel Farage urgently explains himself. You’ve heard the prime minister speak just this week about Farage’s weakness in the face of divisive politics in Reform’s ranks. He’s still not condemned the language or taken action against one of his MPs racist comments, refused to condemn them when asked last week.
Reform is dragging our politics into a dark place. This Labour government stands for our patriotic British values of decency, tolerance and importantly unity. So, it’s for Nigel Farage to explain.
Reform UK has denied the allegations in full.
Key events
Only 9% of people believe Rachel Reeves is making economy better, YouGov poll suggests
YouGov has released some new polling on what people think about the economy. There is a lot of bad polling for Labour around at the moment, but these figures should be particularly worrying, given how important perceived economic competence is in electoral politics.
Labour’s argument – repeated by Keir Starmer again today, and at every PMQs since the election – is that the government inherited an economy that was in a mess, but that it is clearing it up.
YouGov says most people do think the government’s economic inheritance was poor. But, unfortunately for Labour, only 9% of people think Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is making the situation better.
At one point people were more willing to believe that the Tories were more to blame than Labour for the state of the economy. But that is no longer the case now.
And more than three quarters of people think the government is handling the economy either fairly badly (38%) or very badly (39%).
Don’t listen to the voice that says ‘you’re not good enough’, Starmer tells his son and all children in letter to mark International Men’s Day
Earlier I quoted from the letter that Keir Starmer has written to his son to mark International Men’s Day. (See 10.10am.) The video of him reading it out is now on YouTube, and here it is. It’s personal and moving,
Norwich South MP Clive Lewis says he would be willing to give up his seat to let Burnham return to Commons
One of the Labour MPs who have signed Richard Burgon’s EDM on a wealth tax (see 2.43pm) is Clive Lewis, MP for Norwich South. He is one of the Labour MPs most critical of Keir Starmer (last week he called for Starmer to stand down) and today, on the BBC’s Politics Live, he said he would be willing to give up his seat to allow Andy Burnham to return to the Commons to take over as Labour leader and prime minister.
Lewis confirmed that he had spoken to Burnham about the Labour situation. Asked if he would be willing to give up his seat for Burnham, he replied:
It’s a question I’ve asked myself, and I’d have to obviously consult with my wife as well and family.
But, do you know what? If I’m going to sit here and say country before party, party before personal ambition, then yes, I have to say yes, don’t I?
There has been a lot of speculation about Burnham, who is currently mayor of Greater Manchester, returning to the Commons in a byelection. Burnham has played down the prospect, without ruling it out as an option. But all the speculation has focused on the possibility of Burnham standing for a seat in the Greater Manchester area.
It is much harder to imagine the so-called “king of the north” decamping to a seat in the east of England – even one with a Labour majority of more than 13,000 at the last election.
Thirty Labour MPs have now signed a Commons early day motion tabled by Richard Burgon calling for a wealth tax. It proposes an annual wealth tax of 2% on individual assets over £10m, which it says could raise an estimated £24bn each year. Burgon said:
The budget must be the moment when the chancellor finally grasps the nettle and introduces a tax on the very wealthiest in our society.
A wealth tax would be a fairer and more popular alternative to any stealth taxes on ordinary people already being pushed to the brink by the cost-of-living crisis.
Shabana Mahmood says way that police forces are organised in England and Wales ‘irrational’
The way policing is organised in England and Wales is “irrational”, Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, has said.
Speaking at a conference organised by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and Association of Police and Crime Commissioners, Mahmood said that having 43 separate police forces meant that policing had become “a postcode lottery”.
Ahead of the publication of a white paper on police reform, which is due in the next few weeks, Mahmood said that critical functions like the air service and vetting have been loaded on to the 43 geographical forces, diverting their attention from neighbourhood policing.
She said:
The structure of our police forces is, if we are honest, irrational.
We have loaded critical functions like the national police air service and vetting on to local forces, drawing attention away from neighbourhood policing.
We have 43 forces tackling criminal gangs who cross borders, and the disparities in performance in forces across the country have grown far too wide, giving truth to the old store that policing in this country is a postcode lottery.
She said the adoption of new technology is “piecemeal”, and that many forces are dependent on the same systems that have been used for decades.
And she also said the police should not be policing “legal” tweets. Referring to social media, she said:
The public rightly expect that we police our streets.
There is most certainly criminality online.
Some things cannot be legally tweeted just as they cannot be legally said, but we should not be policing perfectly legal language in any individual’s tweets.
Mahmood and Lammy breached human rights law over segregation of prisoner, judge finds
Shabana Mahmood and David Lammy have been found to have breached a prohibition on inhuman or degrading treatment with respect to a prisoner who spent months segregated from other inmates, in what is believed to be a legal first. Haroon Siddique has the story.
Reform UK says it would ban person as candidate if they made racist comments like those Farage denies making as schoolboy
Peter Walker
Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.
For the first time, Reform UK held a post-PMQs briefing today. It featured a Nigel Farage spokesperson reiterating Nigel Farage’s denial of the allegations in the Guardian, saying the events took place too long ago for people to remember properly, and also questioning why some had not made the claims before.
The spokesperson said:
Our statement was very clear that these allegations date back 45 years. And I think that at any point in time, when Nigel was leader of Ukip, when he stood in the 2010 general election, the 2015 general election, during Brexit, maybe in the 2019 general election, you would have to ask yourself, why didn’t this come up before?
Asked if Farage thus believed those who made the allegations were inventing them, the spokesperson said:
I’m saying there is no primary evidence. It’s one person’s word against another …
If things like this happened a very, very long time ago, you can’t necessarily recollect what happened.
Asked if someone would be blocked from standing as a candidate if they had made similar comments, a Reform spokesperson said they would if there was “some hard evidence”.
In another briefing, Kemi Badenoch’s spokesperson said he did not know if the Conservative leader had seen reports about Farage’s comments, but added: “I think it’s an issue for Nigel and the Guardian.”
No 10 says allegations about Farage’s conduct as a schoolboy ‘disturbing’ and Reform UK ‘dragging politics into dark place’
Peter Walker
Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.
At the post-PMQs lobby briefing the PM’s press secretary went a bit further than Keir Starmer did in the chamber in criticising the new allegations about Nigel Farage’s racism when he was at school. (See 1.15pm.) She said:
These are disturbing allegations and it’s vital that Nigel Farage urgently explains himself. You’ve heard the prime minister speak just this week about Farage’s weakness in the face of divisive politics in Reform’s ranks. He’s still not condemned the language or taken action against one of his MPs racist comments, refused to condemn them when asked last week.
Reform is dragging our politics into a dark place. This Labour government stands for our patriotic British values of decency, tolerance and importantly unity. So, it’s for Nigel Farage to explain.
Reform UK has denied the allegations in full.
Starmer signals that it would be wrong for House of Lords to block assisted dying bill with delaying tactics
During PMQs Kit Malthouse, a Tory MP who supports the assisted dying bill, asked if Keir Starmer would intervene to stop the House of Lords blocking the legislation. Peers started debating amendments to the bill at committee stage on Friday last week, but over the course of the whole day they only covered two amendments, and there are another 940 on the order paper. There is no formal process for timetabling debates in the House of Lords, and some peers strongly opposed to the bill seemed determined to talk it out (ie, filibuster) so that it has no chance of becoming law.
Starmer did not make an explicit commitment. He said the government was neutral, and parliament would have to decide.
It sounded as if he was not giving Malthouse the assurance he wanted. Originally there was a headline on the post at 12.05pm reflecting that.
But I’m afraid I missed, or did not hear, three words (in bold) that change the significance of what Starmer said. Here is the full reply.
The government is neutral on the passage of the bill.
It is a matter of conscience, and there are different and respected views across parliament, and it is for parliament to decide at the end on any changes in this chamber.
Scrutiny of the bill in the Lords is a matter for the Lords, but the government does have a responsibility to make sure that any legislation which passes through parliament is workable, is effective and, of course, enforceable.
So Starmer was saying it would be wrong for the Lords to block the bill.
In response, Charlie Falconer, the former Labour lord chancellor who is sponsoring the bill in the Lords, said:
There was obviously a lot of support in the Commons for the concerns Kit Malthouse raised with the prime minister and that’s a view I believe is widely shared across the Lords too, including from people who are not necessarily in favour of the bill.
As the PM made clear in his reply, it is for the elected chamber to decide on this matter and the Lords’ role is to scrutinise and suggest amendments where necessary.
I think the public, who are strongly in favour of choice at the end of life, would not understand and be outraged if the bill were talked out by procedural moves.
This is what Keir Starmer said about Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, in response to the question from Lee Anderson. (See 12.29pm.)
He [Anderson] talks about dog whistle. Last week his leader said he didn’t have time to condemn the racist comments of his fellow MP for Runcorn. He also said he didn’t have time to condemn his party calling children in care evil. He didn’t have time.
I wonder if we could ask his leader, next door to him, whether he’s got time for his explanation for the stories in today’s papers.
And here is our latest story on this, with more political reaction to the multiple claims about Farage being racist when he was at school. Reform UK has said the claims are without foundation.
PMQs – snap verdict
That was a routine and rather dull PMQs, with no obvious winner, although Kemi Badenoch probably had the upper hand. One notable development in British politics since the summer is that PMQs has stopped being a place where she underperforms, or even flounders; instead, she is now at least holding her own, or coming out on top.
Badenoch focused on the budget, and in particular on the very, very strong likelihood that it will involve a further freeze in income tax thresholds. Asking Keir Starmer to rule this out, and noting that he wouldn’t, was a simple ploy, and Badenoch did not even do that properly (because she said after the budget, not before, by mistake – see 12.06pm.) But she did not seem to let that put her off, and main point was to remind MPs that Rachel Reeves more or less said last year that freezing tax thresholds would be a breach of the Labour manifesto. Starmer could not really deny this, and so instead he just attacked the Tory record. Today it all felt a bit premature, but it was a rehearsal for the debate they will be having this time next week.
Starmer and Badenoch are both highly reliant on pre-prepared texts, but Badenoch did produced some comebacks that sounded at least half spontaneous. After her after/before gaffe, she came back with a line about how we might just as well have had the budget, given what is already known about it. When Starmer mocked her over her record as a Treasury minister, she defended herself by referencing what the Treasury was doing at the time on Covid. Starmer can still largely see of her attacks by reminding MPs of the Tories’ record, but today he seemed to be criticising Badenoch personally a bit more than in the past, and not just her party. Perhaps he is starting to take her a bit more seriously?
The Scottish MP Torcuil Crichton, referring to the World Cup, asks Starmer if he can ask Donald Trump if he knows any reasonably priced hotels near the venue for the World Cup final. And he asks about reducing US tariffs on Scotch whisky.
Starmer says the goverment is doing what it can to help the whisky industry.
Perran Moon (Lab) asks if the government will enshrine Cornish national minority status in the devolution bill.
Starmer says Cornwall’s national minority status will be protected in future devolution arrangements.
Mike Wood (Con) says people who care about media freedom are glad the RedBird bid for the Telegraph has been dropped. But there is a risk that the paper will build up an intolerable debt burden. Will the government ensure this does not happen?
Starmer says he is not sure what Wood is proposing. He says he does not think nationalising the Telegraph would be the right approach.