Afternoon summary
Keir Starmer has delivered an implicit rebuke to JD Vance at PMQs, by highlighting the sacrifice made by the 642 Britons who died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan – a day after the US vice president appeared to disparage the value of the British military. (See 12.04pm.)
Around a dozen Labour MPs have expressed concerns about the cuts to the aid budget in a Commons debate on the Foreign Office estimates. They included Sarah Champion, chair of the Commons international development committee (see 4.27pm), and Emily Thornberry, chair of the Commons foreign affairs committee. Thornberry said:
I am concerned these ODA [official development assistance] cuts won’t be the last of these challenges, there are also rumours that the Foreign Office will, on top of that, be expecting cuts of between 2 and 11%. In that scenario, it would be selling its businesses, its buildings, will the embassies shrink?
I’m concerned that we’ll lose the British Council which only receives 20% of it’s funding from the FCDO and generates the rest of its income itself.
I trust that there will be enormous amount of work being done into the details of these cuts, but we haven’t heard anything more that aspiration at the moment as to where the other funding is going to come from.
Because I fear we may be looking back at this time and we may say to ourselves, this is when Britain left the world and yet it really should be the time when we’re able to say Britain is back, and we’re back as a force for good.
The Ukraine Solidarity Campaign is holding a protest outside the US embassy in London. This is from the campaigner and journalist Paul Mason.
Happening now! Protest outside US Embassy in London ... placards tell the story of UK solidarity with Ukriane🇬🇧🇺🇦🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/lIwidWSpQc
— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) March 5, 2025
Updated
Trump's favourability rating with Reform UK voters plummets by 46 points over past fortnight, poll suggests
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has become notably less enthusiastic about defending Donald Trump and his administration over the past week or so. He used to be the Trump team’s biggest cheerleader in UK politics. But when JD Vance, the vice president, appeared to belittle the value of British troops yesterday, while Kemi Badenoch defended him, Farage said Vance was “wrong, wrong, wrong”.
Some new polling helps to explain this. Just over two weeks ago Trump had a net favourability rating of +38 with Reform UK supporters in the UK, according to YouGov. Now it is down to -8. To achieve a popularity collapse that rapid requires a Liz Truss level of awfulness.
Trump’s favourability ratings have also fallen over the same period with the supporters of other political parties, and with voters as a whole, but nothing like to the same extent. Mostly that is because he was hugely unpopular all those groups in the first place.
The polling also shows that Keir Starmer’s ratings have risen over the past fortnight – although he is still considerably more unpopular than he was at the time of the general election.
Attitudes towards Keir Starmer have improved following his successful US visit and handling of the Ukraine conflict
— YouGov (@YouGov) March 5, 2025
Favourable: 31% (+5 from 16-17 Feb)
Unfavourable: 59% (-7)https://t.co/mOqR6BWP89 pic.twitter.com/ImAEJKK96G
And Farage’s ratings have got worse during the same period.
Nigel Farage's favourability ratings have taken a small knock in recent weeks, following criticism of his stance on Trump, Russia and Ukraine
— YouGov (@YouGov) March 5, 2025
Favourable: 26% (-4 from 16-17 Feb)
Unfavourable: 65% (+5)https://t.co/mOqR6BWP89 pic.twitter.com/pTRyW5LSUk
Anti-abortion campaigners start Lent vigil in Scotland, observing new buffer zone law
Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent.
The first day of the annual Lent anti-abortion prayer vigil, led by the US-based group 40 Days for Life in Glasgow and other cities and towns across the UK, passed off without incident today as the protesters observed Scotland’s new buffer zones that protect women using healthcare services from intimidation or harassment.
A handful of people, some carrying rosary beads and others placards reading “choose life”, gathered under a leaden sky on the far side of the dual carriageway that leads to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, some distance from the main entrance to the maternity unit where protesters have previously gathered, causing distress to women using the services as well as healthcare practitioners working there.
Gillian Mackay, the Scottish Greens MSP who spearheaded the bill that secured 200 metre wide safe access zones, or buffer zones, said this was “an important step forward”. She said:
Safe access zones were introduced to protect patients and staff at our hospitals and to keep the protesters at bay, and that is what they have done. The fact that only a small number of protesters turned up and they have been consigned to roads that are further from the hospital is an important step forward.
Two weeks ago, Police Scotland made the first arrest of a 74-year-old protester who allegedly breached the exclusion zone, days after the US vice-president, JD Vance, spread inaccurate claims about Scotland’s rules.
Vance told the Munich Security Conference that the Scottish government had written to householders within the exclusion zone warning them that private prayer indoors could breach the new law, a claim which was entirely wrong.
The Guardian has previously reported on the impact of the 40 Days for Life protests, which are held daily during the period of Christian Lent, has had on women and healthcare workers. Some 76 consultants at the QEUH wrote to the Scottish government urging them to consider buffer zones before the bill was introduced.
Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, told the Commons Treasury this afternoon that, if the US were to leave nstitutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, that would would be a “very damaging thing for the world”.
But he said he had been reassured to hear that the new US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent “believes in multilateralism”, adding: “I strongly welcome that.”
The rise in employer national insurance will raise employment costs by about 2%, and raise inflation by between 0.1 and 0.2 pecentage points, the Bank of England has said.
Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, came out with the figures in a letter to the Commons Treasury committee published today. He said:
As set out in the February 2025 monetary policy report, the monetary policy committee (MPC) continues to judge that firms are likely to use a number of different channels in response to the change in NICs. Based on the costing provided by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), Bank staff estimate that the change works to increase firms’ employment costs by just short of 2%. Firms may choose to absorb this increase in costs within their profit margins, pass on the cost to consumers through higher prices, or mitigate the impact by reducing nominal wages or employment. Evidence from both the Bank’s Decision Maker Panel (DMP) Survey and agents’ annual pay survey suggests that firms will respond through all of these channels. Taking this evidence into account, the increase in employer NICs contributes between 0.1 and 0.2 percentage point to the projected 1 percentage point near-term rise in consumer price inflation in the MPC’s February forecast.
Aid cuts will wreck UK's 'most effective tool for reducing global conflicts', Commons told, as MPs debate Foreign Office budget
In the Commons MPs have started a debate on the Foreign Office “estimates” (spending plans). MPs can debate, and vote on, how governments raise money in considerable detail (through the finance bill), but they have little say over how money gets spent. There are three days set aside every year for debates on the estimates, but there is limited scope to change anything (amendments calling for increased spending are not allowed), and in practice these just turn out to be general debates.
Today’s debate was opened by Sarah Champion, the Labour chair of the Commons international development committee, and she used her speech to restate her opposition to the cuts in aid spending announced last week.
She said that by taking 40% out of official development assistance (ODA – the Whitehall term for international aid), the PM was “taking the axe to our most effective tool for reducing global conflicts and for increasing our own national security”. She went on:
I urge the prime minister to recognise that if we abandon our commitments to the world in this way, we will see greater numbers of people displaced from their own homes as a rota of climate disasters, poverty and war.
More people will lose hope and instead look to extreme ideologies for the answer and civil societies will no longer have the skills to hold rogue governments to account.
It concerns me greatly, as it should the whole House, that the government has yet to carry out an assessment of the impact of their decisions, which is being rushed through without proper scrutiny.
Andy Burnham says 'snobbery in education' persists, at launch of report about relative outcomes for boys worsening
Jessica Murray is a Guardian social affairs correspondent.
Andy Burnham said there’s “a snobbery in education” that prioritises academia over technical skills, and is contributing to a crisis among Britain’s young boys who are experiencing soaring unemployment rates and a drop in earnings.
At the launch of a new report by the Centre for Social Justice which found the gender pay gap has been reversed for young men, who now earn less than their female counterparts, Burnham, the Greater Manchester mayor, called for an overhaul of the education system. He said:
We need an education system that’s built on true parity between academic and technical, with a radically reformed curriculum which is very much about the modern world. We haven’t believed that in this country there’s been a snobbery in education for as long as I’ve been alive, that some things are seen as better than others.
The Lost Boys report found that since the pandemic, the number of males aged 16-24 not in education, employment or training (NEET) has increased by 40%, compared to 7% for females.
Burnham said the education system’s failure to promote and encourage technical skills has meant boys are being left behind, and is having “disastrous consequences”.
He cited the large numbers of males being excluded from schools and placed in pupil referral units. “We shouldn’t be surprised at some of the outcomes that we are seeing,’” he said.
Updated
The IPPR (Institute for Public Policy Research), a leftwing thinktank, is urging the government not to adopt a “cuts first” approach to organising the public finances. Responding to the reports today saying Rachel Reeves is going to cut billions from welfare spending in the spring statement (see 9.23am), the IPPR issued this statement from Avnee Morjaria, its associate director for public services.
The world has changed fundamentally since the government took office, and its approach to fiscal policy and the spending review will need to reflect that. Defence spending may yet have to rise further and faster, and the radical policy changes now coming from countries like Germany show the scale of the challenge.
The UK needs a fiscal strategy fit for the volatile world we now find ourselves in. While cuts and savings can fill some immediate gaps in the chancellor’s budget this isn’t a viable strategy for the future.
The cuts that are being trailed today would come with significant risks. Some public services are already in crisis, and further cuts could undermine government commitments on health, education, crime and more. Waiting lists in the NHS are stubbornly high, councils are on the verge of bankruptcy, backlogs in the criminal courts are at record levels and prisons are at bursting point.
Welfare changes could deliver real savings over time by supporting people into work, but a ‘cuts first’ approach is likely to undermine efforts to reform the system and worsen child poverty just as the government sets out its new child poverty strategy. We know that the government will be judged on public services and whether families feel better off - cuts will make both more difficult to achieve.
Here are some of the pictures of PMQs today taken by the Commons’ official photographer.
Ed Davey says Badenoch 'doing more to defend Vance than US doing to defend Ukraine'
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, has attacked Kemi Badenoch for her defence of JD Vance. He posted this on Bluesky.
Right now, Kemi Badenoch is doing more to defend JD Vance than the US is doing to defend Ukraine.
Davey made a very similar point yesterday.
In the Economist this week Bagehot argues that being leader of the Liberal Democrats has become the easiest job in British politics and he argues that in part this is because the Tories keep defending a deeply unpopular Trump administration. The Badenoch/JD Vance comments are just the latest example. Bagehot says:
When it comes to international affairs, the Lib Dems can take the easy, popular and right option. Donald Trump is reviled in Britain. Labour MPs are hemmed in by diplomatic niceties of government. Conservativism has evolved into brain-dead contrarianism to the point where Elon Musk, one of Mr Trump’s wingmen, calling for Sir Keir Starmer to be jailed over his handling of grooming gangs attracted little condemnation from the party’s MPs. Sir Ed [Davey] was one of the few British politicians able to say that a megalomaniac billionaire demanding the prime minister be sent to jail was, in fact, not on.
Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, told the World at One that welfare cuts (see 9.23am) would have to be “radical” to have a significant impact on the public finances.
He said spending on health-related benefits has increased to an “absolutely extraordinary degree” over recent years. He went on:
The potential savings are quite large, because, of course, we’re looking at savings relative to what’s currently projected, and current projections are for continued, fast increases in the amount we’re spending.
But you’re only going to achieve significant or noticeable savings, you’re only going to persuade the OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility], if you’re going to do something really quite radical.
Like, for example, simply making people with certain types of conditions or certain levels of illness not eligible for these benefits. Certainly tinkering with them is not going to do the job.
John Swinney says he is 'troubled' by reports saying Reeves will cut billions from welfare budget
John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, has said he is “troubled” by reports there could be a benefits cut announced by the chancellor later this month. (See 9.23am.)
Speaking to PA Media, Swinney said:
I’m troubled by the reports that are coming out of the UK government about reductions in welfare spending, because I think that will inevitably add to the challenges that are faced by individuals facing vulnerability in our society.
My top priority is to eradicate child poverty and I can’t imagine that will be helped if the UK government is reducing welfare spending into the bargain.
Swinney also called for “an honest debate about public expenditure and taxation”. He said:
I tried to have that during the election campaign, where I pointed out the pressures on the public finances and on our public services, and I have to say neither the Labour or Conservative party were particularly interested in having that honest debate during the election campaign.
But if we want to have a society that’s got good public services, that supports people who face difficulty and a society that can protect itself in the difficult international times that we face just now, we’ve got to have an honest debate about taxation.
Starmer confirms government committed to Cornish national minority status
Keir Starmer told MPs that the government remains committed to national minority status for Cornwall during a St Piran’s Day PMQs
St Piran’s Day, or the Feast of Saint Piran, is the national day of Cornwall, held on 5 March every year.
As PA Media reports, the Cornish people were first recognised as a national minority group in 2014. It means they are classified under the European Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, the same as the UK’s other Celtic people – the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish.
Perran Moon, Labour MP for Camborne and Redruth, told Starmer that “hundreds of thousands of people in Cornwall and around the world” were today celebrating St Piran’s Day. He went on:
Will the prime minister confirm our government’s commitment to national minority status for Cornwall and will he join me in wishing Cornish folk the world over a very happy St Piran’s Day?
Starmer replied:
Let me wish him, his constituents and everyone in Cornwall a very happy St Piran’s Day.
We do recognise Cornish national minority status, not just the proud language, the history and the culture of Cornwall, but its bright future, and I know that he and Cornish colleagues will continue to be powerful voices for Cornwall.
As PA reports, neither St Piran’s Day nor St David’s Day on 1 March are bank holidays. St George’s Day, celebrated in England on 23 April, is also not a bank holiday.
But people in Northern Ireland and Scotland receive bank holidays to mark patron saints’ feast days – St Patrick’s Day on 17 March and St Andrew’s Day on 30 November.
UPDATE: St Andrew’s Day is more of an optional bank holiday in Scotland, according to this note from the Scottish government.
Updated
Badenoch does not approve of 'Twitter pile-ons' against Vance, her spokesperson says
Peter Walker is a senior Guardian political correspondent.
Kemi Badenoch is maintaining her position of seemingly being the only person in UK politics who did not think JD Vance was referring to the UK or France when he disparaged a planned European peace deployment to Ukraine as “20,000 troops from some random country that has not fought a war in 30 or 40 years”.
The US vice president’s comments provoked outrage and criticism from many British politicians, even Nigel Farage, but Badenoch said she believed Vance’s subsequent tweets saying he did not mean either country – although he did not specify which other nations he was referring to.
Speaking after PMQs, the Badenoch’s spokesperson said she did not believe in “inciting Twitter pile-ons on the vice president”. He said: “
The fact is that he didn’t say Britain or France in his original answer, and then when he saw that it was being alleged that he had, he came out and clarified that he wasn’t talking about Britain and France.
Asked who Badenoch thought was being referred to, he replied: “That’s for JD Vance to answer.”
The spokesman confirmed that after the Tory defence spokesman, James Cartlidge, joined the criticism of Vance, the party’s chief whip had told MPs “that views don’t necessarily need to be aired on Twitter”.
He added:
She wants to deal with facts. And what she would say is that when there is a very heightened international diplomacy going on, a sort of Twitter pile-on, on the vice president of our closest ally, is not helping to bring about a peace in Ukraine, which is what we should all be focused on.
A majority of British people think government should use money from frozen Russian assets to fund the rebuilding of Ukraine, according to new polling. Three in five Britons (58%) back this approach.
Over 70% of Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat voters back this approach, along with 48% of Reform voters.
The polling, conducted by More in Common, on behalf of the research and campaigning organisation Future Advocacy earlier this month, surveyed 2,000 people for their views on how the UK government should finance humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. This follows chancellor Rachel Reeves’ decision to loan more than £2bn of the UK’s approximately £18bn in frozen Russian assets to fund weapons in Ukraine.
Support for using Russian funds to finance humanitarian aid follows the government’s roll-back on international aid last week, which saw the UK’s aid budget slashed to support increased defence spending.
More in Common UK associate director Conleth Burns said:
This polling shows clear public support for using frozen Russian assets to support the UK’s commitments on humanitarian aid to help with the rebuilding of Ukraine. Even after last week’s cut to the aid budget, the public are open to alternative funding avenues for Britain to deliver on its humanitarian commitments to the people of Ukraine.
At the post-PMQs lobby briefing, the PM’s spokesperson would not confirm the Reuters report saying there is a plan for Keir Starmer, President Macron and President Zelenskyy to visit Washington again, together, for talks with President Trump. (See 11.28am.)
Asked about this, the spokesperson said:
What you’ve heard from the prime minister is that we’re actually progressing discussions. We’re working and putting all efforts into progressing a peace deal.
Asked if Starmer might present this to Trump in person, the spokesperson said:
I’m not going to get ahead of that. We’ve said that we will progress these discussions, that includes progressing discussions with the United States - the precise format and choreography of that, I’ll leave to a future date.
PMQs - snap verdict
A united House of Commons is good for a government engaged in a complicated foreign policy negotiation, but bad for parliamentary sketchwriters, political reporters, partisan keyboard warriors and anyone else who thrives on a bit of conflict. For us, that PMQs was largely a quiet affair. The most memorable moment came right at the start, when Keir Starmer took a swipe at JD Vance. (See 12.04pm – I have updated the post with the full quote, but you may need to fresh the page to get the update to appear.) It was very skillfully done. Sometimes effective communication requires saying things bluntly and clearly and sometimes – for example, in dealings with foreign governments that are both powerful and over-sensitive – it is best to convey your message subtly, by implication. That is what Starmer did today. He did not say anything that will rile the vice president. But anyone listening will got the point (from the tone as much as the words) that, in terms of what he thinks about Vance’s comment yesterday, Starmer is on the exactly same page as the glorious Western Australian premier Roger Cook.
Kemi Badenoch used five of her six questions to ask soft questions about Ukraine that were mostly supportive of the government’s position. Starmer completely ignored the most interesting question (which Ed Davey asked too), which is whether or not it’s true that Washington has banned the UK from sharing intelligence with Ukraine. In other respects, what he said did not go much beyond what he told MPs about Ukraine on Monday. At one point he sort of implied that trade talks with the US were about to start (“we did discuss an economic deal and agreed that our teams would indeed sit down rapidly to talk through an economic deal”), but this sounded more like a routine generality than an announcement about 10 negotiators being about to jump on a plane.
There were moments, though, when Badenoch seemed to be suggesting that her support for Starmer’s Ukraine strategy was conditional, and that at some point she might flip. The first came when she asked about the dangers of a “blank cheque” approach.
As the opposition, we support efforts to resolve this conflict, but we cannot write a blank cheque. If British peacekeeping troops in Ukraine were attacked, whether directly or via proxies, we could be drawn into conflict with Russia. Can the prime minister reassure all those who are concerned about the UK being drawn into war?
And the second came when she said she was opposed to Europe going it alone.
We need to make sure that America does not disengage. There are some in this house who argue Europe should go it alone. But does he agree with me that without this country’s greatest ally, any peace agreement would place a terrible burden on Britain and our taxpayers?
Starmer insisted that he, too, did not want to see the UK drawn into war with Russia, and he said he agreed “wholeheartedly” that Europe and the US needed to work together, and so today there was no actual disagreement between the two positions. But was Badenoch hinting that at some point in the future the two parties might disengage? Or is is just that her combative manner means she is incapable of framing questions that don’t sound like disagreement?
We can’t tell at this point, and perhaps she does not know either. No one sensible would be confident predicting how this crisis is going to unfold.
Keir Starmer said 642 Britons died fighting for their country in Afghanistan and Iraq, not 643 as I reported early. I’m sorry for the mistake.
Richard Holden (Con) asks if the government will back his private member’s bill to ban first cousin marriages on Friday, and stop blocking it.
Starmer just says the government has taken its position on the bill.
And that’s the end of PMQs.
Seamus Logan (SNP) asks if Starmer agrees the rights of the fishing industry must be protected in future talks with the EU.
Starmer says he recognises the importance of the fishing industry. He wants to make it ‘more secure, sustainable and economically successful”, he says.
Mike Tapp (Lab) asks Starmer if he agrees a unite Commons will help the government secure peace in Northern Ireland.
Starmer says he is pleased that the Commons has been united, and speaking with one voice.
There was a commotion in the chamber earlier when the Speaker asked an MP to withdraw a comment shouted at Keir Starmer. Jason Groves from the Mail says the offender was Victoria Atkins.
Tory frontbencher Victoria Atkins rapped on the knuckles at #PMQs for shouting ‘that is a lie’ at Starmer when he claimed the Tories are not interested in state education
David Davis (Con) says a coroner found that members of the SAS unlawfully killed four IRA terrorists in Northern Ireland in 1992. But he says he has read the evidence and found nothing to back up this verdict. He says inquests like this do not take evidence from the terrorist leaders.
Starmer says he has not looked at the detail of this case. But he defends the government getting rid of the Legacy Act, saying it was not supported in Northern Ireland.
Richard Foord (Lib Dem) says JD Vance should have more respect for British servicemen who died fighting.
Starmer says we should remember the sacrifice made by members of the armed forces.
Marie Tidball (Lab) asks if the government will stop the presumption that abusive parents should continue to have contact with their children.
Starmer says the family courts should never be used as a tool by abusers. He praises Tidball for her campaigning on this.
Oliver Dowden (Con) says two private schools in his constituency are closing because of the decision to put VAT on school fees.
Starmer says he does not doubt the aspiration parents have. But he says he wants all children to have a good eductation.
Emma Lewell-Buck (Lab) asks the government to commit to phased removal of asbestos from public buildings.
Starmer says he will arrange a meeting for Lewell-Buck with a minister about this.
Ian Sollom (Lib Dem) asks about the government’s strategy for skills, particularly in a way that would help the defence sector.
Starmer says he wants to see more skilled jobs, and jobs “with a real sense of pride”.
Paul Davies (Lab) asks about the government’s plans for breakfast clubs in schools.
Starmer says the first 750 clubs will open in April. This will save families up to £450 a year. Two of the clubs will be in Badenoch’s constituency, he says.
Kim Johnson (Lab) asks about an investigation showing black children were disproportionally treated as “sub-normal” in the 1960s and 1970s. She asks for an investigation.
Starmer says he will arrange a meeting with a relevant minister.
Liz Saville Roberts, the Plaid Cymru leader, asks the government to review its fiscal reviews instead of cutting the aid budget.
Starmer says Plaid voted against giving Wales an extra £1.6bn for public services.
Steve Race (Lab) asks about special educational needs and disabilities (Send) education.
Starmer says Send education was in disarray when Labour came into power. In Race’s region (Devon), extra support is being provided, he says.
Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, also asks about reports that the US has asked the UK not to share intelligence with Ukraine. Does the PM still think they are reliable ally? And what is his plan B if they are not?
Starmer says of course the UK and the US cooperate. He says the US is a reliable ally. And he is working on a peace plan, backed by the US.
Davey asks if Starmer thinks Andrew Tate and his brother should be extradited to the UK to face trial. Will Starmer ask Trump for this?
Starmer says there is a limit to what he can say, because this is a live case. But he says “justice must be done”.
Badenoch asks about farmers, saying they are facing economic insecurity.
Starmer says until that point they were “doing so well” (ie, agreeing). He says the government had to fill a £22bn black hole.
Updated
Badenoch asks if talks on a trade deal with the US have started.
Starmer says he spoke about this with the president and he says the US and UK teams are starting to talk about a deal.
Badenoch asks about reports that the US has told the UK to stop sharing intelligence with Ukraine. And she says that, without US backing for a peace deal, UK involvement in a peace deal could be undue pressure on Britain.
Starmer says that is why is is pushing for US support.
Badenoch says Starmer is “quite right” in what he said about the need for a peace deal in Ukraine to be sustainable.
She asks what President Trump told him about security guarantees.
Starmer says he spoke to Trump about this last week, and he says he has had three further conversations. He says there must be guarantees.
Badenoch asks what Starmer would say to people concerned that having troops in Ukraine could draw the UK into war with Russia, if they were attacked.
Starmer says the way to ensure there is peace is by making sure that a peace deal is backed up.
Kemi Badenoch asks what Starmer is doing to bring the US and Europe together.
Starmer says he is doing everything he can, including talking to President Zelenskyy yesterday afternoon.
Starmer tells MPs 642 Britons died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, in implicit rebuke to JD Vance
Keir Starmer starts by saying tomorrow will mark 13 years since six soldiers were killed in Afghanistan. He names all six of them.
And it is the 18th anniversary of the death of a soldier killed in Helmand, he says.
He says these people were fighting for their country. In Iraq and Afghanistan 642 individuals died, and many more were injured, he says.
Starmer dies not mention JD Vance at all, but this is a powerful rebuke to what Vance said yesterday.
UPDATE: Starmer said:
Tomorrow marks 13 years since six young British soldiers were on patrol in Afghanistan when their vehicle was struck by an explosive tragically killing them all.
These men fought and died for their country, our country. And across the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, 642 individuals died fighting for Britain alongside our allies, many more were wounded.
We will never forget their bravery and their sacrifice, and I know the whole house will join [with] me in remembering them and all those who serve our country.
Updated
Starmer faces Badenoch at PMQs
PMQs is about to start.
Here is the running order.
Rishi Sunak says it's 'ridiculous' to say he isn't, or can't be, English
Rishi Sunak has said that it is “ridiculous” to say that he isn’t, or can’t be, English.
He spoke out in his first public response to the controversy generated by a rightwing podcaster claiming recently that, though Sunak might be British, he could not be English because he was “a brown Hindu”.
Asked about this comment in his interview with Nick Robinson for his Political Thinking podcast, Sunak replied:
Of course I’m English, born here, brought up here.
On this definition, you can’t be English even playing for England, let alone supporting them ... I genuinely thought it was ridiculous.
The podcaster Konstantin Kisin argued that Sunak could not be English when he was interviewing the former Spectator editor, Fraser Nelson. Nelson subsequently wrote a column for the Times saying he was surprised by the question, and thought it was self-evident that Sunak was English, but that Kisin’s question was understandable because he was interpreting Englishnes as “a term of ethnicity”.
Suella Braverman, the former Tory home secretary, subsequently reignited this debate by writing an article for the Telegraph claiming that she could never be truly English – despite being born in England. “For Englishness to mean something substantial, it must be rooted in ancestry, heritage, and, yes, ethnicity – not just residence or fluency,” she said.
Nels Abbey has a good article on this debate in the Guardian today. Here is an extract.
But be under no illusion why we are discussing this now. It’s not about who to embrace, it’s about who to exclude. It’s part of the erosion of the firewall between mainstream conservativism and ethno-supremacism. There is a disturbing racist effort to delegitimise the place and position of non-white people in Europe, with the hard-right dream of “remigration” as the ultimate end result.
And here is the full article.
Liberal Democrats call for vote on motion that could force government to publish its assessment of aid cuts
Peter Walker is a senior Guardian political correspondent.
The Liberal Democrats are to try and push the government into revealing the projected impact of big cuts to overseas aid – but with a Commons vote not expected, it is unlikely to achieve its goal.
The party has published a so-called humble address asking that “there be deposited in the House of Commons library all impact assessments which His Majesty’s government have made regarding the impact of the reduction of official development assistance from 0.5% to 0.3%”.
Humble addresses, officially directed at the monarch, are a slightly arcane type of parliamentary procedure which can be used to force governments to produce documents against their will. When in opposition, Labour successfully did this several times over Brexit papers, with a certain Keir Starmer, then the shadow Brexit secretary, at the centre of this.
However, while a humble address is binding if voted on, the government does not have to provide parliamentary time. They thus only have force if another party uses one of its so-called opposition days. While the main opposition gets 19 of these per session, as the third party the Lib Dems receives only three.
With the party still unsure when its next one will come, a vote on the aid assessments seems unlikely.
Starmer may return to Washington with Macron and Zelenskyy to meet Trump, French government says
Keir Starmer may travel to Washington to meet President Trump again with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Reuters is reporting.
Reuters says the French government spokeswoman Sophie Primas revealed today that a three-leader trip to the US is being considerered. Primas was speaking to reporters following the weekly meeting of the French cabinet.
Intelligence sharing with US could become 'more difficult' because of views of people in Trump administration, peers told
In response to a question about intelligence cooperation with the US, Sir David Manning, a former ambassador to Washington, said he thought this would become “more difficult” because there was a problem of trust. He explained:
If you have some of Trump’s appointees in these key jobs who have very strange track records, and have said very strange things about Nato allies, the Nato alliance and so on, and you have people in the administration who seem to be, let’s say, looking for ways of appeasing Russia, then you have a problem on the intelligence front, because these are not the values that we have.
Nicholas Soames says Trump team 'despise Europe' and he fears 'things are going to go dreadfully wrong'
Back in the Lords committee, Nicholas Soames, the Conservative peer and former minister, revealed that this take on the Trump administration is quite different from Andrew Griffith’s. (See 11.03am.) In a preamble to a question, he said that he thought “the Trump people despise Europe”. And he said that he was assuming “that things are going to go dreadfully wrong”.
Picking up on an earlier reference to a discussion about the interest in whether or not there is a bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office, Soames, a grandson of the wartime prime minister, said that he thought this obsession was “simply rubbish”. He also said that it was the British who went on about this, not the Americans.
Shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith praises Trump and Elon Musk for their 'dynamism'
Peter Walker is a senior Guardian political correspondent.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk have shown a “refreshing” dynamism and sense of purpose which could be seen as a model for other governments wanting to get things done at speed, a senior Conservative has said.
Andrew Griffith, the shadow business secretary, has previously been a strong backer of Trump and his main aide, at one point saying Musk had potentially “saved humanity”: by rescuing Twitter from a “left-leaning elite”.
More recently, many other Conservatives have been reining in their praise for the increasingly erratic US president.
But not Griffith. Asked by Sky News for his view of Trump’s record so far, Griffith said he was “envious of the dynamism, not the bombast”.
He went on:
You’ve clearly got a change government coming in with a clear set of plans to address some of the big challenges that all western economies face – high levels of public spending, and sometimes an inefficient public service that makes people feel government isn’t on their side.
You have seen a dynamism with the president, with Elon Musk, that I think is relatively refreshing. And it’s right that governments with strong democratic mandates have the ability to get on and do things.
Under Trump UK now has to think what would happen if US left Nato, or stopped nuclear cooperation, ex-ambassador tells peers
Sir David Manning told the Lords committee that he thought the UK would have to start looking “elsewhere” because of the state of relations with the US.
Responding to the question about whether the special relationship exists, he said:
I agree that there’s obviously been a very important relationship … and a special relationship with the United States. I confess that I don’t always like the term, not because it isn’t special, but because I think it’s made us lazy … I think that means we don’t have to look elsewhere, which I think is relevant to this morning’s discussion, because I think we are going to have to look elsewhere.
Asked by the Labour peer Bruce Grocott what the disadvantages of the special relationship were, Manning replied:
A fundamental difference in our relationship with the United States from our other partners is that we depend on them for our defence.
It is very difficult to imagine what we’re going to do to defend ourselves, if, for example – this is very hypothetical – the Trump administration decides that it’s going to end our nuclear cooperation deal, or if Trump moves out of Nato, or even becomes just so equivocal about Nato that the article five guarantee is no longer plausible.
I’m not saying those things will happen, and they were inconceivable until six weeks ago. I think you now have to address them. Doesn’t mean they will happen, but I think they’re on the table, and I don’t think we have a relationship with any other country which is absolutely fundamental to our defence, and that, I think is changing, and we’ve got to start thinking about that.
What would we do if we found that this post-war, defence relationship that has been so vital to us becomes questionable? I do think that makes this relationship unique.
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Sir Peter Westmacott told the Lords committee that we don’t yet know to what extent the US is disengaging from Europe. He said:
The question I think we have to ask is, to what extent is the United States, as now configured, going to remain interested and committed to the defence of Europe, as opposed to United States being part of a slightly different international order whereby it’s the big guys, China, Russia, United States who get what they want, and the smaller countries have to, if you like, quoting a phrase from Thucydides, ‘suffer what they must’. And I don’t think we yet know the answer.
Former ambassadors to Washington give evidence to peers about relations with US
Four former UK ambassadors to Washington, Dame Karen Pierce, Sir Peter Westmacott, Sir Nigel Sheinwald and Sir David Manning, have just starting giving evidence to the Lords international relations and defence committee about relations with the US.
There is a live feed here:
Lord de Mauley, the committee chair, said that the committee was meant to be looking at the long-term aspects of the relationship. But he accepted that topical issues might come up.
He started by asking if there was a special relationship.
Pierce kicked off the responses. Pointing out that she remains a civil servant, she said there is a special relationship, even if there is no agreed definition of it. The relationship was unlike any other – even if the Americans were not sentimental about it, she said.
She recalled visiting West Point, the US military academy. The young recruits there were very clear that the UK was “ally number one”, she said.
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Mahmood says court backlog will 'still go up' even though more sitting days announced
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has said that despite announcing a record level of sitting days for crown court judges to tackle delays, the “sad reality” is the backlog of cases will “still go up”, PA Media reports. PA says:
Mahmood said that judges will sit collectively for 110,000 days in the next financial year, 4,000 more than allocated for the previous period, to help victims see justice done faster.
The move comes as the Victims Commissioner published a report yesterday warning that the record levels of crown court delays are deepening the trauma of victims and making many feel justice is “out of reach”.
The rising backlog in England and Wales has almost doubled in five years to 73,105 at the end of September last year.
Meanwhile, a report from the public accounts committee published today raised concerns ministers had “simply accepted” the record-high crown court backlog will continue to grow and they will wait for the results of the Leveson Review before planning changes to tackle it.
The major review led by Sir Brian Leveson is expected to report on reforms to the court system in the spring.
Announcing the extra sitting days Mahmood described it as a “critical first step” but there is more that “we must” do.
Asked about how long it will take to clear the courts backlog, she told Times Radio: “We will be making progress.
“But the sad reality is that even sitting to this unprecedented amount, the backlog will still go up.
“Because the demand of cases coming into the system is very, very large, and that’s why I announced some weeks ago that Brian Leveson will be carrying out a crown courts review for us to look at once-in-a-generation reform of the sorts of cases that go into our crown courts, so that we can actually bear down on that backlog in the longer term.”
Changes on which cases go to jury trials as crown courts buckle under the “sheer number of cases” coming in will be among the measures being considered in the Leveson Review, she told LBC.
“He will also be considering whether we should do more with our magistrates’ courts and the sorts of cases that they can hear, or whether there is a case for a court that sits between the magistrates and the crown,” she said.
Robert Jenrick dismisses crime bill as 'gimmick' after analysis says it will only lead to small rise in prison population
In an interview last week Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, was evasive when asked if the crime and policing bill she was publishing would lead to more people going to jail. The interviewer said that the legislation created 18 new offences, and suggested that, if the Home Office was locking more people up, that would undermine the Ministry of Justice’s efforts to reduce prison overcrowding.
Cooper said there were some measures in the bill that would reduce offending. But it sounded as if she was reluctant to answer the question because she did not want to admit that the interviewer had a point about prison numbers.
But the government has now published its impact assessment for the bill. And this suggests Cooper was being coy because the government will actually have a very limited impact on prison numbers. Because rightwing papers assume that any criminal justice measure that does not lead to more people being locked up must be ineffective, Cooper may have decided silence was the best policy.
In a story for the Times, Matt Dathan says the bill will result in only a few dozen extra people going to jail every year. He says:
Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, said the bill would address an “epidemic of street theft”, including a rise in phone and bag snatching and shoplifting.
However, an impact assessment of the bill published by the government last week revealed that the new offences would lead to 5,000 additional police-recorded crimes each year. This would lead to more than 400 prosecutions and 300 convictions, resulting in an extra 13-55 additional people going to prison each year.
Dathan also quotes Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, claiming these figures show the bill won’t work. Jenrick told the Times:
Yvette Cooper’s own assessment shows her bill is a total gimmick. Labour’s attempts to con the British public they’re tough on crime have been exposed. There were 84,000 phone thefts last year. Locking up 12 more people a year isn’t going to do anything to end the theft epidemic.
‘Stop the boats’ slogan was ‘too stark’, admits Rishi Sunak
Rishi Sunak has said the “stop the boats” slogan during his time as UK prime minister was “too stark”, PA Media reports.
Shabana Mahmood says welfare budget ‘unsustainable’ amid reports Reeves planning benefit cuts worth billions
Good morning. Three weeks today Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, will present her spring statement. Originally this was not meant to involve budget-scale changes for plans to tax or spending (Reeves says she is only going to have one proper budget a year, in the autumn, to ensure stability), but changes to the country’s economic situation mean this statement is going to be more consequential than originally intended and this morning the BBC is running a story that looks like classic Treasury pitch rolling. The markets don’t like surprises and, while exact details of budget announcements are kept secret until the chancellor speaks to MPs, the Treasury invests a lot of effort in ensuring that people have a rough idea of what’s coming.
According to a report by the BBC’s economics editor Faisal Islam, Reeves is going to announce cuts, worth several billions pounds, particularly affecting welfare. He says:
The Treasury will put the proposed cuts to the government’s official forecaster, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), on Wednesday amid expectations the chancellor’s financial buffer has been wiped out.
Sources said “the world has changed” since Rachel Reeves’s Budget last October, when the OBR indicated she had £9.9bn available to spend against her self-imposed borrowing rules.
The OBR’s forecast is likely to see that disappear because of global factors such as trade tariffs, as well as higher inflation and borrowing costs in the UK.
The Treasury will on Wednesday inform the OBR of its “major measures” -essentially changes to tax and spending in order to meet the chancellor’s self-imposed rules on borrowing money.
Islam quotes a “government insider” saying:
Clearly the world has changed a lot since the autumn budget. People are watching that change happen before their eyes.
The Office for Budget Responsibility will reflect that changing world in its forecasts later this month and a changing world will be a core feature of the chancellor’s response later this month.
Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, has been giving interviews this morning, promoting an announcement about extra funding for courts to allow judges to hear more criminal cases, as a means of reducing the backlog. In an interview on the Today programme, she was asked about the BBC spring statement story. She could have said it was all nonsense, but didn’t. Or she could have just refused to speculate on forthcoming Treasury announcements, which would have been the usual answer. Instead she not only endorsed the broad thrust of Islam’s report, saying that welfare spending is “unsustainable”, but also argued that there is a “moral case” for getting people off welfare and back into the labour market.
Asked if it was right to target the welfare budget when looking for savings, she replied:
This is the Labour party. The clue is in the name. We believe in work. We know that there are many people who are currently receiving state support for being out of work who want to be in work. We know that we have too many of our young people currently out of work, not in education, employment or training.
It is right that a Labour government strains every sinew to make sure that the support is available to prevent people from leaving the labour market or, if they have left the labour market, to help them get back.
The welfare secretary has been very clear that this has got to be a clear focus for our government. There is a moral case here for making sure that people who can work are able to work.
And there’s a practical point here as well, because our current situation is unsustainable.
So on both of those measures, I think the welfare secretary is looking at the right area of policy.
Asked again if it was right to focus on welfare, if government spending had to be cut, she replied:
We’ve seen a huge rise in that welfare budget. We know that there are millions of people who are out of work in our country who want to be in work. It is absolutely morally the right thing to do to support people, to make sure either they don’t leave the labour market, or if they have, they’re supported to get back into it.
Here is the agenda for the day.
10.30am: Four former UK ambassadors to Washington, Dame Karen Pierce, Sir Peter Westmacott, Sir Nigel Sheinwald and Sir David Manning, give evidence to the Lords international relations and defence committee about relations with the US.
Noon: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.
After 12.30pm: MPs begin a debate on the “estimates” (government spending allocations), covering the Depatment of Health and Social Care, the Foreign Office and the Department for Business and Trade. MPs are likely to discuss the plan to cut aid spending, although there will be no specific vote on this.
2.30pm: Andrew Bailey, governor of the Bank of England, gives evidence to the Commons Treasury committee.
5.30pm: The Ukraine Solidarity Campaign holds a protest outside the US embassy in London.
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