Starmer says Reform UK-Tory pact would be ‘unholy alliance of austerity and failure’
George Freeman (Con) says a recent deepfake AI video said he was joining Reform UK. He says that is as likely as Reform producing coherent policies. He urges the government to address the problem of deepfakes.
Starmer acknowledges this is a serious issue. But he says, if Freeman is not joining Reform, other Tories are. Three of them went this week. He says he saw the FT story today. Nigel Farage is proposing “unholy alliance of austerity and failure”, he says.
Key events
The Conservatives have again ruled out a pact with Reform UK. At their post-PMQs briefing, a Tory spokesperson said that, with Kemi Badenoch as leader, there “absolutely, 100%” would not be a pact with Nigel Farage’s party.
No 10 says Tories should apologise for ‘baseless smears’ after report says government did not intervene in China spy case
Downing Street has said that the Conservatives should apologise for the “baseless smears” they made about Labour interfering to block the China spy prosecution.
The report out today from parliament’s joint committee on the national security strategy says:
We did not find evidence of a coordinated high-level effort to bring about the collapse of the prosecution. Nor did we find evidence of deliberate efforts to obstruct the prosecution, circumvent constitutional safeguards or frustrate our inquiry.
At the post-PMQs lobby briefing, the PM’s press secretary said:
The Tories have to apologise for throwing around for weeks baseless smears with Robert Jenrick going as far as to say that people should be sent to prison, despite the government making repeatedly clear that there was absolutely no political interference in the case.
PMQs – snap verdict
According to polling by YouGov released this morning, the number of people who view Kemi Badenoch as a prime minister in waiting has risen from 9% at the start of November to 21%. That may have been a consequence of the speech she gave in response to the budget last week, which was remarkable both for its unpleasantness and its effectiveness. But, on the basis of today, she does not deserve to go much higher.
Badenoch’s position in her own party has strengthened in part because she had a good run in September at take-down politics. She went after Angela Rayner, who resigned as deputy PM, and, less than a week later, after a particularly strong PMQs performance on the topic, she took some of the credit when Peter Mandelson quit as ambassador to Washington.
But these two hits may have warped the thinking at CCHQ because, in their quest of another scalp, the Tories seem to have lost all judgment. For weeks they aggressively accused the government, and Jonathan Powell in particular, of leaning on the Crown Prosecution Service to drop the China spy trial, despite there being no evidence to support this claim at all. That has been confirmed by a parliamentary report out today. Badenoch demanded Reeves’s resignation over a housing rental mishap, even though it was quickly established that this was the fault of a lettings agency. At that point Badenoch was also saying Reeves should have to resign if she put taxes up in the budget. Then, after the budget, Badenoch said that Reeves should be sacked because she “lied” to the public with a speech about the state of the public finances. This claim also ran into the buffers when the OBR, which published the information that led Reeves to make her claim, yesterday said explicitly that it did not agree with Badenoch’s take on the chancellor’s speech.
But the Tory conspiracy machine went into full overdrive on Sunday when Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, sent a letter to the Financial Conduct Authority claiming that Reeves’s pre-budget speech, and Treasury briefing, amounted to “market abuse” and calling for an investigation.
And this is what Badenoch was referring to at PMQs today with her second question, when she said:
We now know that the head of the OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility] was forced out for telling the truth that the chancellor did not need to raise taxes on working people. We also know that the chancellor was briefing the media, twisting the facts, all so she could break her promises and raise taxes.
If she was a CEO, she would have been fired and she might even have been prosecuted for market abuse. That’s why we’ve written to the Financial Conduct Authority [FCA], so will the prime minister ensure the chancellor fully cooperates with any investigation?
Starmer replied: “She’s completely losing the plot.”
The PM had a point. As Mel Stride knows full well, there is a huge difference between a FTSE 100 CEO trying to manipulate a share price for financial gain and a government minister trying to put a partial spin on economic data, which is something that happens at the time. Reeves may have been less than fully candid when she spoke about her budget choices on 4 November, but this is not unusual in Westminster politics and the idea that it merits an FCA investigation is fanciful. When Alex Burghart, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, tried to defend this in a Today programme interview, he accused Reeves of putting misleading information about the budget into the public domain for political advantage. Nick Robinson shot him down quite easily by pointing out that that is exactly what the Tories are doing when they claim taxes are only going up in the budget to fund higher benefits for people who don’t work.
As the PMQs exchanges went on, Badenoch did make some stronger points. And she was entitled to point out that the decision to remove the two-child benefit cap was a big reversal from Starmer’s position on this last year. But it felt as if her reasonable criticisms of the budget were devalued by the wilder conspiracy claims.
Does this matter? In the era of conventional politics, party leaders worried about their credibility, and they would avoid associating themselves with the kooky stuff because it would stop them being taken seriously. Badenoch just doesn’t seem to mind. It feels like a mistake, but perhaps she has concluded that it does not really matter any more because, with so much politics now online, the boundaries of reason have been swept away.
Bernard Jenkin (Con) asks about Vladimir Putin turning down the terms for peace in Ukraine. Putin said he was ready for war with Europe. How ready are we?
Starmer says Putin is the aggressor. He is dragging his feet. We have to put pressure on him, he says. The government will continue to do that, he says.
And that’s the end of PMQs.
Shockat Adam (Ind) says Islamophobia is real. In opposition Labour propose having a definition of Islamophobia, but the party has now dropped that, he says. He says freedom of speech is important, but Islamophobia is real, and he mentions several constituents he says were killed for being Muslim.
Starmer says we should condemn all forms of hatred, including anti-Muslim hatred. He says the government will act on it.
Starmer says Reform UK-Tory pact would be ‘unholy alliance of austerity and failure’
George Freeman (Con) says a recent deepfake AI video said he was joining Reform UK. He says that is as likely as Reform producing coherent policies. He urges the government to address the problem of deepfakes.
Starmer acknowledges this is a serious issue. But he says, if Freeman is not joining Reform, other Tories are. Three of them went this week. He says he saw the FT story today. Nigel Farage is proposing “unholy alliance of austerity and failure”, he says.
Andrew Pakes (Lab) asks about child poverty.
Starmer says the Tories should be ashamed of the way they dragged thousands of children into poverty.
Paul Waugh (Lab) says Rochdale, his constituency, is near the top of the child poverty league. He asks for an assurance that the government will continue to tackle this.
Starmer says measures like the £150 cut in energy bill, the rising living wage and the freeze in prescription charges should help.
Starmer says he won’t allow definition of Islamophobia to bring back blasphemy law
Graham Stringer (Lab) asks for an assurance that there will be no reintroduction of a blasphemy law via a definition of Islamophobia.
Starmer says he is happy to give that assurance.
Layla Moran (Lib Dem) asks about two constituents facing unreasonable service charges for leaseholders. Will the PM back Lib Dem plans to end these rip-off charges?
Starmer says the government’s leaseholder and freeholder bill should address this. He says Moran is making good points.
Oliver Ryan (Lab) asks if the PM will support a modern framework for neurology in the NHS.
Starmer says the 10-year plan for the NHS should improve care in this area.
Jerome Mayhew (Con) says Rachel Reeves implied in her budget that she was cutting taxes for small businesses when the opposite is the case. Will the government at least admit that?
Starmer says temporary business rates relief was put in place by the last government. That is coming to an end. And there is a revaluation.
But there will be transitional relief, he says.
Starmer says only 3% of criminal cases will be affected by decision to restrict access to jury trials
Paul Holmes (Con) says Starmer in the past said jury trials should be in place for all criminal trials.
Starmer says the Tories left a system where victims of serious crimes are having to wait three or four years to come to trial. That is not justice, he says.
Starmer says only 10% of criminals cases go to crown court. And 7% plead guilty at crown court. So this decision (the proposals to restrict jury trials) only affects 3% of criminal cases, he says.
