Peter Kyle: Tulip Siddiq will lose job if inquiry finds her guilty of breaking ministerial code
The Conservatives have called for the prime minister to sack anti-corruption Treasury Minister Tulip Siddiq after she herself became part of a corruption investigation. Reports have emerged that Siddiq may have been living in properties linked to her aunt, Sheikh Hasina, who is being investigated for allegedly embezzling up to £3.9bn whilst serving as prime minister of Bangladesh. Siddiq has referred herself to the ethics advisor, but on Sky News, Trevor Phillips asked Science Secretary Peter Kyle whether Siddiq should stand down while the investigation takes place. Kyle said that Siddiq had ‘done exactly the right thing’, and that the outcome of the investigation ‘will be stuck to’ by Keir Starmer. Phillips argued that if the same thing had happened to the Conservatives, Labour would be demanding a resignation. Kyle contrasted Labour’s approach with the previous government’s, suggesting that the Tories had not acted on the conclusions of the inquiry into former Home Secretary Priti Patel for bullying.
Do new online safety rules match the scale of the problem?
This week, Meta announced that it will replace third-party fact checkers with the ‘community notes’ system pioneered by Elon Musk. This change will initially take place only in the US, but there are fears it could reduce online safety and aid the spread of disinformation. On the BBC, Laura Kuenssberg played Science Secretary Peter Kyle a clip of Ian Russell, the father of Molly Russell, who took her own life after consuming vast quantities of content about depression and suicide. Ian Russell argued that online platforms are moving backwards, and that Starmer needed to prioritise online safety to protect children. Kyle said he had made a ‘personal commitment’ to make sure that vulnerable people have protection online. He pointed out that in March, it will become enforceable that any illegal content must be removed, and from next year all platforms and content creators must make sure that their content is age-appropriate for the person viewing it.
Mel Stride: On China, Labour are ‘getting it wrong’
With growth rates stubbornly low and borrowing costs hitting the highest level since 2008, the outlook is gloomy for Chancellor Rachel Reeves – who is in danger of breaking her fiscal rules. Reeves’ visit to China this week has secured a £600m investment, but Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride told Trevor Phillips that it was not right for Reeves to go ‘cap in hand’ to China when the UK’s economy is in ‘significant distress’. Stride said that China is ‘also a competitor’ to the UK, and that Labour did not have the right approach. Phillips asked if Stride was being ideological, rather than pragmatic. Stride claimed he was a pragmatist, but there needed to be ‘both sides’ when it comes to China relations.
Former Governor of California Jerry Brown: ‘Not even Donald Trump… can repeal the laws of physics’
Parts of Los Angeles have been devastated by huge forest fires over the last week, with at least 16 people killed, and almost 200,000 forced to evacuate. Laura Kuenssberg interviewed Former Governor of California Jerry Brown, who told her that climate change was to blame for the ferocity of the fires. Brown said that it would cost $6tn a year to deal with climate change, but humanity had to ‘start paying now’. Kuenssberg suggested that Donald Trump had a very different view to Brown. Brown said: ‘nature is nature’ and predicted that over the next four years there will be ‘a reduction to absurdity of the idea that climate change is a hoax’.
Historian Simon Schama: ‘unelected President Musk’ will test Trump administration
Donald Trump will be inaugurated on the 20th of January. Kuenssberg asked historian Simon Schama on her panel for his thoughts about the incoming president. Schama argued that the supreme court’s decision to go through with the sentencing of Trump in his hush-money trial was evidence against the idea of a ‘quasi-authoritarian destruction of the guard rails in the American Constitution’. He then predicted a tension between ‘practical capitalism and… wild-eyed capitalist utopians’ in the Trump administration, with policies such as mass deportation of immigrants clashing with agricultural needs, and trade tariffs creating potential big rises in inflation.
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