Yesterday, while the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle was in full swing, Sarah Smith met with the Shadow Chancellor at the Labour party’s annual State of the Economy conference. McDonnell gave a speech at the conference promising to crack down on poor auditing practices that had contributed to the downfall of the construction company Carillion. Smith asked McDonnell about the further changes that he wanted to see in British society:
SS: You used to put in your ‘Who’s Who’ entry that your hobby was fomenting the overthrow of capitalism… Is it now your job? The overthrow of capitalism?
JM: Yes it is. It’s transforming our economy.
SS: There’s a difference between transforming the economy and overthrowing capitalism.
JM: I don’t think there is, because I think at the end of the day I want a socialist society. And that means transforming in a way which radically challenges the system as it now is. And I think that’s what we’re doing. And what’s interesting, we’re taking people with us, because people see that there has to be that transformation. We cannot allow another crisis to occur that occurred in 2007-08, where we all have to pay for that.
Smith then asked McDonnell about the economic situation in Venezuela, a country whose economic policies have previously been praised by Jeremy Corbyn, but is now experiencing chronic hyperinflation and rationing of food and other staple goods. McDonnell replied ‘I don’t think it was a socialist country. I think what happened was [Hugo] Chavez was developing policies which I think would first of all tackle the tragedy of the poverty that was in that country… I think it took a wrong turn when Chavez went. And I think unfortunately since then I don’t think they’ve been following the socialist policies that Chavez was developing’.
Matt Hancock – New laws needed to tackle internet’s ‘Wild West’ culture
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport made his way to the TV studios to discuss the steps he would be taking to make the UK ‘the safest place in the world to be online’. He told Emma Barnett, who was filling in for Andrew Marr, that currently many internet companies were not sufficiently engaging with the government to help remove material of a criminal nature from their platforms, or to clamp down on the numbers of underage children with social media accounts. Hancock’s proposed legislation could see such companies facing billions of pounds worth of fines:
EB: Your team said you recently invited 14 of these companies to come and meet with you to talk about this… How many turned up?
MH: Four.
EB: Why so few?
MH: …One of the problems we’ve got is that we engage with Facebook, Google and Twitter, and they get all of the press, and they get all of the complaints in the public debate, but there’s now actually a far greater number of social media platforms like musical.ly and others… They didn’t show up and the companies, they have now got over a million on their sites… The fact that only four companies turned up when I invited the 14 biggest in gave me a big impetus to drive this proposal to legislate through…
When asked about the numbers of underage children using social media, Hancock responded ‘I’m not going to give a figure because we are going to consult on it’, but added ‘I hope we get to a point where everyone has to have their age verified or they’re not allowed on’. Hancock later told Robert Peston: ‘I think this is one of the hardest times to be a parent. This new technology has come and made changes to childhood that we couldn’t have dreamed of when we were growing up even just a generation ago’.
Barry Gardiner’s ‘car crash’ interview
The Shadow International Trade Secretary landed himself in a spot of bother over remarks he made about the Irish border while at an event held by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Gardiner said back in March: ‘There are real economic reasons why people have played up the issue of the Irish border… and of course there are very good political reasons’. Barnett grilled him over whether he meant what he had said. Gardiner’s evasive responses have caused some to label the interview a ‘car crash’:
EB: Do you stand by your remarks?
BG: There are reasons why people would wish to – if you look at the balance of trade and the importance of cross-border trade between the south and the north in Ireland it is extremely difficult to see how the Irish economy would withstand the imposition of cross-border controls…
EB: Do you stand by those remarks?
BG: …We have to secure a border deal in Ireland…
EB: …Which Barry Gardiner is [telling] the truth? The one that speaks in private or the one that’s on television now?
BG: Sometimes you have conversations in private, and the reason they are held in private is because you can advance thinking and you can actually then try and, if all you ever do is stick by the given line, you’d never actually advance it because you’d never discuss anything with people – that’s the reason for holding things in private.
When asked about Labour’s candidate in the upcoming Lewisham East by-election, who is reportedly in favour of staying in the EU’s single market, Gardiner claimed to the incredulity of Barnett: ‘She supports the Labour party position’, stating that ‘We want to retain the benefits, both of the customs union and of the single market’.
Nicola Sturgeon – We will restart indyref2 debate soon
The Scottish First Minister joined Robert Peston from Glasgow and made clear that, after a hiatus following her party’s setback in last year’s general election, the SNP would once again be raising the possibility of a second independence referendum for Scotland:
RP: Your predecessor, Alex Salmond, the other day said that Theresa May’s rejection of what you want makes the case for an independence vote, sooner rather than later, overwhelming. Do you agree with that? And when will you bring this issue of the timing of the vote back onto the agenda?
NS: …Once we get some clarity, which hopefully we will in the autumn of this year, about the Brexit outcome and the future relationship between the UK and the EU then I will consider again this question of the timing of an independence referendum. I’m not going to say more about that in advance of that moment arising. But of course over the next couple of weeks we will, I suppose, restart a debate about why independence for Scotland is an opportunity and what those opportunities are. As you know, we’ve had a Growth Commission looking at the opportunities of independence. It’s report will be published in the coming days, and I think that’s quite an important moment.
After a meeting with Jamie Oliver in which she had claimed that she was preparing to ban ‘buy one, get one free’ pizza deals in order to improve children’s health, Sturgeon also said that ‘we don’t want… to make the weekly shop more expensive for families’ but that it was ‘time for governments to be bold around obesity’, just as her government had done with alcohol regulations.
Peter Mandelson – The royal wedding is making me consider tying the knot
And finally, Labour’s very own Prince (albeit ‘of darkness’), has confessed that he has caught royal wedding fever after the ceremony at Windsor Castle yesterday. Chatting with Peston, Lord Mandelson gushed that seeing the newlywed couple ‘made me so happy’:
“Even I am wondering if I should finally tie the knot with my partner after 20 years of living together”
Lord Mandelson says the Royal Wedding made him so happy he is now considering getting married. #Peston pic.twitter.com/FVBqVkXS3u
— Peston (@itvpeston) May 20, 2018
PM: ‘People all over the country are going to feel inspired, they’re all going to want to go right out and get married now just like Harry and Meghan. Even I am wondering if I should finally tie the knot with my partner after 20 years of living together’
RP: Are you going to?
PM: Well, I’m thinking about it. We need a discussion about this I think!
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