Lucy Frazer – ‘Rishi’s only been the prime minister for six months’
This week the fallout from the local election results mingled with news of the coronation. Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer spoke to Laura Kuenssberg about the Conservatives’ disastrous results, claiming her party just needed to deliver on their promises. But Kuenssberg questioned whether they might need to reflect more deeply, given they lost more seats than even their worst-case scenarios predicted:
Streeting – ‘Keir Started could be on his way to Downing Street… and the talking points would still be “Labour could have done better“‘
After Labour’s strong results, Wes Streeting claimed they were ‘confident but not complacent’ that they could win a general election. Laura Kuenssberg pointed out that the local election results were positive, but actually did not suggest Labour could get a majority. Streeting argued that local elections were not an accurate prediction, and that many places where people had voted for smaller parties would be Labour in a general election:
‘The focus is getting rid of Conservative MPs’
The Liberal Democrats also performed very well in the local elections, surpassing their own expectations. Party leader Ed Davey ruled out forming a coalition with the Conservatives, claiming he’d spent all his life fighting them, despite being part of the previous coalition. He did not answer Kuenssberg’s question on whether they would work with Labour, although the implication was that they would be open to it:
Lucy Frazer – protestors have changed tactics
Along with the coronation celebrations there were also some large anti-monarchy protests, and reports suggested the police may have arrested peaceful demonstrators. The Conservatives have passed legislation that gives the police more powers to deal with protests, and Laura Kuenssberg asked the Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer if she thought the police had acted appropriately in response to yesterday’s events:
‘We shouldn’t be… defensive about our record on Empire’
And lastly, the coronation brought the country’s imperial past into sharp relief, and King Charles has recently signalled his support for research into the monarchy’s links with slavery. Keunssberg asked Wes Streeting if the UK should be considering reparations, or an apology for the actions of its Empire. Streeting claimed we needed to be open and honest about the past, but that we had to view British history ‘in the round’:
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