David Lidington – Conservative family ‘must come together’
The Cabinet Office Minister and Theresa May’s de facto deputy David Lidington has urged his colleagues to unite behind her after a week that has highlighted her precarious position. Fears have arisen among Conservative MPs that the party is facing annihilation in London and Birmingham in the local elections this spring, and the Chair of the 1922 Committee has signalled that he is dangerously close to the threshold of signatures for an automatic vote of no confidence in the Prime Minister. Speaking to Andrew Marr, Lidington put up a spirited defence of the government’s record and urged his colleagues to ‘come together’:
AM: Your colleagues have been really really rude about Theresa May. Is your message that they should belt up?
DL: I think what I’d say to all my colleagues is the Conservative family – left, right and centre, because we’re a broad church – needs to come together in a spirit of mutual respect. There are differences in any broad church, but look at what the bigger picture is showing. The bigger picture is showing that after eight years in government, we are still neck and neck with the Labour party in the polls, we’re taking seats off them in places like Bolton in local government elections… The other things that my colleagues need to remember is to look at last week’s news – unemployment lowest levels for 40 years, employment at record levels, new borrowing figures lower than expected, new growth figures higher than expected. That’s the Conservative record in practice.
When Marr asked Lidington if he and his fellow Remainers had been proved wrong about the negative impact of Brexit on the UK, Lidington replied ‘I am delighted by the way in which the British economy is more resilient than I feared it was going to be, but there is a formidable task in negotiating the right deal for the UK.’ When the conversation turned to transgender rights, Lidington said ‘We should respect people for who they are, however they identify’ adding that his views on gay marriage had changed ‘looking at how gay friends of mine were really affected for the better’.
Jeremy Corbyn – I would provide 8,000 houses for the homeless
Jeremy Corbyn also joined Andrew Marr this morning, becoming the latest in a series of party leaders to do so. When discussing rising levels of homelessness, Corbyn told Marr that in order to combat the problem, he would ‘immediately purchase 8,000 properties’ and award local councils the power to take over empty luxury flats, describing the process of keeping such flats deliberately vacant as ‘grossly insulting’:
AM: What would you do about housing in the short term?… Right now for those people who are homeless on the streets of Camden and elsewhere tonight, what would a Labour government do?
JC: Immediately purchase 8,000 properties across the country to give immediate housing to those people that are currently homeless. And at the same time require local authorities to build far more because the problem is homeless people, rough sleepers, beg in order to get money for a night shelter, stay in the night shelter or a hostel… The problem then is move on accommodation, and the problem then is not having an address, [without which you] can’t claim benefits or get a job.
AM: Would a Labour government perhaps put empty [luxury] flats, which are all around, and the homeless people together and oblige the owners to let homeless people into them?
JC: We would give local authorities the power to take over deliberately kept vacant properties… There’s a massive case for intervention in the market in a number of ways. One – building council properties, lifetime tenancies at secure rent. Secondly regulation of the private sector to give much longer tenancies and to give power to local authorities to do it appropriately for their areas. And thirdly, some kind of government backed mortgage scheme to help first time buyers to buy something.
When Marr put it to Corbyn that capitalism as a whole takes people out of poverty, Corbyn replied ‘Taken out of poverty is perhaps a little bit generous Does that mean that the free market economy is working? No’. He also denied that Labour was seeking a second Brexit referendum, insisting instead that ‘What we have asked for and demanded has been a meaningful vote in Parliament at the end’.
Theresa Villiers – Brexit is being diluted
Former Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers has made clear her reservations about the future of Brexit. Villiers wrote an opinion piece in the Sunday Telegraph outlining her concerns that too many compromises were watering down the decision made in 2016’s referendum. She explained her fears to Sarah Smith:
Conservative MP and Brexiteer Theresa Villiers says compromising too much with the EU could 'eventually get to a point where we wouldn't genuinely be leaving the European Union' #bbcsp pic.twitter.com/AKGsDGEv2Y
— BBC Daily Politics and Sunday Politics (@daily_politics) January 28, 2018
SS: Tell us what you mean by Brexit being diluted.
TV: …I think we must retain the right to diverge from EU laws. One of the key points of leaving the EU was to ensure that we can make our own laws in our own Parliament and not be subject to laws made by people we don’t elect and we can’t remove.
SS: So what has suddenly made you so concerned?
TV: In part, the government faces a difficult challenge convincing people on the Leave side of the debate because so many times in the past there have been Prime Ministers who went off to Brussels saying ‘We’ll bring you back a deal you like’ and then at the last minute territory has been given away. We have made compromises, I accept the need for that. But I think ultimately there’s only so far you can go before ultimately you find yourself in a position where you’re diluting Brexit so much that it isn’t leaving the EU in a very real sense.
On the current Prime Minister, Villiers said ‘I actually don’t think she wants to backslide, I think… she is under huge sustained pressure from a range of quarters to reverse the result of the referendum’ but asserted that ‘I think the cabinet is united in wanting to do this’.
Jacob Rees-Mogg – Hammond’s Brexit remarks have caused ‘real trouble’
Prominent Conservative backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg has expressed his disappointment in the Chancellor Philip Hammond after comments he made at a lunch with British businesses at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Hammond reportedly told members of the CBI that he would be seeking ‘very modest’ changes to the status quo after Brexit. Speaking to Robert Peston, Rees-Mogg opined that the Chancellor was openly contradicting his own government’s policy:
RP: You wouldn’t agree with the Chancellor that leaving the EU is a ‘modest affair’. What did you think when you heard him say that?
JRM: I tend to disagree with the Chancellor on many things, but on this issue he seems to be disagreeing with Government policy, the Conservative party manifesto and Mrs May’s speeches. This is a real trouble for the Government. The history of chancellors being in opposition to prime ministers is not a good one or an encouraging one.
RP: Can I just be clear – do you think he should remain in his job?
JRM: I’ve got a view, but I think it’s not for me to give that view publicly. I think this really is a matter for the Prime Minister.
RP: [Is it OK] to say the Chancellor is not doing his proper job?
JRM: What I am doing is supporting the government’s own stated policy… I’m being as loyal as could possibly be on the policy question and I am biting my tongue on the personality question.
Rees-Mogg also claimed that Theresa Villiers was ‘right to be concerned’ about Brexit being ‘diluted’. On the impending departure date, Rees-Mogg stated ‘My view is that we’ve got to leave on the 29th of March 2019 and I think there would be a huge political storm if the government tried to extend Article 50’. Of the transition deal, he merely quipped ‘One friend of mine said that it looked more like a plank than a bridge’.
Donald Trump – I would have negotiated differently with the EU
And finally, Piers Morgan has managed to secure an interview with President Trump (whom he once worked for on the Apprentice) while the two of them attended the World Economic Forum this week. The interview, to be broadcast on ITV at 10pm tonight, features Trump giving his support to the embattled Theresa May, but declaring that he would have taken a tougher stance on leaving the EU:
PM: Do you think that we’re in a good position? A lot of people are still very nervous, very anxious, but hearing the President of the United States saying ‘There’s plenty of good trade coming from me’ – that’s a big deal to people in Britain.
DT: Well, would it be the way I negotiate? No. But I have a lot of respect for your Prime Minister… I think I would have negotiated [Brexit] differently. I would have had a different attitude.
PM: What would you have done?
DT: I think I would have said that the European Union is not cracked up to what it’s supposed to be, and I would have taken a tougher stand in getting out.
Elsewhere in the interview, Trump also claimed not to be aware of having received an invitation to the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, but told Morgan ‘I want them to be happy, I really want them to be happy. They look like a lovely couple’.
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