Labour are keeping tight-lipped about how much the UK will have to pay to keep the military base on Diego Garcia in our hands. Last week they couldn’t even decide a reason for the true figure’s confidentiality…
At FCDO questions today shadow Foreign Office minister Andrew Rosindell asked which budget would be fronting the costs and whether cash to Mauritius will come out of the UK aid budget. He then quipped that “no deal is better than a bad deal” when it comes to Chagos. Retro…
Seeing as Jonathan Powell is over in Mauritius finalising details you might expect the government to give any information on funding for the deal. Anneliese Dodds swerved the question and mocked the Tories for doing ten rounds of negotiations on Chagos in the first place, before claiming “all the details of this situation are in the public domain.“ Wrong!
Krishnan Guru-Murthy asked John Healey: “Just finally, I mean Andy Burnham has been very clear he wants Britain back in the European Union in his lifetime. Do you?”
The Chancellor replied: “I’m older than Andy Burnham. I don’t expect to see that.”