The lobby of Westminster journalists has been cajoled by the government into reporting Labour plans to align with the EU single market via secondary legislation and without votes in parliament. Using so-called ‘Henry VIII powers’…
The substantive news was announced by Reeves at her Mais lecture and fleshed out by the FT three weeks ago, which said “the bill would allow Britain to adopt EU regulations to clear the way for an EU-UK food and agriculture trade deal… it would also pave the way for ministers to transfer other EU laws on to the UK statute book in future… government officials say Britain will seek ‘carve outs’ from some elements of EU rules and that MPs will have some kind of ‘oversight mechanism.'” The breathless reporting from papers rushing to get their ‘exclusives’ out tells you how much the lobby is a poodle to No10…
Readouts fired from the top of government last night caused the entire herd of Lobby hacks to type up exactly what they’re told on the phone. The government wants to have a fight over the EU reset right now… it wants to have it known that it is forcing single market alignment through because it thinks that will make it popular…
The Guardian reported the same thing as the FT – three weeks later – and claimed an ‘exclusive.’ Every other outlet followed suit. A No10 SpAd telling you something on the blower that’s already public does not a scoop make…
Some hacks have realised their mistake. Pippa Crerar posted on X today after the Guardian made a song and dance of its fake exclusive: “Keir Starmer confirms our stories in recent weeks that government wants power to sign up to EU single market rules *without* normal parliamentary vote.” Embarrassing…
Speaking at an IPPR think tank event in London, the Health Secretary compared striking junior doctors to mutinous sailors.
“I feel like we’ve turned the ship, the boat’s going in the right direction, except some of the crew are trying to row in one direction while the rest of us are going in the other. You can’t make progress that way. We are seeing an improving NHS, and we’ve seen improvement despite resident doctors’ strikes, but the fact is, performance would have been better and there would have been more money to invest in staff and services if the BMA hadn’t been undertaking the strike action.”