Housing Secretary Steve Reed has repeatedly stressed on this morning’s media round that the government has ‘ruled out’ imposing a one-year rent freeze. Reed my lips: no rent freeze…
He told Sky News:
“Yeah, I ruled it out in Parliament just a couple of weeks ago… and the reason we’re doing that is the Scottish government tried it… It ended up with one of the biggest increases in rent people have ever seen, and a reduction in the number of homes that are available to rent.”
Which sounds reassuring, but it was also Steve Reed – then Defra Secretary – who was ambushed by Rachel Reeves’ disastrous changes to inheritance tax for farmers at her first Budget. The rent freeze briefing this week came from the Treasury. ‘Fool me once’…
Nigel Farage has said it was a “mistake” to announce last year that Reform would lift the two-child benefit cap for British families. A policy scrapped by Robert Jenrick when he was appointed Reform’s shadow chancellor in February…
Farage said on the Today programme this morning:
“I made a mistake on this. I tried to do something pro-family. That’s obviously impossible in modern Britain. You know, what I said was, I would like British working families where both people are in full-time work to get some tax credits if they had more kids. And you know, for my sins I was accused of being a welfarist, so I’ve had to admit defeat… I was defeated by mass opinion of press, of everybody else…”
He nonetheless insisted he was “right” but “that discussion is over”…
Starmer has won the Privileges Committee vote 335 to 223. Whipped by No10…
A No10 spokesman said: “This Labour government is delivering for Britain including bringing down energy bills, cutting hospital waiting lists and lifting half a million children out of poverty. The Conservative Party resorted to this desperate political stunt the week before the May elections because they have no answers on the cost of living or the NHS. We will continue to engage with the two parliamentary processes that are running on Peter Mandelson’s appointment with full transparency.” ‘Full transparency’…
15 Labour MPs voted to refer:
Apsana Begum
Richard Burgon
Ian Bryne
Mary Kelly Foy
Imran Hussain
Brian Leishman
Emma Lewell
Rebecca Long Bailey
Andy McDonald
John McDonnell
Graham Morris
Luke Myer
Kate Osbourne
Cat Smith
Nadia Whittome
New Green MP Hannah Spencer has doubled down after declaring over the weekend that MPs and parliamentarians in general should not drink in Parliament. In a post on her Instagram today she declared that she ‘loves a blue WKD as much as the next hun.’ Oh boy…
She said:
“Now, I love a blue wicked as much as the next hun. Try and prize one of them out of my hands on a hot day or a night out. Forget it. No chance. Love it. But there are seriously MPs who are trying to tell us that they have a right to get pissed at work.
And that is why they are so out of touch because the vast majority of us could not get away with that. Imagine working in a school or being a cleaner or driving a bus or doing an operation or working in a lab or working in a care home.
If you turned up to work reeking of booze, you would get sacked. That is how the vast majority of us have to live our lives. Why is it different for MPs? I don’t think it’s much to ask that MPs are sober whilst they make the biggest decisions that affect all the rest of us.
And any of them telling you that they have a right to get pissed at work, they’re taking the piss, babe. Remember that at the next election.”
To be fair to Spencer she is new to Parliament and the rigmaroles of constant late-night voting combined with the mindless walking between rooms that the whipping system creates for MPs. You’re not quite “doing an operation” or “working in a lab”…
Spencer added: “I’ve seen them make all sorts of excuses since I made these comments. Apparently because MPs do ‘long hours, lots of stress, late nights’ they should be able to drink whilst working. Every person reading this will know what it’s like to work long hours with lots of stress and late nights…. But you couldn’t get away with drinking in work. So why should MPs?” The Green Party adds another grinch to its ranks…
Every month, we’ll publish the power rankings of all the leading lights in the party based on our readers’ responses. Click here to fill in the survey, and the results will be published at the end of the week. Here’s how last month played out…
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Starmer spoke to Nick Robinson for the Today Programme on Polanski’s criticism of the Golders Green police officers:
“I want everybody just to imagine what it might be like. You’re trying to arrest someone who has already attacked two people and has no regard for life. We know that tasers were fired. I know from my own experience with the police, that there are only two shots in a taser, and once you’ve shot them, there’s nothing left. There’s a guy on the ground, he’s got a rucksack on. And I don’t know what was going through the mind of those officers, but if I was there, I’d be thinking, he’s going to detonate something. He’s going to blow me up and everybody around here. In those circumstances, I think you can quite see why what could have gone through their mind is, we need to do whatever we can to disable this guy…
Now, when I then see Zack Polanski come out and retweet or support a criticism of that, I think it’s disgraceful… He’s not fit to lead any political party.”