On Sky News:
“The problem is that there are white people in countless situations who are getting fewer opportunities, who are disadvantaged when it comes to promotion, disadvantaged when it comes to internships, disadvantaged when it comes to the workplace.
We need to start talking about that and levelling the playing field.”
Braverman says protections for minorities should still exist as part of a “a country where everybody, regardless of their race, gender, sexuality or age, is treated on meritocratic grounds, on fairness grounds, not better or worse because of their personal characteristics.” She says this can be done outside of the Equality Act, which she would abolish…
Lisa Nandy on whether Dan Jarvis will get more cash than Healey was offered, Lisa Nandy said on Sky News:
“I don’t know. I don’t know what stage the negotiations had reached when John Healey decided to resign.
I like him and respect him. And I think he will have taken that, not taking that decision lightly. He took that responsibility very seriously.
But I do know that the prime minister has asked every member of the cabinet to look at our own budgets, to make sure that we can increase funding to defence, and that is what we will announce as part of the Defence Investment Plan when we publish it ahead of the NATO summit next month.”
To the BBC she added “discussions are ongoing” in “real time.” Oh boy…
Trevor Phillips: “When will we see the defence investment plan?”
Pat McFadden: “Pretty soon, when it’s ready.”
Trevor Phillips: “What is pretty soon?”
Pat McFadden: “It think it will be more like weeks than months.”
McFadden also backed an inquiry into the SNP-Murrell embezzlement scandal, and said youth employment was “pretty good”…
Nandy hits out at Wes on Kuenssberg:
“I actually think this is just a bit odd… I campaigned for remain, I think it was a mistake… but I don’t really understand why the sudden focus on Europe. We’re already as a government trying to repair in a pragmatic way the enormous damage done by the poor Brexit deal to towns like mine without reopening the circular arguments that we ended up in as a country. And frankly if the answer to all of this was the EU then essentially we’d be saying to people what was going on in 2015 in towns like Wigan was absolutely fine – well I can tell you it wasn’t.”
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”