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Owen Smith says as leader he would make Corbyn president of Labour – politics live
Owen Smith says as leader he would make Corbyn president of Labour – politics live
(35 minutes later)
10.14am BST
10:14
Smith said the worst thing that happened to him recently was when he went to watch the Wales v Belgium game at the pub. He met someone he had known since childhood who asked why he wanted to be Labour leader. He said he was alarmed by how the reputation of the party had fallen.
And that’s it.
As promised earlier, I will post a summary of Smith’s morning media blitz soon.
10.10am BST
10:10
Smith said he would be radical as leader. He was on the left of the party, and would supply radical solutions.
10.09am BST
10:09
Q: You could split the Labour party?
Smith said he thought the Labour party would be more likely to split if Corbyn won.
That was why Corbyn had to compromise, Smith said. He said he had told him, “compromise, man”. Corbyn could become the Labour party president, he said.
Q: How likely is a split?
If Labour carries on like this, it will split, Smith said. That is why he is standing, he said.
Smith said he heard there would be only three head-to-head hustings. Smith said he wanted 300.
10.06am BST
10:06
Q: Does Labour have a problem with women?
Smith said he thought there had been a problem recently with misogyny and antisemitism. Some women have been subject to appalling abuse, he said. Often these were criminal acts. They needed to be treated with zero tolerance.
He says Corbyn should have stamped down on this much harder. Some people even think Corbyn has encouraged it, he said.
Q: Do you think that?
Smith said he did not know. But he thought Corybn had to stamp it out.
10.04am BST
10:04
Q: What have you achieved politically?
Smith said he got the government to U-turn over tax credit cuts and over the cuts to personal independence payments.
He said he played a part in getting rid of Iain Duncan Smith.
Q: Jeremy Corbyn claims credit for that.
Smith said he did not get a lot of guidance from Corbyn on those campaigns.
He repeated the point about a panel of advisers, saying it would be “an additional shadow cabinet”, giving him advice from the grassroots.
10.02am BST
10:02
Q: Isn’t your candidature a kick in the teeth for Labour members?
No, said Smith. He wants a Labour government, not just a protest movement.
He said he was just as radical as Corbyn, but he could turn slogans into solutions.
He said he would set up a “senate” of advisers to advise him if he were leader of the Labour party.
Michael Gove said he was sick of experts, Smith said. But Smith said he was not sick of experts.
Updated
at 10.10am BST
9.58am BST
09:58
Q: Why did you call yourself “normal”, in what was seen as a jibe at Angela Eagle?
Smith said that remark was taken out of context. It was never intended as a comment on Eagle.
9.57am BST
09:57
Smith said Britain could not afford not to invest.
Q: You have been accused a being a flip-flopper. You were a Blairite. Now you are praising Corbyn.
Smith said that was wrong. He was a conviction politician. His political awakening came during the miners’ strike. But, as John Prescott said, you need to modernise who you implement your values.
Q: Would you nationalise the steel industry.
Smith said he would consider that.
Q: Would you end the charitable status of private schools?
Smith said he would look at tha.
Q: Would you back Hinkley Point?
Yes, said Smith.
Q: Women-only carriages on trains? (This was an idea vaguely floated by Corbyn last year, but subsequently dropped).
Smith said that was a bad idea.
9.54am BST
9.54am BST
09:54
09:54
Owen Smith's interview on the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire show.
Owen Smith's interview on the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire show.
A few minutes ago Owen Smith finished a lengthy interview on BBC News, with Norman Smith and then Victoria Derbyshire. Here are some of the highlights. (I’ll leave out the answers that replicate things he said in his earlier interviews.
A few minutes ago Owen Smith finished a lengthy interview on BBC News, with Norman Smith and then Victoria Derbyshire. Here are some of the highlights. (I’ll leave out the answers that replicate things he said in his earlier interviews.
Smith said Jeremy Corbyn had “great Labour values”, and had taught the party to understand its radical roots.
Smith said Jeremy Corbyn had “great Labour values”, and had taught the party to understand its radical roots.
Q: So are you just a more plausible, media-savvy Jeremy Corbyn.
Q: So are you just a more plausible, media-savvy Jeremy Corbyn.
No, said Smith. He said he was Owen Smith.
No, said Smith. He said he was Owen Smith.
He said Corbyn had been great at slogans. Labour needed to be great at solutions.
He said Corbyn had been great at slogans. Labour needed to be great at solutions.
He said Labour should be proposing a £200bn fund to invest in infrastructure.
He said Labour should be proposing a £200bn fund to invest in infrastructure.
9.36am BST
9.36am BST
09:36
09:36
Unemployment falls by 54,000
Unemployment falls by 54,000
Here are the headline unemployment figures.
Here are the headline unemployment figures.
And here is the Office for National Statistics bulletin with the full details.
And here is the Office for National Statistics bulletin with the full details.
9.26am BST
9.26am BST
09:26
09:26
UK to give up its presidency of the EU in 2017
UK to give up its presidency of the EU in 2017
Downing Street has just announced that Theresa May has told Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, that Britain will relinquish its six-month presidency of the EU in the second half of 2017.
Downing Street has just announced that Theresa May has told Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, that Britain will relinquish its six-month presidency of the EU in the second half of 2017.
That was expected. The country that has the presidency of the EU gets considerable influence over the items on the agenda for European Council meetings, and the idea of the UK being in charge when it was simultaneously negotiating Brexit always seemed unsustainable.
That was expected. The country that has the presidency of the EU gets considerable influence over the items on the agenda for European Council meetings, and the idea of the UK being in charge when it was simultaneously negotiating Brexit always seemed unsustainable.
9.06am BST
9.06am BST
09:06
09:06
Q: Who said six months ago that Jeremy Corbyn would be taking the party into the election, “end of”.
Q: Who said six months ago that Jeremy Corbyn would be taking the party into the election, “end of”.
That was me, says Smith. Corbyn had a stonking majority. He is a great Labour person with convictions. But no one out there thinks Corbyn will win an election.
That was me, says Smith. Corbyn had a stonking majority. He is a great Labour person with convictions. But no one out there thinks Corbyn will win an election.
Q: What if he wins?
Q: What if he wins?
Smith says he will still be Labour. It is Labour or nothing for me, he says. He says he would serve Labour from the backbenches.
Smith says he will still be Labour. It is Labour or nothing for me, he says. He says he would serve Labour from the backbenches.
He says people should vote for him in order to unite Labour.
He says people should vote for him in order to unite Labour.
Q: It has been reported that, when you were working as a journalist, you were asked to get a comment from the police and you called 999.
Q: It has been reported that, when you were working as a journalist, you were asked to get a comment from the police and you called 999.
Smith says that is embarrassing. He was a cub researcher. He does not think he called 999, but he did call a police hotline, he says.
Smith says that is embarrassing. He was a cub researcher. He does not think he called 999, but he did call a police hotline, he says.
And that’s it.
And that’s it.
Smith has given a series of interviews this morning. Claire has already covered some of them, but I will pull together a summary soon.
Smith has given a series of interviews this morning. Claire has already covered some of them, but I will pull together a summary soon.
9.03am BST
9.03am BST
09:03
09:03
Q: When you worked for Pfizer, you said you believed in choice. Does that mean you believe in part-privatisation of the NHS?
Q: When you worked for Pfizer, you said you believed in choice. Does that mean you believe in part-privatisation of the NHS?
No, says Smith. He says he was brought up on tales of the founding of the NHS.
No, says Smith. He says he was brought up on tales of the founding of the NHS.
He says the question refers to a press released about a report commissioned before he started working for Pfizer. He says the then Labour government was using private providers to clear waiting lists. The current Tory government has taken the use of the private sector further.
He says the question refers to a press released about a report commissioned before he started working for Pfizer. He says the then Labour government was using private providers to clear waiting lists. The current Tory government has taken the use of the private sector further.
Q: It says here choice is a good thing. Was is it good then, but bad now?
Q: It says here choice is a good thing. Was is it good then, but bad now?
Smith says that was referring to limited use of the private sector to clear backlogs.
Smith says that was referring to limited use of the private sector to clear backlogs.
But the last Labour government did not realise how employing private provision in the NHS could be exploited by the Tories.
But the last Labour government did not realise how employing private provision in the NHS could be exploited by the Tories.
9.00am BST
9.00am BST
09:00
09:00
Owen Smith's LBC interview
Owen Smith's LBC interview
Owen Smith, the Labour leadership contender, is on LBC now.
Owen Smith, the Labour leadership contender, is on LBC now.
He says the Labour party is being seen as a bit of a rabble now.
He says the Labour party is being seen as a bit of a rabble now.
Owen Smith: "We have a Labour Party in crisis. Everyone knows that. People look at us and see a bit of a rabble."
Owen Smith: "We have a Labour Party in crisis. Everyone knows that. People look at us and see a bit of a rabble."
Q: You said at your launch Labour needed to be pro-prosperity. What does that mean?
Q: You said at your launch Labour needed to be pro-prosperity. What does that mean?
Smith says it means there needs to be a plan for investment.
Smith says it means there needs to be a plan for investment.
Anyone who has worked in business, “like me”, knows you have to invest, he says.
Anyone who has worked in business, “like me”, knows you have to invest, he says.
Q: How would you afford that?
Q: How would you afford that?
Smith says the government should issue gilts.
Smith says the government should issue gilts.
Updated
Updated
at 9.07am BST
at 9.07am BST
8.48am BST
8.48am BST
08:48
08:48
Andrew Sparrow
Andrew Sparrow
Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Claire.
Good morning. I’m Andrew Sparrow, taking over from Claire.
Oliver Letwin, who left the cabinet last week after six years as David Cameron’s chief policy coordinator, has announced that he will stand down as an MP at the next election, his local paper, the Dorset Echo, reports. He wants to spend more time with his family.
Oliver Letwin, who left the cabinet last week after six years as David Cameron’s chief policy coordinator, has announced that he will stand down as an MP at the next election, his local paper, the Dorset Echo, reports. He wants to spend more time with his family.
8.26am BST
08:26
Nick Clegg, having weighed in to demand a general election before Brexit actually happens, begins his new job today as the Liberal Democrats’ official spokesman for Brexit. Well, on Brexit. The Lib Dems are not “for”.
Here’s what Clegg – who didn’t take a frontbench role in Tim Farron’s team after stepping down as leader last year – has to say about his new role:
Theresa May says Brexit means Brexit but no one actually knows what that means. Will we be in the single market or cut off from it, with all the implications that has for British jobs and our economy? What does it mean for immigration? What about the Brits who live abroad and the Europeans who have made our country their home? How will we co-operate with our neighbours to tackle terrorism, cross-border crime and climate change?
With no meaningful opposition from the Labour party, no exit plan from the government, Whitehall unprepared for the Brexit negotiations, and above all, Theresa May’s refusal to seek a mandate from the people for what is in effect a new government, there is a real risk that she and her Brexit ministers won’t be subject to the scrutiny and accountability which voters deserve.
Whatever your views on Brexit, it is in everyone’s interest to make sure what happens next is debated openly and scrutinised properly. So I want to make clear that we will work openly and collaboratively with people of all parties and none who believe that Britain must remain an open economy and a tolerant, outward-looking nation.
8.16am BST
08:16
My colleague Kate Connolly offers this perspective from Berlin on today’s meeting between Theresa May and Angela Merkel:
When Merkel made her first visit to the UK as newly elected German chancellor in 2005, she was quickly referred to as Germany’s Margaret Thatcher. No one makes such a comparison any more. Instead May is referred to as Britain’s Merkel and it has even been suggested has modelled herself on her German counterpart, not least in her maiden speech in which she expressed her wish to ‘make Britain a country that works for everyone’, which had strong echoes of Merkel’s social market tendencies …
In a nod to the potential convivial relationship the two women might have, as well as their unlikely rises through the ranks of male-dominated conservative parties, a Berliner Zeitung cartoon depicted them drinking cups of tea, with Merkel telling May ‘Simply let the men get on with their thing …’ and May, fresh from taking over from David Cameron, finishing her sentence with ‘… and then you end up getting their jobs!’.
(That noise you can hear is my eyebrow hitting my hairline at that “their jobs” comment.)
Read the full article here:
Related: May meets Merkel: historic encounter dominated by Brexit
8.10am BST
08:10
Seeing as we’re talking about Owen Smith’s 2005 comments, here’s one from Jeremy Corbyn in 2003, courtesy of Private Eye:
From Private Eye: Jeremy Corbyn gets his wish at last pic.twitter.com/C9U06SZ6fx
7.59am BST
07:59
Owen Smith says he would make Corbyn Labour party president if he became leader
Smith says if elected, he would offer Jeremy Corbyn a job: a role as president or chairman of Labour, he suggests would suit him. But he’s just not a leader, Smith insists.
Updated
at 9.28am BST
7.58am BST
07:58
Questioning turns to Smith’s time as a lobbyist for pharmaceutical firms including Pfizer.
He says its “clearly not true” that he wanted private providers to take over more of the NHS. He did not commission the report in question, he maintains.
I’ve never advocated privatisation of the NHS …
There are already many services in the NHS provided by the private sector, adding that the last Labour government made a mistake with its steps towards privatisation, introducing a “Trojan horse” for the Tory government to take it further.
7.55am BST
07:55
Owen Smith on the Today programme
Owen Smith has now made his way on to the Today programme.
We do need a radical, left Labour party that has a clear sense of what it’s about … I will provide that because those are my politics.
But he says they need to provide “powerful opposition” and to be a government-in-waiting: that’s not what voters see right now, he says.
That’s why people have lost faith in Jeremy … Jeremy’s been great at identifying some of the questions, some of the challenges, but he’s not been great at the answers.
Anti-austerity, Smith says, is just a slogan at the moment. He proposes a £200bn investment programme, funded through the government, to build infrastructure including schools, railways, 300,000 houses a year.
Jeremy Corbyn’s never spelt out what he wants to spend … It’s time for Labour to start offering more than slogans.
7.42am BST
07:42
The Telegraph reports that Theresa May will move into Downing Street this week – having begun her tenure at No 10 by commuting in each day:
Mrs May agreed a timetable with David Cameron after she took over the residence following Andrea Leadsom’s unexpected decision to stand down from the leadership race.
It is thought that the speed of the change meant Mr Cameron and his family needed more time to pack their belongings and removal vans were spotted in the street over the weekend.
May will, in fact, live in No 11, while chancellor Philip Hammond takes the smaller (it’s all relative) No 10 residence, following the pattern set by the Camerons and Osbornes.
7.30am BST
07:30
A confession: I can’t see Owen Smith on ITV’s Good Morning Britain right now, but I assume – and hope – that this question was asked in relation to Smith’s past employment at Pfizer:
NEW: Have you tried viagra? "I haven't, I've never needed it" @OwenSmith_MP, man who wants to be next Labour Leader talking to @PiersMorgan.
7.27am BST
07:27
Labour challenger Owen Smith is hurtling from studio to studio this morning, and right now he’s on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
He did once, he admits, when working as a researcher on the BBC’s Today programme, call 999 to get a comment from the police on a story: “We all do daft things when we’re young.”
Owen Smith tells @GMB on calling 999 to get a comment from police: "There was a bit of a culture of bullying, I made a very silly decision."
7.01am BST
07:01
Morning briefing
Claire Phipps
Good morning and welcome to our daily politics live blog. Here’s your morning briefing to wake you up and switch you on to the day’s key news, before the live blog guides you through it all.
Do come and share thoughts and questions in the comments below, or find me on Twitter: @Claire_Phipps.
The big picture
After a break-up she didn’t want, Theresa May heads to Berlin today to meet German chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss the divorce terms. They’ll talk Brexit negotiations and the delicate timetabling of article 50, after which we’ll be treated to pictures of their shoes and analyses of their jackets or some such rubbish.
Still, let’s cheer ourselves up with the prospect of a top-level political meeting that passes the Bechdel test.
May will be taking her Brexit-means-Brexit banner with her to the meeting with Merkel, and on Thursday with French president François Hollande:
I am determined that Britain will make a success of leaving the European Union and that’s why I have decided to visit Berlin and Paris so soon after taking office.
I do not underestimate the challenge of negotiating our exit from the EU and I firmly believe that being able to talk frankly and openly about the issues we face will be an important part of a successful negotiation.
Germany’s foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier – who’ll be on his way to Washington as May goes to Berlin – is urging haste along with that frankness and openness:
I think we can expect that Britons will act as quickly as possible to end this period of uncertainty in Britain and in Europe.
Despite Brexit, we need the cooperation with Britain in our international relations, particularly in these times of crisis.
Those personalities that campaign for Brexit are now obligated and responsible to make the decision a reality.
Here’s one of those personalities, the new foreign secretary Boris Johnson, not feeling obligated to make amends for previous statements about “the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire” (that’s Barack Obama, by the way) or likening Hillary Clinton to “a sadistic nurse in a mental hospital”. Diplomacy is such a yawn, isn’t it?
Oh my. AP reporter Brad Klapper lays it in to Boris Johnson. Quite the question. https://t.co/jd638DmDfx
Meanwhile, back at Westminster
May will host her first PMQs at noon against – *checks news* – Jeremy Corbyn, still the leader of the opposition, despite the efforts of his own opposition.
That unity candidate has been chosen now, and it’s Owen Smith, who secured the backing of more MPs and MEPs than challenger number one, Angela Eagle – 90 for Smith v 72 for Eagle, according to Guardian calculations. Eagle has stepped out but insists she remains “in lockstep together” with Smith to oust Corbyn.
Smith, perhaps having decided that “I am normal” isn’t the most inspiring of rallying cries, made a fresh appeal:
I want to say to all members of the Labour party tonight, young and old, longstanding and new members: I can be your champion. I am just as radical as Jeremy Corbyn.
But, ask some, how radical was Smith when he worked as a lobbyist in the pharmaceutical industry before becoming an MP in 2010? That depends on your definition of radical, perhaps, with the Times reporting today:
In October 2005, commenting on a Pfizer-backed report into offering patients a choice between NHS services and private-sector healthcare providers, Mr Smith said: ‘We believe that choice is a good thing and that patients and healthcare professionals should be at the heart of developing the agenda.’
Smith’s campaign responded:
Owen has been crystal clear that he is 100% committed to a fully publicly owned NHS, free at the point of use. He has repeatedly argued passionately for this.
Would-be Labour influencers have until 5pm Wednesday to register (and shell out £25) to vote in the leadership bout.
You should also know:
Diary
Read these
The latest in the Guardian’s Europe after Brexit series shines a light on France, where the far-right has seen an opportunity in the UK’s vote to leave the EU.
Sam Bright, writing in the New Statesman, says the major parties ought to keep an eye on a refreshed Ukip:
Farage’s doom-mongering about repressed wages, overwhelmed public services and burgeoning crime is being supplanted by a positive message focused on opportunity and success. Ukip is casting off its petulant whinging and is starting to evolve into a grown-up political party.
Yet, even as it crafts a more professional, forward-thinking image, Ukip will retain its hero status as the anti-establishment victor of the referendum. Thus, if the Tories’ centre-ground pitch proves to be a rhetorical illusion, Ukip will surely entice those who are attracted by the promise of social mobility, but are fed up with the backsliding of mainstream politicians.
More of a “saving you from reading” choice, as Sarah Vine’s return to her Daily Mail column swerves the only issue we want to hear about, but offers this harrumph:
An infuriating new cliche has entered the vernacular: ‘life chances’. It crops up everywhere, from interviews with politicians to reports by charities, and has no meaning other than to ostentatiously display the user’s social conscience.
All I can say is this: the next person who says it to me may find theirs drastically curtailed.
Would it be churlish to point Vine in the direction of this speech by Michael Gove, when education secretary?
The essence of this attack is a belief that teaching cannot actually make that much of a difference to the life chances of children.
And from the same speech:
Why do these schools succeed, transforming poor children’s lives and life chances, for good?
Hmmm of the day
“Politics is not a game,” May told her new cabinet on Tuesday, sitting next to the foreign secretary, Boris Johnson.
Celebrity parallel-drawing of the day
Ralph Fiennes, currently appearing as Richard III at London’s Almeida theatre, sees some modern-day reflections of Shakespeare’s scheming king:
Michael Gove is closest. Because all those protestations about ‘I could never lead, it’s not in my DNA to lead’ – that’s classic Richard.
Director Rupert Goold admitted he’d originally had a different character in mind:
I thought Boris is this figure who is physically strange and yet sexually predatory and potent, inherently comic, outside the rules, of questionable motives, ultimately ambitious. It was going to be very crude ... Milibands as princes in the tower.
The day in a tweet
The Big Brother contestants found out that Theresa May is our PM last night. It went as well as you would expect. pic.twitter.com/ivWvWJRi0I
If today were a GCSE German question
It would be wie komme ich am besten zum Brexit, bitte?
And another thing
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