This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen
on .
It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
Donald Trump calls Trudeau 'two-faced' over footage implying Canadian PM joked about him - live news
Boris Johnson denies joking about Donald Trump at Nato reception – live news
(32 minutes later)
US president says he criticised Canada’s defence spending and suggests Trudeau was unhappy about that
US president says he criticised Canada’s defence spending and suggests Trudeau was unhappy about that
Q: Trump said yesterday he did not know Prince Andrew. But there are lots of photographs of them together. Is Trump an amnesiac or a liar?
Johnson says that is a good effort to get an answer on something that did not come up at the summit.
Q: Did the issue of Turkey’s purchase of Russian missiles come up?
Johnson says this did not come up formally at the meeting.
Q: President Trump wants the UK to take more Islamic State fighters back. Are we going to take them back?
Johnson says our legal system makes it very hard to secure convictions if people return. People must accept the consequences for their choices.
Q: [From the Telegraph] Are you concerned about how the full text of the dossier about the UK-US trade talks become public? (The Telegraph has implied the Russians were involved.)
Johnson says he thought this material had been on the internet for some time. He says he is not concerned about this.
Q: President Trump said every leader had had spoken to here has agreed not to let Huawei play a role in its critical infrastructure. He spoke to you last night. So does that mean the UK will not let Huawei build the 5G network here.
Johnson says he does not want the country to be “unnecessary hostile to invesment from overseas”. But he will not prejudice security. Those principles will decide his approach to Huawei.
This is from the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn on this topic.
Q: Were you joking about President Trump at the reception last night?
Johnson denies it. That suggestion is “complete nonsense”, he says.
Johnson is now taking questions.
Q: President Trump has spoken of his admiration for you. Do you think the president, as a man, is good for the west and good for Britain?
Johnson says America has been a loyal ally to the UK. The alliance has been good for the UK. After the Salisbury poisoning attack, the US expelled 60 Russian diplomats. He contrasts that with the approach taken by Jeremy Corbyn, who wanted to involve Russia in the investigation.
This happened under the current administration, he says.
Johnson sidesteps opportunity to praise Trump personally.
Here is the declaration issued at the end of the Nato conference.
Boris Johnson is giving a press conference at the end of the Nato summit.
He starts with a short speech about the value of Nato.
One of the interesting moment in the ITV leaders’ debate came when Jeremy Corbyn and Boris Johnson were both asked if the monarchy was fit for purpose. Tories assume that Corbyn will always on the royal family agenda (not singing the national anthem damaged him badly), but on this occasion Corbyn said the monarchy needed improvement, and the audience applauded. Johnson said it was beyond reproach, and his reply was met with stony silence. Corbyn gave the right answer - so much so that Johnson resorted a few days later to claiming that, when he had been asked about the monarchy, he had actually been speaking about the monarch (ie, the Queen).
But today Corbyn hasn’t had such a good outing on royal family territory. In an interview with ITV’s Julia Etchingham he was asked if he watched the Queen’s speech on Christmas day. He said that he normally did, although the full exchange suggests otherwise.
ITV has sent out the transcript of the exchange.
It’s not quite Frost/Nixon, although Corbyn would probably have been better off just saying he caught up with the Queen’s speech through the news (if at all), like most of the population.
Here is the clip of President Trump calling Justin Trudeau “two-faced”.
Here is the clip of President Trump calling Justin Trudeau “two-faced”.
Trump says he will not be holding a further press conference. He has done plenty of press conferences, he says.
Trump cancels press conference expected at end of Nato summit.
(That will probably be a relief to No 10.)
Donald Trump criticised Canada for not spending 2% of GDP on defence. He says he called Justin Trudeau, the Canadian PM, about that. He says Trudeau was not happy about that.
He also described Trudeau as “two-faced” over the footage of Trudeau apparently joking about Trump at a reception last night.
And a a final answer to your questions from me ...
Q: What issues do the SNP anticipate in calling another independence referendum in the case of either a returned Tory government, or a new Labour administration? Which would be better for their campaign, is essentially the question. Fighting it out with Johnson or extracting a promise from an incoming PM Corbyn? Chris, Renfrewshire
In the election campaign so far, the SNP has been careful not to entertain any “plan B” talk, should either Labour or Tories refuse to grant the s30 order that Holyrood requires to legally hold a second independence referendum. You may recall that an attempt to debate a plan B was swiftly quashed at SNP conference in October, and Sturgeon herself has insisted that a second indyref must meet the “gold standard” internationally.
Instead, SNP politicians throw the question back to the other parties: who are you to deny the democratic will of the Scottish people? It will depend on next week’s results how powerful that argument is going to be: Sturgeon has described SNP successes at the ballot box as “an instruction to Westminster”.
It’s certainly clear already that Labour don’t want to be seen as anti-democratic, so they are willing to entertain a pro-independence mandate at the next Holyrood elections in 2021 as reason to grant a s30 order. But Johnson has said that he’ll refuse under any circumstances. I think both are good for the campaign now, since they both refuse to grant it next year, which is what Sturgeon says she wants, so it fits well with the narrative of Westminster frustrating Scottish democracy.
Thanks for all your questions today
Next up will be Guardian political correspondent, Kate Proctor. She will be answering any questions you may have about the Brexit party at 12.30pm on Friday. You can ask your question via our form here.
President Trump is speaking to reporters at the end of the Nato summit, at a meeting with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
Trump says he thinks he will solve the trade crisis with China. There must be fairness in trade, he says.
Some interesting questions on different issues from readers here. If you’d like to ask a question in the comments please @Libby or via our form.
Q: Why has reformation of the Gender Recognition Act, present in the 2017 manifesto, been removed in the 2019 manifesto? Is there any explanation or reassurance for trans and non-binary people in Scotland who are alarmed by the signal that this withdrawal sends? Will the results of the publicly funded consultation carried out to gather information for the planned reformation be made available to the taxpayer? Sophie, 29, Edinburgh, software developer
Thanks Sophie, a number of people raised this concern after the manifesto was published, and the Scottish government’s equalities minister Shirley-Anne Somerville sought to reassure them, pointing out that she would be publishing a draft bill following further consultation by the end of the year. But it’s certainly true that this issue has caused a great deal of controversy within the party, with Sturgeon facing a significant amount of push-back on her plans to proceed with a devolved gender recognition act, aimed at streamlining the process by which a transgender person gets legal recognition. The fact that the issue has gone out for consultation twice has alarmed many in the LGBTI community, who saw this as a roll-back from a more solid earlier commitment. But the strength of feeling around the proposals, and the concerns from many women within the party who feel that the impact on equalities legislation and on women-only spaces in particular has not been taken into account , meant that the SG had little option.
Q: This election my vote will go to a party that will legalise cannabis. What is the SNP policy on this? Gavin, Dumfriesshire
Worth noting first of all that drugs laws are reserved to Westminster. Nicola Sturgeon has said that devolution of drug laws is one her key demands should another party seek SNP support for their minority government after the election and the SNP’s manifesto calls for this and - pending devolution - that the UK government should introduce a supervised drug consumption facility in Glasgow. Delegates at the SNP’s autumn conference in Aberdeen in October also backed the decriminalisation of controlled drugs, branding the Misuse Of Drugs Act, which dates back to 1971, as “not fit for purpose”. As you’ll probably know, Scotland is dealing with unprecedented numbers of drug related deaths, and this resolution was linked to attempts to open a safe drugs consumption room in Glasgow, which has so far been blocked by the home office.
Q: What is SNP stand on more support for veterans in Scotland? Anonymous, disabled veteran from service in the Gulf War, Dunfermline
I know that the next Scottish census will include a question about veteran status, a significant change prompted by the British Legion’s campaigning to make it easier to identify and support veterans. I believe that the SNP government was the first UK administration to make this change and also the first to appoint a Veterans’ Commissioner in the autumn of 2018. Practically, there’s support for getting into employment and also for veterans requiring social care, the Scottish Government has exempted the War Disablement Pension from assessment of income – meaning that veterans get the help they need and keep the full value of this pension.
Q: How would a border work between independent-but-in-EU Scotland and out-of-EU England. Would it be a hard border, like the feared one in Scotland? Jack, 29, works in insurance, St Albans
That’s going to be one of the looming questions should there be a second independence referendum campaign, and I’m afraid I can’t give you as much clarity as I’d like at this stage. In 2014, the yes campaign was able to argue that there would be no border between a newly independent Scotland and the rest of the UK because both would remain within the EU. Not so now of course. On The Andrew Marr Show recently, Sturgeon refused to rule out a hard border, saying: “We need to see how things play out and what the final relationship between the UK and the EU will be,” and adding that Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit was not an inevitability.
“As that picture clarifies, I will be honest with the people of Scotland but that opens a situation where Scotland’s best interests depend on being independent and in charge of our own future and I don’t want borders.”
Q: How far into nationalism is the SNP prepared to go? We’ve seen the effects of nationalism in Italy, amongst the far-right in Germany and with the EDL in England as well as with Trump in North America, for but a few examples. Do you consider it a potentially dangerous path to travel? Tim Eslip, middle-aged professional, England
The SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, was questioned on precisely this at the Edinburgh Fringe festival this August, so I think it’s helpful to reproduce her answers at length, since it was the most comprehensive I’ve heard her on this in a while. Asked about the types of nationalism you refer to, she told the audience during an interview with Matt Forde that the “civic nationalism” of the SNP was “on another spectrum altogether” from “far right, racist, insular movements” seen in other parts of the world.
Asked by comedian Matt Forde about Scottish nationalism, Sturgeon said: “A lot of the regimes called nationalist today are not countries striving to be independent, because often they already are, but are based on some kind of racial exceptionalism, or superiority often very illiberal and oppressive of minorities, and Scottish independence is not just at the other end of the spectrum of that, but on another spectrum altogether
Questioned specifically about a protester who had been pictured on the Royal Mile with an “England get out of Scotland” banner, Sturgeon said: “The person with that banner does not speak for the SNP. That kind of sentiment has no place in Scotland. You can’t get to a situation in any party where you say we’ll never attract the wrong kind of person but you can be absolutely vehement and resolute about calling it out. The people who put up that banner, I don’t want them in the SNP.”
This is from Bloomberg’s Sebastian Salek.
I have not seen the text of his speech, but will post more on it when I can track down a copy.
Here’s more on the economics of an independent Scotland ...
Q: Given that GERS (Government Expenditure and Revenue Scotland) for 2018-9 shows a deficit of £12.6bn or 7.7% of Scottish GDP, how would an independent Scotland pay for the extra spending proposals in the SNP manifesto or even current levels of spending. Richard, Australia
Thanks Richard - that’s precisely the question that the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which published an analysis of the SNP’s manifesto spending pledges in the Scotsman this morning, asked. As others have noted, the SNP manifesto was notably slim on costings, and associate director of the IFS David Phillips suggests that this may be because the spending plans would necessitate more, not less, austerity for Scotland if it were to become independent. As I set out in an earlier post on this live blog, Phillips points out that pledges including increasing NHS spending across the UK by £136 per head to close the gap with Scotland, an end to the two-child benefit cap and an increased national living wage, would require significant outlay at a time when an independent Scotland was also starting out with a serious budget deficit.
Phillips adds: “Pursuing the types of policies suggested in the SNP manifesto in an independent Scotland would mean either those cuts would have to be even bigger, or other taxes would have to be increased to pay for the proposed net giveaways ... in the short-term at least, independence would likely necessitate more not less austerity.”
The SNP’s own growth commission report on the economics of independence, which came out in 2018, proposed that the inherited deficit be cut by growing the economy rather than cutting spending. It also said it should delay launching its own currency and introduce tax cuts for migrants. Analysing the report at the time, the IFS commended it for being honest about “the challenging public finance position an independent Scotland would start life with”.
However, it went on to dispute claims that its economic strategy would end austerity, suggesting it in fact implied cuts in spending and benefits equal to 4% of GDP over a 10-year period.
Questioned about Scotland’s notional deficit by Andrew Neil last week, which stands at 7% according to current figures, and whether it could hinder renewed membership of the EU (EU members’ budget deficits must not exceed 3% of GDP) Nicola Sturgeon argued: “Our task is to get our deficit reducing faster. That is principally through growing our economy faster which remaining in the EU or returning to the EU helps us to do.”
My colleague Richard Partington has been factchecking the John McDonnell claim that a Labour government would save families an average of £6,700 a year.
Here is his verdict.
And here is the full article.
According to Joe Murphy and Nicholas Cecil in the Evening Standard, No 10 sources have been keen to insist that Boris Johnson was not one of the world leaders joking about Donald Trump at the reception last night. Here is an extract from their story.
