Sunak denies Conservatives wasted police time with Rayner complaints, saying ‘police are independent of government’
Rishi Sunak has denied that Conservative calls to investigate Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner had been a waste of police time.
Speaking from Cornwall, the prime minister said “the police are independent of government. It’s for them to decide, you know, who and what they’re investigating”.
On 19 May the chief constable of the police force examining the claims, Stephen Watson, told the Guardian it was a letter from the Conservative deputy chair, James Daly, that led to his force reversing an initial decision not to investigate.
Sunak, who in recent years has been fined for breaching Covid regulations and for not wearing a seatbelt, and who also defended Suella Braverman after the then home secretary asked civil servants to help her with a speeding fine, added “my understanding is that they’ve passed on a file to HMRC and the tax authorities which again are independent of government.”
Sunak went on to say:
Actually when it comes to Angela Rayner, what people should know is if Labour are elected into power, Angela Rayner is someone who voted against our nuclear deterrent, at a time when the world is more dangerous than it has been at any point since the end of the cold war.
And she is committed to introducing French-style union laws back into our country. And all that will do is cost jobs and damage our economic recovery.
And that’s the choice at this election. Do we build on the progress we’ve made with the economy, inflation down, the economy growing, wages rising? Or do we go back to square one with Labour. It’s the same old Labour party. Union laws that will cost jobs and damage the recovery and putting up your taxes. That’s what Angela Rayner represents.
On Tuesday the Conservatives published a campaign graphic saying Rayner was “under investigation for serious tax avoidance”. She was cleared of any wrongdoing hours later.
Threat 3: Angela Rayner
🏠 Under police investigation for serious tax avoidance
🇫🇷 Plans to burden businesses with £41bn a year of extra costs with French-style Union laws
⚠️ Voted against renewing our nuclear deterrentThreat level: Serious.
4/7 pic.twitter.com/LmSbaAPmKb
— Conservatives (@Conservatives) May 27, 2024
Key events
Keir Starmer has accused Rishi Sunak of disrespecting NHS staff. Speaking to medical students at Three Counties Medical school, he spoke about problems with staff morale in the health service. He said:
We need to lift the workforce up. There are things you can do straight away, like respect and dignity of the workforce. And I don’t know what you feel, but if I were you and working in the NHS, and I had the prime minister simply blaming the NHS for the problems, rather than taking responsibility as a prime minister, it would go a long way.
Because you can’t sort of clap our carers and key workers during the pandemic and then turn round when you’re challenged – as the prime minister does on the NHS – and say it’s not my fault, it’s the NHS staff. That is really disrespectful.
So that needs to be in place. We need to take the pressure down, which is where the waiting list comes down. Because it’s very difficult to feel uplifted in your job if you know there’s a waiting list that’s getting bigger and bigger, because it’s worrying, it takes all the time and energy.
Here are a couple of pictures from this event featuring Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting.
They are taking questions from an audience of mostly medical students.
Keir Starmer has said he would intend to lead a “government of service”, saying that “I think too many politicians these days have become a bit too self-entitled, a bit too fond of the sound of their own voice.”
Starmer: ‘Unforgiveable’ for Conservatives to have left NHS in a worse condition than when they took power
Keir Starmer has said it has been unforgiveable that the Conservatives have, after 14 years, left the NHS in a worse position than when they first came to power.
He opened a talk at the University of Worcester by saying:
It is going to be a clear choice at this election between carrying on with what we’ve had for the last 14 years, which to my mind is chaos and division and failure.
And I include the NHS in that, and it breaks my heart frankly, as the party that set up the NHS, and with so many of my family members having contributed to the NHS.
To leave the NHS in a worse state than when you found it, for me, is unforgivable in politics, whichever political party you are. That should never ever happen. And we will absolutely take this challenge up if we are privileged enough to come into power.
Helena Horton
Helena Horton is an environment reporter for the Guardian
Steve Reed, Labour’s shadow environment secretary, has urged Thames Water to “get a grip” and test treatment works “urgently” after it emerged over the weekend that the company had tested the water at only one property.
Over the last two weeks, dozens of people in Beckenham, south-east London, have reported becoming unwell with diarrhoea and vomiting. The symptoms in most cases have lasted for an unusually long time – up to two weeks. They have also been severe, with multiple people hospitalised, including an eight-year-old boy.
Last Wednesday, Thames Water tested the water at the property of one person who had become unwell; the results came back clear. Since then others who are unwell in Beckenham have asked for a test. Thames initially said that since its initial tests came back clear, it did not need to conduct further tests. Thames has also not tested the wider supply or the treatment facilities specifically as a result of this suspected outbreak.
Read more here: Thames Water urged to test supply ‘urgently’ after reported illnesses
Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting are about to start speaking. They are being introduced by the chief executive and vice-chancellor of Worcester university. As a reminder you can watch it here:
Ahead of their campaign event about the NHS, and with news of a new junior doctors strike in England just breaking, it is worth noting that earlier Wes Streeting said Labour would not be able to award a full pay rise to junior doctors “on day one”.
PA report he told viewers of ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
I want to be really upfront with junior doctors this side of the election – the 35% pay claim they’ve put in, I’m just not going to be able to afford that on day one of a Labour government.
We’re going to have to work together and negotiate on pay and recognise, as was the case with the last Labour government who inherited a similar mess, getting to fair pay is a journey not an event, and I am willing to negotiate on pay.
I’m willing to sit down and negotiate on those wider conditions so that junior doctors are genuinely valued and and look forward to a career in the NHS rather than thinking about whether they’re going to stick it out because things are so terrible.
On the BBC Radio 4 Today programme, Streeting was asked about plans to cut NHS waiting lists in England by increasing the weekend workload for NHS staff. He told listeners:
I don’t want people putting in those extra hours if they are exhausted and burned out. That’s not good for them, and it’s not good for patient safety.
I also recognise that one of the retention challenges we have the staff in the NHS is juggling their working patterns alongside a whole range of caring responsibilities outside work, and actually one of the workforce reforms I want to look at is making sure that we can have that flexible and family-friendly approach.
He went on to say that “basic disrespect and lack of care for your staff is not something that I’m willing to tolerate, so we can work together on those workforce reforms, and on the conditions [NHS staff are] working in.”
Streeting kept repeating the phrase across his interviews that voting Conservative on 4 July would “give the matches back to the arsonists.”
Junior doctors in England will strike from 27 June to 2 July as part of their long-running dispute over pay, the British Medical Association has just said.
Also on a train today like Rishi Sunak is SNP leader and first minister of Scotland John Swinney, with Sky News rather ambitiously trying to interview him live on a moving train heading to Fife. They obviously have a better wifi set-up than most Scotrail trains. Swinney was asked about the SNP’s performance in the polls, the disciplinary process surrounding Michael Matheson, and Diane Abbott.
He told viewers, on the polling position, that the SNP had endured “a tough time for the last couple of years”, saying he had been “pretty open about that”. He went on to say:
That’s bearing out in the polls. I’ve got a job to do. I’ve only been SNP leader for three weeks. I’m trying to build things back up. We’re a united force and I’ve got a cohesive team working with me.
On Matheson he said he was concerned about the process. Scotland’s former health secretary is expected to lose his salary for 54 days and be suspended as an MSP after wrongly claiming £11,000 in expenses. Swinney said, commenting on how the decisions appears to have been made and announced to the media before being formally communicated to Matheson:
Would it be tolerable for somebody on a disciplinary panel to pre-judge the case? It just wouldn’t be allowed in any other walk of life. And I think the Scottish parliament has got itself into a really tricky situation.
On Abbott, Swinney echoed his earlier words, saying:
It has been a terrible shame the way in which Diane Abbott has been handled by the Labour party and by Keir Starmer. I remember Diane Abbott when I was in the House of Commons all those years ago, a really distinguished, significant parliamentarian. The first female black member of parliament, who made an outstanding contribution to the House of Commons. So I think she’s been really badly treated and I think it’s been really unfair.
Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting are about to speak about Labour’s NHS policies for England. You can watch it here:
Peter Walker
Our senior political correspondent Peter Walker reports:
Jess Phillips has demanded that Liz Truss be removed as a Conservative candidate after it emerged that the former prime minister will appear on a podcast co-run by a hard right YouTuber who was investigated by police for speculating about whether or not he would rape the Labour MP.
Phillips has written to Rishi Sunak to seek action over Truss’s billed appearance on The Lotus Eaters, a podcast set up by Carl Benjamin, who has expressed misogynist views, and formerly ran an organisation with Tommy Robinson, the far right anti-Muslim activist.
In 2019, when Benjamin stood for the European parliament for Ukip, police investigated comments he made in a YouTube video in which he discussed “whether I would or wouldn’t rape Jess Phillips”.
The Labour MP said that after the comments emerged she had been verbally challenged by a man defending Benjamin as she left parliament.
In her letter to Sunak, published on social media, Phillips said Benjamin had expressed “despicable views about violence against women”.
She wrote: “The impact men like Benjamin have on politics cannot be underestimated. Men like Benjamin make female MPs live in fear, which discourages women from standing in future, weakening our democracy in the process.
“You have a responsibility as leader of your party to uphold high standards among your MPs and candidates, and you have a responsibility as prime minister to foster a safe environment for MPs, particularly female MPs who face ever-increasing rates of abuse and threat.”
She added: “If you have any decency, you will deselect LizTruss as Conservative candidate for South West Norfolk.”
The Conservatives and a representative for Truss were contacted for comment.
Sunak denies Conservatives wasted police time with Rayner complaints, saying ‘police are independent of government’
Rishi Sunak has denied that Conservative calls to investigate Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner had been a waste of police time.
Speaking from Cornwall, the prime minister said “the police are independent of government. It’s for them to decide, you know, who and what they’re investigating”.
On 19 May the chief constable of the police force examining the claims, Stephen Watson, told the Guardian it was a letter from the Conservative deputy chair, James Daly, that led to his force reversing an initial decision not to investigate.
Sunak, who in recent years has been fined for breaching Covid regulations and for not wearing a seatbelt, and who also defended Suella Braverman after the then home secretary asked civil servants to help her with a speeding fine, added “my understanding is that they’ve passed on a file to HMRC and the tax authorities which again are independent of government.”
Sunak went on to say:
Actually when it comes to Angela Rayner, what people should know is if Labour are elected into power, Angela Rayner is someone who voted against our nuclear deterrent, at a time when the world is more dangerous than it has been at any point since the end of the cold war.
And she is committed to introducing French-style union laws back into our country. And all that will do is cost jobs and damage our economic recovery.
And that’s the choice at this election. Do we build on the progress we’ve made with the economy, inflation down, the economy growing, wages rising? Or do we go back to square one with Labour. It’s the same old Labour party. Union laws that will cost jobs and damage the recovery and putting up your taxes. That’s what Angela Rayner represents.
On Tuesday the Conservatives published a campaign graphic saying Rayner was “under investigation for serious tax avoidance”. She was cleared of any wrongdoing hours later.
Threat 3: Angela Rayner
🏠 Under police investigation for serious tax avoidance
🇫🇷 Plans to burden businesses with £41bn a year of extra costs with French-style Union laws
⚠️ Voted against renewing our nuclear deterrentThreat level: Serious.
4/7 pic.twitter.com/LmSbaAPmKb
— Conservatives (@Conservatives) May 27, 2024
Just a little more from Rishi Sunak on Diane Abbott, he was explicitly asked “Should Diane Abbott stand as a Labour candidate in the general election” and Sunak replied “That’s a question for the Labour party. I haven’t been following this whole thing very closely.”
ITV announces Sunak and Starmer will debate head-to-head on 4 June
ITV has announced that Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer will take part in an hour long TV debate at 9pm on Tuesday 4 June moderated by Julie Etchingham. It will take place live in front of a studio audience.
More details soon …
Rishi Sunak has also been talking about the apprenticeship plans during his campaign trip to Cornwall.
Speaking at a train depot in Cornwall, he said:
University is great and it makes a fantastic option for young people, but it’s not the only option. I’m not someone who believes that you have to go to university, and all the apprentices I’ve been talking to this morning are proof of that, describing it as the best decision they ever made.
And what we do know is that there are university degrees that are letting young people down. Independent studies say that around one in five people who are on degrees would have been financially better off not doing them, about one in three graduates are in non-graduate jobs.
So actually we are better off providing those young people with the opportunity of a high-quality apprenticeship. The regulator will be given the powers to look at underperforming degrees, looking at the progression rates, the drop-out rates, the earnings of people on those degrees, and instead we will use that money to fund 100,000 new apprenticeships.”
PA reports that asked to name a specific example of an underperforming degree, Sunak did not do so.
