Keir Starmer will go into meeting with Chinese president with ‘eyes wide open’, says minister
Good morning. Keir Starmer is in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil for the G20 summit, where later today he will become the first UK prime minister in six years to meet the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. As Jessica Elgot reports, Starmer says he wants “a pragmatic and serious relationship” with China.
But, inevitably, not everyone is happy. The Daily Mail is splashing on criticism of the meeting from some Tories. When David Cameron was PM, he cultivated Xi with an eagerness and enthusiasm that makes Starmer look quite hostile towards China by comparison, but over the past decade Tory thinking about China has changed considerably, and the Mail story quotes Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former leader, saying “those suffering genocide and slave labour under the brutal hands of Xi will feel betrayed.”
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has been doing an interview round this morning. Speaking on Sky News, she defended Starmer’s decision to meet Xi. She said he would be going into the meeting with his “eyes wide open”. She explained:
China is a major player both in terms of the economy but also in the [UN] security council so it is right that we have that engagement, but that we do so on a pragmatic basis where we go into it with our eyes wide open.
That does mean there will be challenge, constructive challenge, and there will be areas of profound disagreement.
Here is the agenda for the day.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
1.30pm: Philip Barton, permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee.
Afternoon: Starmer is in Rio de Janeiro, where most of the G20 events will take place in the afternoon or evening UK time.
2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
3.15pm: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, chairs a meeting of the UN security council on Sudan.
After 3.30pm: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is expected to give a statement to MPs about plans to crack down on profiteering by firms running care home for children.
4pm: Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, gives evidence to the Lords international agreements committee.
Also, at some point today, Steve Reed, the environment secretary, is meeting Tom Bradshaw, the NFU president. Tomorrow farmers are holding a major protest in London about the government’s plans to subject some farms to inheritance tax.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X because the site has become too awful. But individual Guardian journalists are still there, I have still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary. I was trying Threads for a bit, but I am stepping back from that because it’s not a good platform for political news.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Key events
If you are looking for something a bit lighter to break things up this morning, Simon Hattenstone’s interview with the former Tory MP, and newbie reality TV star, Jacob Rees-Mogg is a good read.
Assisted dying bill ‘doomed’ if government does not allocate more time for debate after second reading, experts claim
In her Today interview Harriet Harman, the former Labour deputy leader, claimed that Keir Starmer and Lucy Powell, the leader of the Commons, have both said that the assisted dying bill will get “as much time as it needs” for detailed, line-by-line debate, if it passes the second reading vote on Friday week. She said:
I do not think the government is showing any signs of wanting to restrict the debate. It then goes to the Lords … The only time constraint is this needs to be finished by November next year.
But on the same programme Nikki da Costa, a former Tory adviser who was director of legislative affairs in Downing Street under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, said she thought Harman was wrong. She pointed out that the bill is much longer than private members’ bills (PMBs) normally are, but that the time allocated for it is just the standard PMB slot. She said only five hours have been set aside for report stage. If MPs cannot get through all the amendments in that time, the bill will go “to the back of the queue”, she said. Some MPs have asked the government to allocate extra time. But da Costa pointed that that Starmer, at PMQs last week, and Powell, at business questions on Thursday, have both refused to accept that is needed.
Da Costa’s assessment is in line with the assessment of the Hansard Society, the thinktank focusing on parliamentary matters. In its latest Parliamentary Matters podcast, Ruth Fox, the Hansard Society director, and Mark D’Arcy, the former BBC journalist, discuss at length why, even if it gets a second reading, the bill will struggle to get through parliament without the government giving it extra time. “If the government isn’t going to move to provide more time for this bill, frankly it’s doomed,” D’Arcy says. Fox agrees.
There is a transcript of the podcast here.
Tom Watson defends Streeting’s right to speak out on assisted dying bill after Harriet Harman says he ‘crossed the line’
Harriet Harman, the former Labour party deputy leader, used an interview on the Today programme this morning to criticise Wes Streeting, the health secretary, for his stance on the assisted dying bill. Echoing comments she made in an interview with the Observer, she said:
I do think that [Streeting has] crossed the line and has given the impression that the government is not neutral …
If government ministers, especially the secretary of state, for health, if they speak out, then the government’s position of neutrality is compromised. Individual MPs will be feeling as if they have to support the government or be against the government, and this principle of neutrality on moral issues is very important.
Tom Watson, another former deputy Labour leader who, like Harman, is now in the House of Lords, criticised her comments. In posts on social media this morning, he said that he has changed his mind on assisted dying, and is now in favour. But he also defended Streeting’s right to speak out on this matter.
1/ After opposing assisted dying in the Commons a decade ago, I was convinced to change my view by a constituent while serving as an MP. Their story stayed with me and shaped my perspective. #AssistedDyingBill
2/ Today, I deeply admire the work of Kim Leadbeater and will support her bill. The proposed safeguards are thoughtful, thorough, and, if anything, more restrictive than I had anticipated. #TerminallyIllAdultsBill
3/ I am surprised to see my House of Lords colleague, Harriet Harman, making media appearances in recent days criticising Health Secretary Wes Streeting. He is doing his job and is entitled to his position.
4/ MPs should absolutely be made aware of the practicalities of new legislation. That is the essence of good governance and responsible debate. #AssistedDying
5/ I sincerely hope campaigners for the Bill focus on dialogue, not confrontation. Shouting down proper debate risks deterring those, like me, who have considered and changed their stance. #OpenDebate
Amnesty International UK has urged Keir Starmer to raise the case of Jimmy Lai, the pro-democracy activist and British national imprisoned in Hong Kong, when he meets the Chinese president, Xi Jinping.
Amnesty’s chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said:
The appalling state of human rights across China must be top of the agenda, including raising alarm about the industrial-scale repression of ethnic minorities in Xinjiang and Tibet, the crushing of press freedom and hounding of activists and critics in Hong Kong and China.
Prime Minister Starmer must also be clear that China’s campaign of terrorising students and campaigners here in the UK will not be tolerated.
Nigel Farage is leader with most voters who like him, but Green’s Carla Denyer has highest net approval rating, poll suggests
Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, has more voters who like him than any other leading politician – but also more who dislike him than most other leading figures, according to polling from Ipsos.
The figures show that 28% of people have a favourable view of him – but 48% have an unfavourable view of him, giving him a net score of -20.
Keir Starmer’s net score is -29, and Rachel Reeves’ is -32. Kemi Badenoch has a net score of -18, but this could be partly because fewer people have a firm view about her one way or the other.
The same factor applies to the Green party co-leaders, Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay, and the Lib Dem leader, Ed Davey, who all have much higher net approval ratings than the other people included in the Ipsos survey. On this measure, Denyer is the most popular leader (with a net score of -9), followed by Ramsay and Davey (both on -10).
Last week similar polling by YouGov presented a very similar picture.
Commenting on the figures, Keiran Pedley, director of UK politics at Ipsos, said:
These numbers show that politicians are not a popular bunch in Britain right now, with more Britons holding unfavourable opinions than favourable for all of the ones on our list. Nigel Farage has the highest proportion favourable overall, but it remains to be seen whether he can convert that into increased support for Reform UK moving forward.
Education secretary Bridget Phillipson says she is opposed to assisted dying bill
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has said is opposed to the private member’s bill that would allow assisted dying.
Asked for her stance on the bill, which will be debated in the Commons on Friday week, Phillipson said:
As you’ll know, the government takes a neutral position on this, so it’s for individual members of parliament to arrive at their own conclusion, to come to their own view.
Back in 2015 when this was last before parliament, I voted against the measure, and in that time, I haven’t changed my mind.
Asked why she was opposed to the bill, Phillipson said that she did not want to give too much detail, because the government as a whole is neutral on the bill, and so ministers are not meant to be trying to sway the argument. She said she was worried about people being coerced into taking their own life. But she acknowledged that supporters of the bill believe it contains safeguards that would address this problem.
Peter Walker has the full story here.
In her interview with Sky News this morning Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, was asked if the UK would follow Joe Biden in giving Ukraine permission to use missiles to attack targets in Russia. She replied:
The prime minister and the defence secretary will always keep under review what the Ukrainian government asked of us by way of support.
We have provided considerable military assistance to the Ukrainian people in their fight against that terrible Russian aggression that we have seen, and as we come up to that 1,000 days of the conflict, it’s more stark than ever what the Ukrainian people have had to go through.
It is thought that Starmer has been in favour of allowing Ukraine to fire Storm Shadow missiles at targets in Russia for some time, although the PM has not said that publicly. The missiles are made jointly made by the British and the French, but to attack targets in Russia they would need access to a US missile guidance system.
As Dan Sabbagh explains, the Biden decision reportedly applies to US-made Atacms rockets.
Keir Starmer will go into meeting with Chinese president with ‘eyes wide open’, says minister
Good morning. Keir Starmer is in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil for the G20 summit, where later today he will become the first UK prime minister in six years to meet the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. As Jessica Elgot reports, Starmer says he wants “a pragmatic and serious relationship” with China.
But, inevitably, not everyone is happy. The Daily Mail is splashing on criticism of the meeting from some Tories. When David Cameron was PM, he cultivated Xi with an eagerness and enthusiasm that makes Starmer look quite hostile towards China by comparison, but over the past decade Tory thinking about China has changed considerably, and the Mail story quotes Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the former leader, saying “those suffering genocide and slave labour under the brutal hands of Xi will feel betrayed.”
Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has been doing an interview round this morning. Speaking on Sky News, she defended Starmer’s decision to meet Xi. She said he would be going into the meeting with his “eyes wide open”. She explained:
China is a major player both in terms of the economy but also in the [UN] security council so it is right that we have that engagement, but that we do so on a pragmatic basis where we go into it with our eyes wide open.
That does mean there will be challenge, constructive challenge, and there will be areas of profound disagreement.
Here is the agenda for the day.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
1.30pm: Philip Barton, permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, gives evidence to the Commons foreign affairs committee.
Afternoon: Starmer is in Rio de Janeiro, where most of the G20 events will take place in the afternoon or evening UK time.
2.30pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
3.15pm: David Lammy, the foreign secretary, chairs a meeting of the UN security council on Sudan.
After 3.30pm: Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, is expected to give a statement to MPs about plans to crack down on profiteering by firms running care home for children.
4pm: Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, gives evidence to the Lords international agreements committee.
Also, at some point today, Steve Reed, the environment secretary, is meeting Tom Bradshaw, the NFU president. Tomorrow farmers are holding a major protest in London about the government’s plans to subject some farms to inheritance tax.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X because the site has become too awful. But individual Guardian journalists are still there, I have still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary. I was trying Threads for a bit, but I am stepping back from that because it’s not a good platform for political news.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.