Phillipson suggests Powell victory would mean ‘division and disunity’, putting Labour ‘on road to opposition’
They are now on closing speeches.
Phillipson says Labour has a golden opportunity to change Britain and they cannot waste it.
I want us to turn this government around, not to turn on each other.
Change is on the ballot at this election. The choice is what kind of change.
You can choose to push our government to be bolder, to go further, to do more, with me as your voice at the cabinet table.
Or you can choose division and disunity that fills the pages of the rightwing papers and puts us back on the road to opposition.
Key events
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Amnesty International expressess concern about plan to review how ECHR applies in asylum cases, saying article 3 ‘absolute’
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Powell says she won’t ‘snipe from sidelines’ as deputy leader, but would have ‘difficult conversations’ if needed
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Phillipson suggests Powell victory would mean ‘division and disunity’, putting Labour ‘on road to opposition’
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Future of democracy ‘at a precipice’, Powell claims
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Powell says ‘groupthink’ in government has led to Labour making ‘big mistakes’
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Powell says her 21-year-old son has struggled with her being minister, because Labour has not enthused young people
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Phillipson says Labour should be ‘as ruthless’ in fighting Greens as they are in fighting Reform
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Labour should not be ‘trying to out-Reform Reform’, says Powell
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Powell says Labour needs to unite its voter coalition, and avoid policies like winter fuel payment cut
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Bridget Phillipson and Lucy Powell take part in deputy Labour leadership hustingss
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Miliband’s speech to Labour conference – summary of key points
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Miliband tells Elon Musk to ‘get the hell out’ of British politics
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Environmentalists welcome total ban on fracking
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Miliband vows to ban fracking
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Starmer says he has ‘no personal issue with Andy [Burnham] in the slightest’
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Labour to launch ‘Send the Frackers Packing’ campaign against pro-fracking Reform UK in shale gas areas
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Starmer dismisses criticism of his leadership, saying he will be judged at next election
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Starmer defends talks so much about Reform UK, saying ignoring threat it poses would be ‘grave mistake’
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Starmer rejects Farage’s claim that his comments about Reform UK could put its activists at risk
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Ed Miliband to announce total ban on fracking, going beyond current moratorium
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Starmer says government will review ‘interpretation’ of some ECHR provisions to tackle ‘Farage boats’
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Starmer says he does not think Farage and his supporters are racist – though poll suggests 43% of voters think they are
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Starmer: Leaving EU has hampered efforts to return migrants
Eleni Courea
Public support for digital IDs has collapsed after Keir Starmer announced plans for their introduction, in what has been described as a symptom of the prime minister’s “reverse Midas touch”.
Net support for digital ID cards fell from 35% in the early summer to -14% at the weekend after Starmer’s announcement, according to polling by More in Common.
The findings suggest that the proposal has suffered considerably from its association with an unpopular government. In June, 53% of voters surveyed said they were in favour of digital ID cards for all Britons, while 19% were opposed.
Starmer set out plans to roll out a national digital ID scheme on Friday, saying it presented an “enormous opportunity” for the UK that would “make it tougher to work illegally in this country”.
Just 31% of people surveyed after Starmer’s announcement over the weekend said they were supportive of the scheme, with 45% saying they were opposed. Of those, 32% said they were strongly opposed. More than 2.6 million people have signed a petition against introduction of the IDs.
Advocates of a national digital ID scheme are frustrated at the way the policy has been presented and believe that now it may never be implemented.
Joanna Partridge
Selfridges has blamed a slump in the number of international tourists shopping for luxury goods in the UK and weaker consumer confidence for a fall in annual sales, as the retailer racked up losses for a fifth year in a row.
The upmarket department store chain reported a 7% decline in sales in the 48 weeks to 4 January 2025 to £775m compared with £835m recorded over the 53 weeks of its previous year.
Losses narrowed to nearly £16m from almost £42m the previous year but the group has not made a pre-tax profit since 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic forced shops to close their doors for months at a time.
Selfridges Group has four stores in the UK, including its flagship on Oxford Street in central London, two shops in Manchester and one in Birmingham, alongside its online operations.
Read the full story here:
The date of the unveiling of the Scottish budget could be brought forward by two days, the convener of Holyrood’s finance committee has said.
Finance secretary Shona Robison had previously said she was “minded” to unveil her tax and spending plans on 15 January as a result of the UK government not unveiling its budget until the end of November, PA reported.
The finance and public administration committee had complained that would not give it enough time to scrutinise the plans, hoping to bring it forward by a week.
Speaking at the conveners group – where the heads of Holyrood committees quiz the first minister – on Wednesday, convener Kenneth Gibson said: “The finance and public administration committee looked at the 15th, we would have preferred the 7th.
“But having deliberated with the finance Secretary, a collective view was that Tuesday [January] 13th might be a sensible compromise which allows the government that extra week after new year, but doesn’t derail scrutiny, which a Thursday statement might do.”
Andrew Sparrow
Back to fracking, and here is some expert comment on Ed Miliband’s announcement.
From Alasdair Johnstone, head of parliamentary engagement at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a thinktank.
Fracking is clearly controversial and was the straw that broke the camel’s back of the Truss administration. There is now a very clear dividing line on energy policy between fracking, opposed by twice as many people as support it, and solar farms which are backed by a clear majority.
Anyone who’s paid and energy bill in the past few years knows gas prices are volatile and fracking in the UK wouldn’t change that. The build-out of British wind and solar is helping insulate the UK against these price swings with electric heat pumps meaning we’re increasingly less dependent on foreign gas imports to heat our homes.
From Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the LSE
The proposed new ban on fracking will just formalise the moratorium on fracking that was re-introduced by Rishi Sunak’s Government in 2022 after a report by the British Geological Survey concluded that it ‘can trigger earthquakes large enough to cause structural damage’.
Although the exact extent of economically viable reserves of shale gas in the UK is not known with certainty, the most recent assessments suggest that there is unlikely to be enough to significantly affect international prices for natural gas, and so would not reduce prices for British consumers.
From Robert Colvile, director of the Centre for Policy Studies, a Conservative thinktank
On Monday, Rachel Reeves said that she was ‘not a zealot’ on green energy, that she was ‘really committed to boosting our energy security’, that ‘investing in homegrown energy is really important’, and that she ‘would prefer us to be using oil and gas from the UK than importing in from overseas’.
Today, Ed Miliband announced a ban on fracking – which has been at the heart of the energy revolution in the US – even as bills for customers rose yet again.
Labour has to decide whether it is a party of ideology or a party that delivers for ordinary people. At the moment, on energy policy, ideology is winning out.
That is all from me for today. My colleague Tom Ambrose is taking over now.
Amnesty International expressess concern about plan to review how ECHR applies in asylum cases, saying article 3 ‘absolute’
Amnesty International UK has expressed concern about Keir Starmer’s comment, in an interview with the Today programme this morning, about wanting to review the way some human rights laws are interpreted in deportation cases. He mentioned specifically articles 3 and 8 of the European convention on human rights, covering the right not to be tortured and the right to family life respectively.
Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, said:
Article 3 of the European convention on human rights – the ban on torture and inhuman or degrading treatment – is absolute. It is one of the most fundamental human rights protections and cannot be watered down or reinterpreted to suit political convenience.
There is no grey area between acceptable and unacceptable ill-treatment. If removal would expose someone to conditions that meet the legal threshold of inhuman or degrading treatment, then the UK is legally and morally obliged not to proceed.
At a time when refugees and migrants are already being scapegoated and treated as political bargaining chips, it is crucial that ministers reaffirm, not question, the UK’s commitment to the absolute prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.
The Green party has welcomed the announcement about a full fracking ban – but criticised reports that Ed Miliband is considering allowing more oil and gas extraction from the North Sea. The Green MP Carla Denyer said:
It’s absolutely right that Labour are finally putting the nail in the coffin of fracking, which is unsafe, climate-wrecking and deeply unpopular across the country.
But what Ed Miliband didn’t advertise in his conference speech is that he’s considering giving in to the demands of big oil and gas companies and watering down his long-promised ban on new north sea oil and gas drilling.
This would be the ultimate betrayal to the people of this country who desperately want this government to take the action needed to secure a safe future for us, our kids and our grandkids.
I have updated the post at 12.37pm to include the quote from Lucy Powell about “groupthink” in government, which she blames for the government making “big mistakes”.
Powell says she won’t ‘snipe from sidelines’ as deputy leader, but would have ‘difficult conversations’ if needed
Powell says this is a party role, not a government one.
Having this debate is not dissent, but an important conversation about how we can be better, because we need to be. The stakes are too high …
I won’t shy away from the difficult conversations, but I won’t snipe from the sidelines.
I’ve been the shop steward for the back benches this past year, and I’ll be your shop steward now.
We all want, we all need this government to succeed, because, as our leader, Keir said yesterday, we are now in the fight of our lives.
And that is the end of the hustings.
Phillipson suggests Powell victory would mean ‘division and disunity’, putting Labour ‘on road to opposition’
They are now on closing speeches.
Phillipson says Labour has a golden opportunity to change Britain and they cannot waste it.
I want us to turn this government around, not to turn on each other.
Change is on the ballot at this election. The choice is what kind of change.
You can choose to push our government to be bolder, to go further, to do more, with me as your voice at the cabinet table.
Or you can choose division and disunity that fills the pages of the rightwing papers and puts us back on the road to opposition.
Q: What is your biggest achievement in government?
Powell says it is delivering a legislative programme for the first year.
Phillipson says it has been getting a Best Start family hubs (the new version of Sure Start).
Future of democracy ‘at a precipice’, Powell claims
Q: How can the government unite the country?
Phillipson says Labour must take on the “plastic patriots” of Reform. But it must also show people what change it is implementing.
Powell says:
The future of our democracy is at a precipice, and it falls on our shoulders as the Labour party, we’ve always stood up against Division and hate, but also as the party of government to get this right and to really reunite the country. And the challenge couldn’t be greater, and the stakes couldn’t be higher.
Q: What was the biggest thing you learned moving from opposition to government?
Powell says the transition was hard. But she was not running a government department.
She was proud of what they did getting the king’s speech ready (her job as leader of the Commons). She learned a lot about how government works.
Phillipson says they got some things wrong, like welfare reform. They must learn from that. But being in government is much better than being in opposition.
Q: What is your favourite Labour achievement?
Phillipson says it was the national minimum wage, brought in by the Blair government, something promised by Labour for 100 years.
That happened because John Prescott pushed for it as a deputy leader in cabinet, she says.
Powell agrees. She says the minimum wage was transformative. But this government is following it up with measures like the employment bill, she says.
Powell says ‘groupthink’ in government has led to Labour making ‘big mistakes’
Q: What can Labour do better?
Phillipson says the party must be honest and learn from what it got wrong, like welfare reform and the winter fuel payments.
But in cabinet Angela Rayner said the party used to spend too much time focusing on the 10% of things that went wrong, not the 90% that went right.
She says the party should talk more about its achievements.
Powell says they should not “sugar-coat” things. The party has made “big mistakes”, she says.
She says there have been “fewer and fewer people taking decisions that are not connected to the communities that we represent”.
The party needs a “feedback loop”, so that ministers know what people think of decisions.
And if that means, as I’ve done in the last year or so, if that means having difficult conversations and speaking truth to power, I will do that.
I’ve been the shop steward effectively for the back benchers over the last year, and I can be the party’s shop steward now.
UPDATE: Powell said:
We’ve got to learn the right lessons, I think, when you have a kind of increasing groupthink of fewer and fewer people taking decisions that are not connected to the communities that we represent, and are not hearing that feedback on the doorstep.
Powell says her 21-year-old son has struggled with her being minister, because Labour has not enthused young people
Q: What are you plans for young members?
Phillipson says Labour should be welcoming to young members. They played an “amazing” role campaigning at the election. But they should also have a role in policy making, she says.
Powell says young people are not attract to the party in the way they were in the past.
She says she has a 21-year-old son.
To be honest with you, him and his friends have really struggled with me actually being in the Labour government this last 15 months, because we’ve not got some of the politics right to enthuse young people, to make them see that a Labour government, the Labour party, is not just working on their behalf, but that we can make the change that they want to see.
Powell says, not having a job in cabinet, she will be able to work full-time on the deputy leader job.
Phillipson says having a job in cabinet will make it easier for her to get things done for members.
Phillipson says Labour should be ‘as ruthless’ in fighting Greens as they are in fighting Reform
Q: How do we win back support from the Greens and the Lib Dems?
Powell says her Manchester Central seat is half red wall, half urban, so she knows the threat those parties pose.
Labour should stick to its values and rebuild a progressive alliance.
Phillipson says they should expose the Greens for who they are.
They say, on the one hand, that climate change is the biggest challenge we face, and climate change is an enormous challenge, but a real opportunity to create some brilliant jobs.
But then what do they do? They oppose infrastructure projects. They oppose the investment that will make a huge difference to our communities and to tackling climate change.
So we’ve got to be as ruthless in taking the fight to them as we are in taking the fight to be to Reform.
Labour should not be ‘trying to out-Reform Reform’, says Powell
Q: How should we take on Reform?
Phillipson says Labour should show what it is doing to improve people’s lives.
Powell says she wants Labour to seize back the megaphone from them.
UPDATE: Powell said:
Being tactical about it and trying to out-Reform Reform is not going to help us in those elections next May.
And that’s what I’ve been saying this week, we’ve got to seize back the political megaphone in this country, because let’s be honest, we’ve ceded it too long in recent months.
Powell says Labour needs to unite its voter coalition, and avoid policies like winter fuel payment cut
Q: What would you do to help win the elections in Wales next year?
Phillipson says she has a strong record as a campaigner.
Powell says the Senedd elections will be tough. She goes on:
And I think what we’re seeing in Wales is a real example of what we’re seeing elsewhere, which is the fracturing of our voter coalition, the fracturing of the electorate.
Yes, we’re losing some support to Reform, but we’re actually losing much more support to Plaid Cymru in Wales at the moment.
And that’s why we need to reunite our voter coalition with that really strong, compelling story about what we think is really wrong with this country and how we’re going to fix it.
Powell says the government can do better. She cites the winter fuel payment cut as an example of a policy that led to people not being clear “about whose side we are on”. It hit the party particularly hard in traditional Labour area.
We need to be out there telling people what we are doing, but we’ve got to get the politics of this right so that we’re not losing votes to all sides.
This is the first answer contained some criticism of the government.
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