Key events
Starmer says ‘common sense is big part of my politics’, as he defends U-turn on energy nationalisation pledge
Ferrari goes back to the Corbyn answer. He says issues like this have led to Starmer being described as Captain Flip-Flop.
Q: Was the nationalisation pledge you made in 2020 made in bad faith?
No, says Starmer.
Q: So, if there had been no war in Ukraine, you would still be committed to nationalising energy companies?
Starmer says, when bills went up, he asked his team to explain how much it would cost to reduce bill, and how much it would cost to nationalise energy companies.
Nationalising energy companies would not have cut bills, he says.
He says:
Common sense is a big part of my politics. I wasn’t going to say, because three years earlier I said something about nationalisation, I’m afraid we’re going to pay off the shareholders, not reduce bills on people who can’t afford their bills.
Starmer repeatedly refuses to say whether he would have served in Corbyn cabinet if Labour had won in 2017 or 2019
Q: If Labour had won the election in 2017 or 2019, would you have been happy to serve in a Jeremy Corbyn cabinet?
Starmer says he did not think Labour would win.
Q: But would you have served if they had won.
Starmer says that is a hypothetical question.
Ferrari tries again. Again, Starmer says that is hypothetical.
Ferrari asks again, and Starmer again refuses to answer.
Ferrari says Starmer described the Tory manifesto as Corbyn-like. But you were in the meeting that approved it.
Starmer says he was just responsible for the Brexit section. “It was Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto”.
He says, after the 2019 defeat, Labour commissioned a review. Voters said they did not find the manifesto credible, even though they liked some of the policies in it.
Q: Why won’t you commit to getting rid of the two-child benefit cap?
Starmer says he is only promising policies that he can afford. He claims he does not have the money to fund this.
Q: Why are you behind Nigel Farage on this? He would get rid of it.
Starmer says Farage has accepted his manifesto is not fully funded.
He says this issue is “a tough one”. He accepts people like Gordon Brown feel strongly about this.
Q: [From Emma in Greenwich] How will you protect single-sex spaces for girls, while making it easier to get a gender recognition certificate?
Starmer says he is passionate about protecting single-sex spaces. As director of public prosecutions, he dealt with a lot of cases involving violence against women and girls.
He says Labour’s gender recognition certificate plans won’t cut across that.
Emma says she thinks the two policies don’t match.
Starmer does not accept that. He says you can protect single-sex spaces for women.
In hospitals there should be single-sex wards. That does not happen because hospitals are in chaos.
If I identified as a woman, would I be allowed on a single-sex ward, Ferrari asks.
No, says Starmer.
What if I had a gender recognition certificate, Ferrari asks.
Starmer suggests Ferrari could be accommodated in a side ward.
Starmer declines to commit to council tax not going up under Labour
Starmer refuses to say council tax will not go up under Labour.
But he says none of Labour’s plans require tax rises, above those announced.
Ferrari says he has ruled out putting up taxes like income tax and VAT. So, if he is not ruling out council tax going up, people will assume it is.
He asks what Starmer means by a working person, when he says he does not want to put up taxes for working people. Is Simon Cowell a working person?
Starmer says he is thinking of people who cannot afford just to write a cheque when they have an unexpected cost, and who rely on public services.
Starmer urges junior doctors to call off election strike, saying they are ‘very close’ to different approach from Labour
Q: [Matthew from Keele] I am a medical student. The health workforce feels devalued, and everyone wants to go to Australia. How will you address this?
Starmer says he wants to see better respect for doctors.
What does that mean, Ferrari asks.
Starmer says Sunak said he would cut waiting lists. They were at 7.2m. Now they are 7.5m. And he blames NHS staff. Labour won’t operate like that, he says.
On the junior doctors’ dispute, he says the government has not opened talks. He would urge the doctors not to strike during the election campaign. He says:
We would say to the doctors, don’t strike during the election campaign because we’re very close now to the opportunity for a different approach with a Labour government if we get over the line. So don’t strike because that causes all sorts of issues.
Junior doctors in England are planning a five-day strike, starting at 7am on Thursday 27 June.
The next caller asks about Brexit.
Q: If you don’t want to reverse Brexit, what do you see as the benefits of it?
Starmer says the choice on 4 July is carry on as now, with Tory chaos, or change.
On Brexit, he says he voted to remain.
Ferrari says Labour wants to improve the relationship with the EU. What does that mean?
Starmer says the trade deal with the EU is a botched one.
Labour would seek a better agreement, making it easier to trade. He would like it to be better for research and development. And he would like it to be better for security.
Ferrari reads more quotes from people criticising the policy.
Q: How come you know better than all these teachers?
Starmer says he has nothing against private schools. He understands that parents sending their pupils to these schools have aspirations for their children. But so do parents using state schools, and their schools need teachers.
Another caller asks a question. A woman says she thinks it is “blind ignorance” by Labour to push on with this plan. She says his answer implies Labour does not care abou SEN (special educational needs) children.
Starmer says he really does care.
He wants SEN children at state and private schools to have the same opportunities.
Ferrari repeats the claim that 103,000 pupils at private schools with special educational needs will lose out.
Q: [From Michelle from Reigate] I’m head of a specialist school for pupils with special needs. Parents will be affected by your VAT policy.
Starmer says the VAT plan will include an exemption for parents with a child who needs to be a special school, for example a private school.
Ferrari asks if he is referring to pupils with an EHC (education, health and care) plan.
Starmer confirms that.
But he accepts that some pupils at schools like Michelle’s won’t be affected.
Ferrari says 7,600 pupils at private schools have an EHC plan. There are 103,000 who don’t.
He says the VAT money will fund new teachers. But 6,5000 extra teachers will only amount to one third of a teacher per school in England.
Starmer says that is misleading, because the extra teachers will cover the areas where there are shortages.
Some pupils don’t have proper maths teachers, he says.
Starmer says, when he did start meeting voters during Covid, he had to wear a mask.
And he took the view at that point the country did not want too much party politics.
Nick Ferrari starts by saying that, when Keir Starmer became Labour leader, he could not meet voters due to the pandemic.
He says he has rarely seen Starmer “in such exuberant form”.
Starmer says he has waited for the chance to make his case.
Keir Starmer takes part in LBC phone-in
Keir Starmer is about to start his LBC phone-in.
Nick Ferrari is presenting.
Good morning. Keir Starmer is taking part in a phone-in on LBC shortly. Political leaders talk to members of the public every day, but if broadcasters select their callers carefully, and choose articulate, informed, persistent people with serious concerns (and LBC are very good at doing this), then a phone-in can be perilous, as Margaret Thatcher discovered when Diana Gould asked her about the Belgrano in the 1983 election campaign. Starmer is up at 9am.
But he will arrive at the studio knowing the Tories are getting increasingly desperate. Last week they started deploying the argument that Labour were going to win anyway, but that people should vote to ensure they don’t get a supermajority. Now, perhaps worried that the prospect of a Labour supermajority isn’t scaring the electorate, they are claiming that, if Starmer wins, Labour will be in power for a generation.
Rishi Sunak has given an interview to the Daily Mail and he told them that the Labour plan to give 16 and 17-year-olds the vote was about allowing him to “entrench his power”. Sunak said:
It would be one thing if you believed that we just need to change the age that we generally consider people to become adults in this country [and] all the things that go along with that, all the rights and responsibilities …
But that’s not his argument… he’s only wanting to change the voting age, nothing else. So then you have to ask, well why is it that one thing that you’re happy to change, and nothing else?
I think that tells you he thinks that it is electorally helpful to him. We talked about the risks of Labour in power and what they would do. This is an example of it … just kind of entrenching his power.
Echoing an argument made by CCHQ yesterday (for which there is no real evidence), Sunak also claimed that Starmer would end up extending the franchise even further.
So if he had a blank cheque, I think you could reasonably assume it wouldn’t just be votes at 16 – it’d be votes for immigrants and the rest.
Mark Spencer, the farmer minister, has been doing an interview round this morning and he has extended the claim even further. He told Times Radio that, if Labour wins, it could be in power for 20 years. He said:
Of course, [Labour] will change the voting system, they will make sure that they give votes to 16 year-olds, they have talked about giving votes to foreign nationals, to EU nationals … we could end up with a Labour government for 20 years if we get this wrong at this general election.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Keir Starmer takes part in a phone-in Q&A on LBC.
Morning: Starmer is on a visit on the south east of England.
Morning: Rishi Sunak is in Devon, where he is holding a Q&A with farmers.
Morning: Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, is campaigning in Hampshire.
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