Labour’s Rachel Reeves: Wragg resignation calls are ‘a question for the Conservatives’
Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has been campaigning in Blackpool today, ahead of the Blackpool South byelection on 2 May, and she has said that whether William Wragg should resign after becoming embroiled in a sexting scandal was “a question for the Conservatives”.
PA Media quotes her saying
I’m very concerned about what seems to have happened in this incident, especially about MPs’ telephone numbers being passed on to unknown sources.
That is really concerning and it is right that there is a proper investigation into this.
In positions of responsibility we always have to think about our actions but there are also malevolent players out there who are trying to influence politics.
Asked if Wragg should resign, she said: “That’s a question for the Conservatives. The police investigation is now under way and it is right that we allow that investigation to take its course.”
A Conservative source told the Guardian that Wragg, the Tory MP for Hazel Grove, would not be suspended from the party whip for now amid concerns that he is also a victim.
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, appeared to give his support to Wragg on Friday morning, describing his apology as “courageous and fulsome”, and treasury minister Gareth Davies said the news was “extremely troubling” while appearing to indicate that Wragg would continue to sit as a Conservative MP.
Wragg told the Times that he gave the information after he had sent intimate pictures of himself, saying he was “scared” and “mortified”. Leicestershire police have launched an investigation in response to reports that explicit images and flirtatious messages were sent to MPs as part of an alleged “spear-phishing” attack.
London’s Metropolitan police have also confirmed that they have spoken to other police forces and parliamentary security authorities about the reports.
Key events
Peter Walker
Our deputy political editor Peter Walker has written this today asking the question: How accurate are MRP polls predicting huge Tory losses in next general election?
MRP, the handy acronym for a technique called multilevel regression and poststratification, was in the news this week after a pair of polls predicted the Conservatives plummeting to 98 and 155 seats respectively at the next election.
MRP polls also produce constituency-level predictions, allowing MPs and candidates to open a spreadsheet and view their percentage chances in black and white, with YouGov and Survation forecasting defeat for a string of ministers.
MRP, in simple terms, takes polling data and adds other details about the respondents, such as their age, qualification level, income, previous voting patterns and where they live.
This is then correlated with census-type data to give the numbers of various types living in each area, with the headline polling data adjusted accordingly.
Patrick English, director of political analytics for YouGov, describes it as a totally different approach to the “top down” method of traditional polling, and one which uses a lot more computational power.
“The logic is quite simple,” he said. “It firstly takes everyone’s background information. There is then a probability model which says, OK, based on all this information we have about people, how would each different area, which is made up of these different type of people, therefore vote? And that’s it.”
Read more here: How accurate are MRP polls predicting huge Tory losses in next general election?
Scottish Green Party co-leader and Holyrood minister Patrick Harvie has given a passionate defence of the Hate crime and public order (Scotland) act which came into force on Monday, suggesting opponents of the bill had been indulging in “performative nonsense” which could, nevertheless, lead to real world consequence for marginalised groups.
PA Media quotes Harvie saying that opponents of the change in the law “deliberately try to pretend every expression of prejudice or just nastiness or anything offensive or hurtful is going to be criminalised”.
Criticising right-wing campaigners who he said had been “deliberately promoting misinformation about this act all the way through”, he said:
As soon as the act comes into force they start performatively coming out with these prejudiced, hurtful statements and saying ‘arrest me, arrest me’ in this petulant manner.
Then when they don’t get arrested they try to claim some hollow victory.
It really is performative nonsense. If it was just a game they were playing it would be shallow and silly and trivial, but it has real world consequences.
[It] emboldens those in our society who genuinely do pose a real threat of abuse and violence against marginalised groups in our society.
Saying he had “experienced homophobia and other prejudice against the LGBT+ community” for his entire life, Harvie said the act merely consolidated “existing laws”, and took a concept like “stirring up hatred”, which he said had been in the law books for 40 years in relation to racial hatred, and applied the same principle to “other vulnerable and marginalised groups.”
“This is very clearly legislation that is well familiar in our system and the threshold for prosecution is high, and rightly so,” he added.
If you wanted some background on what the new law is – and crucially isn’t – then we have an explainer here, and our Scotland correspondent Libby Brook appeared on the Today in Focus podcast yesterday to discuss it.
We reported earlier that Rishi Sunak had taken the opportunity on the first day of the county cricket championship in England and Wales to announce a £35m investment in grassroots cricket.
He has just posted a video which includes the prime minister facing some bowling from members of the England’s men team.
Sunak has been at the Oval cricket ground in south London, meeting young people taking part in the ACE cricket training programme.
The ACE Programme aims to increase the number of black British players in both professional and grassroots cricket. As part of his announcement of the new funding, Sunak said:
I first experienced the magic of cricket watching Hampshire play at my local ground in Southampton as a child. For young people watching their first match today, the draw of getting outside and enjoying the game is just as strong.
There remains huge potential to grow the sport even further and open it up to everyone, from all backgrounds and in all parts of the country, building on the great work of organisations such as ACE and Chance to Shine.
That is why I am so proud we are making a major £35m investment in grassroots cricket today, to widen participation in schools, encourage health lifestyles and provide world class, all-year-round facilities for local communities.
The Telegraph is touting a survey this afternoon which suggests that Conservative support has fallen further in 42 seats so-called “Blue Wall” seats, which the paper describes as “affluent constituencies in the south of England where the Conservatives have traditionally won”.
The figures suggest that of those who voted Conservative in 2019, less than half of them intend to vote Conservative again at the next election.
The Redfield and Wilton Strategies survey, conducted on 31 March, found 26 per cent of people intended to vote Conservatives, down by two points from when the survey was last conducted at the beginning of March.
The Telegraph states that 20% of 2019 Tory voters said they would now vote for Reform UK and 17% would switch to Labour.
Our Guardian poll tracker, which averages out national polls across a rolling ten-day period, can be found here.
Here is a little bit more from Rachel Reeves in Blackpool earlier today, outlining how Labour have calculated the figure they give of families being £870 worse off because of Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government.
Referring to the changes in national insurance that come into effect across the UK tomorrow, she said:
[The Conservatives will] say tomorrow that taxes are going down. All of the numbers show that taxes are on the rise. Taxes today are at a 70 year high and are due to increase in every single year of the forecast period.
In fact, by the end of the forecast period, the average family will be paying £870 more in tax because of the frozen national insurance and income tax thresholds, and because of increases in council tax too. That is the Conservatives double whammy on tax.
The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, earlier claimed that his national insurance cut meant “£900 in the pocket of someone on the average salary”, and Sunak said “the progress we have made on the economy means we can reward work with a tax cut worth £900 for the average earner”. The UK fell into recession in the last two quarters on 2023.
While they were in Blackpool, Rachel Reeves, Jonathan Ashworth and byelection candidate Chris Webb also posed for the obligatory photo in front of the tower there, and Reeves took a turn holding Webb’s seven-week-old son Cillian.
Reeves: Sunak and Hunt ‘out of touch with the reality faced by ordinary British people’ on economy
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has said the prime minister and his chancellor are “out of touch they are with the reality faced by ordinary British people” as they talk about the economy having turned a corner while “people are still being squeezed by the Conservatives’ cost of living crisis.”
Campaigning in Blackpool, Reeves said:
If you listen to the prime minister and the chancellor, and we heard it in the budget last month, the taxes are coming down, the economy has turned a corner, their plan is working.
Well, all that goes to show is how out of touch they are with the reality faced by ordinary British people.
Things might look all right from 10,000 feet up in Rishi Sunak’s helicopter, but down here on planet Earth, and here in Blackpool South, people are still being squeezed by the Conservatives’ cost of living crisis.
Reeves was appearing with shadow paymaster general Jonathan Ashworth and the party’s parliamentary candidate for the Blackpool South byelection, Chris Webb.
While they were there, the Labour trio unveiled a new poster in which the party attacks what it calls the “Tory tax double whammy”, citing rising personal taxes and rising council taxes as the cost of a continued Conservative government under Sunak. It is a callback to a 1992 election poster used by the Conservatives against Neil Kinnock, warning that a Labour government would lead to a double whammy of higher taxes and higher prices.
Labour is optimistic about its prospects of securing a victory in Blackpool South, which would be its eighth byelection gain since 2019. The Conservatives are defending a majority of 3,690 in a seat which they gained from Labour at the last election.
The byelection is taking place because former Conservative backbencher Scott Benton quit parliament after he was suspended for 35 days over his role in a lobbying scandal. The MP had offered to lobby ministers on behalf of the gambling industry and leak a confidential policy document for up to £4,000 a month.
Labour’s Rachel Reeves: Wragg resignation calls are ‘a question for the Conservatives’
Labour shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves has been campaigning in Blackpool today, ahead of the Blackpool South byelection on 2 May, and she has said that whether William Wragg should resign after becoming embroiled in a sexting scandal was “a question for the Conservatives”.
PA Media quotes her saying
I’m very concerned about what seems to have happened in this incident, especially about MPs’ telephone numbers being passed on to unknown sources.
That is really concerning and it is right that there is a proper investigation into this.
In positions of responsibility we always have to think about our actions but there are also malevolent players out there who are trying to influence politics.
Asked if Wragg should resign, she said: “That’s a question for the Conservatives. The police investigation is now under way and it is right that we allow that investigation to take its course.”
A Conservative source told the Guardian that Wragg, the Tory MP for Hazel Grove, would not be suspended from the party whip for now amid concerns that he is also a victim.
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, appeared to give his support to Wragg on Friday morning, describing his apology as “courageous and fulsome”, and treasury minister Gareth Davies said the news was “extremely troubling” while appearing to indicate that Wragg would continue to sit as a Conservative MP.
Wragg told the Times that he gave the information after he had sent intimate pictures of himself, saying he was “scared” and “mortified”. Leicestershire police have launched an investigation in response to reports that explicit images and flirtatious messages were sent to MPs as part of an alleged “spear-phishing” attack.
London’s Metropolitan police have also confirmed that they have spoken to other police forces and parliamentary security authorities about the reports.
While we are on the subject of tax, here are a few of the words chancellor Jeremy Hunt gave to broadcasters earlier today, talking up the national insurance cut that comes into effect from tomorrow. He said:
Today’s national insurance cut is very significant, not just because it’s £900 in the pocket of someone on the average salary in a period where people have been really feeling cost of living pressures, but also because if we’re going to grow the economy, we have to make work pay for the six million adults of working age who are not in work.
Labour has been attacking the Scottish government over tax rises today, with Labour’s leader in Scotland, Anas Sarwar, criticising what he said was “SNP and Tory mismanagement” of the economy, and saying first minister Humza Yousaf is “detached from reality if he thinks that 1.5 million Scots should pay more tax and oil and gas giants should pay less.” [See 10.24am]
However, PA Media have spoken to Sean Cockburn, who is chairperson of the Chartered Institute of Taxation’s Scottish technical committee. He argues that UK-level changes to national insurance partially offset rises in income tax in Scotland.
It quotes him saying:
Although the Scottish government’s tax choices will result in higher earning Scots paying more income tax from this month, these have been somewhat offset by the UK-wide national insurance changes.
It means that while Scots with earnings above £75,000 will pay more income tax, those with earnings under £112,900 will actually be paying less in tax and national insurance overall compared with the year just past. It illustrates what can happen when Scottish and UK tax choices interact with one another.
Deputy first minister Shona Robison has defended the SNP’s policy, saying Scotland has the “most progressive income tax system in the UK”.
She said “The new advanced band builds on that progressive approach, protecting those who earn less and asking those who earn more to contribute more. Only 5% of Scottish taxpayers will pay a higher tax rate compared to last year, and the majority of taxpayers are still paying less than they would elsewhere in the UK.”
The parent company of privatised Thames Water which supplies London has told its creditors it has defaulted on its debt.
My colleague Alex Lawson writes:
Kemble Water has missed an interest payment that was due on Tuesday and said it was requesting its lenders and bondholders to take no creditor action so as to “provide a stable platform while all options are explored” with its stakeholders. It raises the prospect that the company could collapse or face a significant restructure.
Thames Water said last week its shareholders had refused to pay £500m promised to stabilise its finances, heightening concerns over its survival.
Last week Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said the firm should be allowed to go bankrupt, arguing “It would continue to be run by an administrator, the shareholders would lose their equity but they took too much cash out so deserve no sympathy and the bond holders would face a partial loss. This is capitalism, it won’t affect the water supply.”
Thames Water was established in 1989 during the privatisation of the water industry in England and Wales under Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government.
Julia Kollewe is following the latest on our business live blog here:
Employees at the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have voted to take industrial action in a dispute over changes to the way they have been allowed to work flexibly from home.
The union said home and hybrid working had been successful since the start of the pandemic, adding that managers had reassured staff that these arrangements would remain in place. They are now being told to work from the office two days a week.
PA media reports Fran Heathcote, general secretary of Public and Commercial Services union (PCS), said:
ONS bosses have seriously undermined the trust and goodwill of their staff by seeking to drive this policy through in such a heavy-handed way, heedless of the consequences. They now need to immediately pause implementation of the policy and talk to us about reaching a sensible resolution of this issue, which does not carelessly disadvantage staff.
Members of the PCS backed industrial action by around three to one.
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar joins calls for ban on UK arms sales to Israel
Peter Walker
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, has become the latest senior party figure to urge an immediate ban on UK arms sales to Israel, as ministers face pressure to disclose the government’s official legal advice on the trade.
Sarwar told BBC Scotland that Israel had “clearly” breached international law in Gaza and that UK arms sales should be halted immediately. On Thursday Sadiq Khan, the London mayor, made the same call.
Labour’s official policy is to await information on the legal advice provided to ministers and to only push for an end to arms sales if this says continued weapons sales could risk the UK breaching international law.
In March, David Cameron, the foreign secretary, said information about the advice would be published within days, but ministers have since backtracked and are refusing to say if and when this might happen.
Read more of Peter Walker’s report here: Labour’s Anas Sarwar joins calls for ban on UK arms sales to Israel
Eleni Courea
Political correspondent Eleni Courea has this report on the latest developments with William Wragg:
A senior Conservative MP will keep the whip while the party investigates his role in a sexting scandal.
A Conservative source said William Wragg, the Tory MP for Hazel Grove, would not be suspended from the party whip for now amid concerns that he is also a victim.
On Thursday, Wragg admitted to giving out the personal phone numbers of colleagues to a person he met on the Grindr dating app because he feared the person had compromising material on him.
Some Tory MPs have called for Wragg to resign as an MP after his confession of handing over colleagues’ phone numbers.
Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, appeared to give his support to Wragg on Friday morning, describing his apology as “courageous and fulsome”.
The Conservative party has declined to comment because of the active police investigation, although the government chief whip was speaking to those affected.
Earlier this week, Politico reported that 12 men working in Westminster, including a minister, had been contacted by a WhatsApp user purporting to be someone who had met them at a recent political or social event, in efforts to acquire personal or sensitive information.
The Guardian spoke to a 13th person who was targeted in the exact same way by a WhatsApp user calling themselves “Abigail” or “Abi”.
“I don’t have any sympathy for him,” the person said of Wragg on Friday. “He was faced with a choice – go to the authorities, which is much easier for him than most people – or hand over [phone numbers] and subject a whole load of people to that threat, not knowing where that would lead. “We’re now supposed to feel sorry for him?”
Read Eleni Courea’s full report here: Senior Tory MP to keep whip during sexting scandal investigation