Join us for the last Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips of 2024, as Lucy Powell, Kevin Hollinrake, Sir Charles Bean and Lord Kim Darroch all speak to us ahead of Christmas and at the end of a tumultuous year in UK politics.
Sunday 22 December 2024 10:00, UK
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That’s it for Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips for 2024.
Thank you for joining us.
Lord Kim Darroch was the UK’s ambassador to the US the last time Donald Trump was in the White House.
He is speaking to Trevor Phillips this morning about the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson to his former role.
Recently, a campaign adviser for Mr Trump posted strong criticisms of Lord Mandelson’s former words on the returning president.
Lord Darroch says it is the kind of thing to be expected now.
“This is what life is going to be like under Trump 2.0.
“It’s like a 24 seven bar-room brawl, you get this sort of stuff going on all the time.
“You need to have a thick skin and you need to manage it.”
He says Lord Mandelson is experienced and will be able to cope.
Beware the early morning social media posts
Amongst his pieces of advice for Lord Mandelson, Lord Darroch says he should be aware of Mr Trump’s social media habits.
The president wakes up early and his tweets are “completely unfiltered Donald Trump”.
He says they can cause big stories in the UK and the ambassador needs to be firm – including criticising the White House if needs be.
Sir Charles Bean, the economist and former Bank of England deputy governor, is being asked for his opinion on Labour’s start in charge of the economy.
He says that while the budget did add pressures on the supply side by raising national insurance contributions for employers, it could increase demand by opening up planning regulations.
On the NI increase, Sir Charles says it factored into a “doom and gloom” narrative, as the tax increase cut the ability of businesses to spend.
He said it would have been better to put the levy on households with an increase on income tax.
However, this would have run against Labour’s election promise.
“There’s been there’s this tension between what would be economically a better way forward, and what is what the politics dictates,” Sir Charles says.
Shadow housing secretary Kevin Hollinrake is speaking to Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips on behalf of the Conservatives.
He is asked why the Tories are not benefitting in the polls while Labour sinks – with Reform the ones mostly gaining.
Mr Hollinrake says his party is performing well in council elections when they happen – saying Labour has lost 27, the Tories have gained 24 and Reform have gained seven.
He then repeats the Tory campaign line from the last election that anything but a vote for the Conservatives is a vote for Labour.
Is Kemi Badenoch making the right choices?
Mr Hollinrake is asked about Kemi Badenoch’s start as Tory leader.
He defends her position on farmer’s inheritance tax – saying it is not a defence of rich farmers like Jeremy Clarkson.
The shadow minister praises Ms Badenoch for saying “what she thinks”.
Are the Tories becoming the junior party of Reform?
Asked if Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party is going to overtake the Tories, Mr Hollinrake says “absolutely not”.
He says he understands why voters left the Conservatives – but he believes the Tories can win them back by seeing his party’s offering at the next ballot.
All donations welcome
Trevor Phillips asks Mr Hollinrake if Elon Musk should be able to donate to Reform UK.
The Tory says it should be allowed if it’s within the rules.
Asked if the Conservatives would take Mr Musk’s money, Mr Hollinrake says “all donations are welcome”.
Senior Labour MP Lucy Powell is asked about the government’s plans for economic growth – and the lack of progress that has been made.
Ms Powell says recent figures have been “disappointing” and wants to see “more growth”.
However, she says that it is “a bit like turning round some huge oil tanker”.
She says people voted for Labour to do so, as going into the election they could see “the country was going down the swanny”.
Challenged that she was repeatedly blaming the previous government, Ms Powell repeated Labour’s often repeated points about black holes, long waiting lists and high spending.
Why a peerage for Sue Gray?
Trevor Phillips asks Ms Powell about Labour’s recent peerages.
This includes Sue Gray – Sir Keir Starmer’s short-lived chief of staff.
Ms Powell says Ms Gray was a long-serving senior civil servant, as well as being a capable political figure.
She goes on to say Labour are still in a minority in the House of Lords which can be challenging for governing.
The MP says that while they have appointed a slew of peers recently, the system does need “reform”, because the House of Lords is “not the kind of system that people think works all that well”.
Commons Leader Lucy Powell is asked about Labour’s decision to not pay out to Waspi women.
She says MPs can bring about debates if they want – and says she is “sure” this will happen in the new year.
The MP continues to defend the government’s decision not give around £10bn to women who feel they were not told their pension age would increase to be the same as men’s.
She says there was no commitment in the manifesto to do so.
Ms Powell adds that the report the recent decision was made on was about how women were informed in 2004, not the decision in 2011 to accelerate the changes.
She says Labour opposed those changes at the time.
Trevor Phillips asks how Labour could find £1.5bn for mostly male mineworkers’ pensions, but not the £10bn for women.
Ms Powell says that was a decision based on a “long-standing injustice” for mineworkers.
Commons Leader Lucy Powell is speaking to Trevor Phillips this morning on behalf of the government.
She is asked if the government has any plans to change the law to block large donations from the likes of Elon Musk.
Ms Powell says there are “no immediate plans” to do so – but says there is a “manifesto commitment” to look more broadly at the “elections regime” in the country.
This includes topics like votes at 16 and to make sure the “electoral system has got that integrity and is robust from many of the new issues that face undermining our democracy and our elections”.
Asked if Mr Musk could donate via Tesla’s presence in the UK, Ms Powell says there will be a bill in the next parliamentary session to, again, address the elections regime.
The final episode of Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips is live.
Follow along here, and watch with the video at the top of the page or the YouTube link below.
With the end of 2024 in sight, it is time to put your knowledge of the past year to the test.
Sky News commentator Adam Boulton has put together 30 questions covering everything from global politics to the Paris Olympics, to really see who has been paying attention this year.
Let us know how you do!
By Jack Parker, Sunday Morning With Trevor Phillips producer
Labour is on track for their worst end to the year in opinion polls since the Second World War.
Sir Keir Starmer’s party is now averaging just 26.6%, despite winning one of the largest-ever majorities five months ago.
Analysis of nearly 1,000 polls across 75 years found Labour is now 1% behind their previous end-of-year low in 2016, when Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure was dogged by the antisemitism row and leadership challenges.
The only other years to rival their current low were 1981, when the new SDP-Liberal Alliance upended politics, and after a decade of power in 2009, when the party was reeling from the recession and expenses scandal.
Labour are still leading the polls, but are now just 0.5% ahead of the Conservatives – well down on their 19% lead in January.
Kemi Badenoch’s party have been practically stagnant for some time. They now sit on 26.1%, barely 2% above when Liz Truss resigned.
Reform are several points behind on 21%, with the Liberal Democrats on 11.8% and the Greens on 7.7%.
The analysis for Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips calculated averages using the first and last ten polls of each year (or first and last five before 1997, when polls were less frequent).
Labour’s current standing is a far cry from the 44% share they enjoyed in January.
Their 17.6% fall since then is the biggest calendar-year collapse in support ever recorded in UK-wide polls.
Only twice has a bigger drop happened more suddenly.
The first was Nigel Farage’s startup Brexit Party in 2019, which surged to first place in the European Parliament elections after weeks of Commons deadlock over negotiations.
Within six months, their support was largely absorbed by Boris Johnson’s Conservatives.
Bigger still was the Liberal Democrat collapse of 2010 – their “Cleggmania” wave during the May election campaign evaporated weeks after becoming the unpopular coalition government’s junior partner.
But history suggests all is not yet lost for Labour.
When they ended the year below 30% in 2009 and 2016, they rebounded more than 10% the following year.
And Margaret Thatcher recovered from a similar low of 27% in 1981 to win a 144-seat majority – though she was buoyed by the Falklands War.
The year’s biggest winner by far is Reform UK.
Our analysis shows their more-than-doubling is the fourth-biggest jump seen in a calendar year in peacetime.
But with a general election still four years away, their challenge is holding onto that momentum.
No third party experiencing such a surge since the war has maintained their support beyond two years.
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