As usual for mid-week, Sir Keir Starmer will face-off with his Conservative counterpart Kemi Badenoch at Prime Minister’s Questions at noon.
Wednesday 22 January 2025 06:38, UK
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It presented Sir Keir Starmer with his first big challenge in office, and the Southport stabbings – followed by riots – look set to colour the early stages of his premiership.
He dealt with the immediate aftermath by successfully mobilising the justice system and fast-tracking offenders through it – a throwback to his days as head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
But the longer-term problem this horrendous crime poses will take him very far from his comfort zone.
On Tuesday, he tackled the failures of public institutions in dealing with what was a known threat from Axel Rudakubana, who was referred to the anti-terror body Prevent three times.
More pernicious though are the baseless but corrosive accusations of a cover-up which started online and have high-profile champions in the Commons, with Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick repeating the conspiracy theories.
This represents the new frontier of British politics, in which misinformation has become mainstream and threatens to destabilise our political system from the inside.
It was a surprisingly bold approach from the prime minister in response to the Southport stabbings.
In this speech, he took head-on a justice system that has been under pressure over the way it responded to the incident.
At the centre was the promise of a wide-ranging inquiry, in which “nothing is off the table” and the assurance that things will change, including, if necessary, the law.
It was all designed to take back the narrative, and to present himself not just as a dedicated upholder of the law but someone who is prepared to radically reform it too.
Benefit fraudsters could be banned from driving and subject to bank account snooping if they fail to pay back the taxpayer, under a new government crackdown.
In an effort to curb welfare fraud, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) has launched what has been dubbed the biggest fraud crackdown in a generation.
The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill would introduce new measures, including allowing the government to recover money directly from fraudsters’ bank accounts.
It is due to be introduced to parliament on Wednesday and the DWP estimates it could help save the taxpayer £1.5bn over the next five years.
According to government figures, around £8.6bn was lost to fraud and error overpayments in the financial year ending in April 2024.
Good morning!
Welcome back to the Politics Hub on Wednesday 22 January.
As usual for mid-week, Sir Keir Starmer will face-off with his Conservative counterpart Kemi Badenoch at Prime Minister’s Questions at noon.
We’ll bring you full coverage and live updates here in the Politics Hub – with rolling analysis from our experts.
Also today, Chancellor Rachel Reeves is at the World Economic Forum in Davos, where she will today hold a series of private meetings with global business leaders.
This is part of the governments attempt to boost investment in the UK, in the wake of concerns the economy has flatlined in the first six months of Labour’s government.
Over in the Commons, MPs will today vote on a spending motion related to the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which was passed by MPs in November.
The legislation would give people in England and Wales with under six months to live the right to end their own life.
We’ll be discussing all of that and more with…
Alison McGovern, the employment minister, at 7.15am;
Tory frontbencher Matt Vickers at 8.15am.
Follow along for the very latest political news.
Join us again at 7pm tomorrow for another summary of the day’s politics from Westminster.
By Paul Kelso, business and economics correspondent, in Davos
Donald Trump likes to discomfort his enemies.
Not to mention his friends, his partners, business adversaries, celebrity critics, anyone, in fact, who could end up on the other side of a deal.
As president of the world’s largest economy, that makes for a long list, many of them in Davos on Tuesday trying to make sense of what his second term will mean, and not getting very far.
The World Economic Forum is a body that likes to think it has the answers. The annual conference attracts leaders from business, politics and civil society, gathering to share their wisdom and cut deals on the side.
Less than 48 hours into Trump II not only are they struggling for answers, they’re yet not clear what the question is.
For European political leaders, already exposed to soaring US growth rates, Trump’s still-vague threats to “tax and tariff” could pose a fundamental threat to economic cooperation and stability.
In the absence of firm policy, they promised to work with Trump, but not at all costs.
Discussing the Southport stabbings and the public response to them, security minister Dan Jarvis says tells Sophy that more needs to be done to get the correct information in to the public domain.
As mentioned in the previous post, Mr Jarvis denied there was a cover up and said the government wanted to be careful about what it put in the public domain.
Asked if more could have been done to get the “correct information” out there, Mr Jarvis says “absolutely”.
The minister says there “does need to be a mechanism whereby more information could be put into the public domain”.
He added that the government is working with the attorney general on what could be done should a similar situation occur in the future.
Security minister Dan Jarvis has been speaking to Sophy tonight.
While discussing the Southport attacks and the response to them, the Labour frontbencher says he understands why people are angry about what happened, but the government had to be careful about what it could say at the time.
He goes on to say it was “quite irresponsible that some people chose to play politics” with the situation.
Mr Jarvis declines to give any names of who he means, however prominent politicians like Nigel Farage and Robert Jenrick have both accused the government of a “cover up”.
He said these people knew the government “wasn’t able to give a running commentary” because they did not want to endanger any future trial.
The minister says it is “simply untrue” that there was any cover up.
Three little girls. At a Taylor Swift dance class. Stabbed to death.
What happened to them is simply unbearable. It’s too awful to comprehend.
It’s the kind of crime that makes you question the world. How can that happen? How can another human being do that to those three little girls? Are they human? How can they be?
Today we are learning more about the man who did it. Axel Rudakubana.
And we’re also learning that this could have been prevented.
There were calls to police. The school flagged his behaviour. He was referred to Prevent three times, and they decided against intervention, Prevent, the guys whose job it is to stop terrorism.
This is not one of those cases where everyone is really shocked and can’t believe this person could have done this.
There were multiple red flags. Multiple reports. Multiple agencies involved who can all pass the buck onto someone else.
In other words… there were multiple chances of stopping this attack from happening. And that just breaks your heart.
Andy Haldane is a former chief economist at the Bank of England, and now chief executive of the Royal Society for Arts.
He has been speaking to Sophy about the Southport attacks and the reaction to them.
Asked if there was justified anger towards the “establishment” in response to the attack as well as to grooming gangs, Mr Haldane says “yes”.
He adds: “I think it’s, to a degree, justified because there has been a degree of wilful blindness, Sophy, to some of those simmering tensions for a long time.”
Mr Haldane explains that it has been “difficult to question the cause of multiculturalism without being accused of somehow being racist or xenophobic”.
He says that, while multicultural communities “bring great richness of ideas and cultures and practises”, there needs to be investment in “cohesion”.
If not, the former economist claims it can lead to events like what happened in Southport and elsewhere – referring to the riots last summer.
Mr Haldane then calls for greater investment in areas that “suffer most from underinvestment”, saying they need things like parks, youth clubs, community centres, theatres, museums and high streets.
Our weeknight politics show Politics Hub With Sophy Ridge is live.
Tonight’s programme features an interview with security minister Dan Jarvis.
And the panel is made up of Baroness Helena Kennedy, a Labour peer and human rights barrister; and Andrew Mitchell, shadow foreign secretary.
Watch in the stream below or at the top of this page.
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