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Johnson a ‘guaranteed disaster’ says former ERG chairman
Ridge then asks Baker about Boris Johnson.
Baker replies: “There is a lot of love for Boris Johnson and I respect that. This isn’t the time for Boris’s style. I’m afraid the trouble is because of the privileges vote, Boris would be a guaranteed disaster.
“There is going to be a vote before the House of Commons on whether he deliberately misled the house. In that vote it is guaranteed there will be a large number of Conservatives who will refuse to lay down their integrity to save him. At that point his premiership will collapse.”
Baker says there is an argument to have that vote on the first day, but it would not work. Sixty-two MPs resigned from his government over the Chris Pincher saga. “At that moment where there is a vote in the House of Commons on privilege, his premiership would collapse. It is a guaranteed nailed on failure, and we cannot let it happen.”
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Rees-Mogg says that Kuenssberg is rewriting history, and dismissing Johnson’s achievement when she talks about mass resignations, parties in Downing Street and Boris Johnson’s fall.
“His mandate was from the country,” Rees-Mogg says. “You are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. You’ve just been talking to Sir Keir Starmer who has called for a general election.
“Boris Johnson is the man who won the mandate, so a call for a general election is pretty hollow if the man who won the mandate is prime minister.”
Jacob-Rees Mogg is being interviewed on BBC One. He says that Boris Johnson will stand for the leadership, and the two have spoken.
Rees-Mogg, a minister under Johnson, says he has been told that the 100 names are there and the former prime minister has enough nominations to get through the ballot tomorrow.
Asked if the public would accept him as PM again, Rees-Mogg said: “Boris delivered Brexit, he supported Ukraine and standing up to Russia, and he got us through a pandemic. He won a majority of 80, he won Hartlepool in a byelection.
“He has been the greatest electoral asset the Conservative party has had in modern times. If you look at a poll in the Mail on Sunday today, he appeals the most to people who voted Conservative in 2019, an extraordinary coalition.”
Starmer refuses to say if NHS funding would rise in line with inflation under Labour
Final question from Kuenssberg, as she asks whether Labour would increase NHS funding in line with inflation.
Sir Keir again does not answer in specifics, despite the presenter trying to get a “yes/no” answer.
“We will set out what we will do with the NHS, but of course the NHS needs more money.
“Laura, it needs more than money. My wife works in the NHS, my mum worked in the NHS, my sister works in the NHS, I ran a public service.
“I know that of course they need more money, but I also know that it needs reform. The NHS needs to move to a preventative model, but it’s part of the answer.”
That’s it for the Labour leader’s interview.
Kuenssberg says Starmer said this week that the economic climate means the Labour party won’t be able to do things it had previously would have planned to.
“I know that an incoming Labour government will inherit an economic mess form this government. Therefore there are things that we would like to do, good Labour things, we will not be able to do them as quickly as we would want,” the Labour leader said.
The broadcaster pushes him for details, but Starmer does not give them. He says: “We don’t know the extent of the damage and I am not going to write the manifesto on your programme. We have set fiscal rules, we have said we will pay for day-to-day spend, we will only borrow to invest, and we will get debt down as a percentage of our GDP.”
Kuenssberg asks what Labour’s economic policy would be, after Lord Mervyn King, the former head of the Bank of England, said spending and taxes would go up for everyone.
Sir Keir Starmer said: “The damage has been done to our economy and an incoming government will have to pick up a real mess of our economy of the Tories’ making.
“We don’t know the full extend of the damage, because we haven’t had an OBR [Office for Budget Responsibility] report.”
She pushes him again on whether Labour would raise taxes.
“What I have said is I know there are going to be tough choices, I said that in Liverpool three weeks ago, that mean we can’t do some of the things we would like to do as an incoming Labour government.
“We will be the party of sound money. We know the tough choices that will have to be made. A windfall tax on oil and gas companies would bring in tens of billions of pounds, non-dom tax status change, private equity fund loopholes.”
Keir Starmer says Conservative party are a ‘ridiculous, chaotic circus’
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is now being interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg. She asks which candidate he would like to face.
He calls the leadership contest and situation in the Conservative party a “ridiculous, chaotic circus”.
“My focus is on the millions of people who are struggling to pay their bills, now have additional anxieties about their mortgage, I know what it feels like, it happened to me and my family when I was growing up. They are fed up to the back teeth about this.
“They could have a stable Labour government, who would restore faith in the institutions that give us market stability.”
He calls for a general election, repeating a line he used last week before and after Liz Truss stood down.
“They could put their party first or their country first. The country needs change, it needs stability, and to get rid of this chaos,” Sir Keir says.
Nadhim Zahawi backs Boris Johnson
A big-name supporter coming out for Boris Johnson, Nadhim Zahawi, who briefly stood in the leadership contest this summer after a similarly short spell as Johnson’s chancellor, has said he would support his former boss.
He said: “I’m backing Boris. He got the big calls right, whether it was ordering more vaccines ahead of more waves of Covid, arming early [Ukraine] against the advice of some, or stepping down for the sake of unity. But now, Britain needs him back. We need to unite to deliver on our manifesto.”
I’m backing Boris. He got the big calls right, whether it was ordering more vaccines ahead of more waves of covid, arming 🇺🇦 early against the advice of some, or stepping down for the sake of unity. But now, Britain needs him back. We need to unite to deliver on our manifesto 1/2
— Nadhim Zahawi (@nadhimzahawi) October 23, 2022
When I was Chancellor, I saw a preview of what Boris 2.0 would look like. He was contrite & honest about his mistakes. He’d learned from those mistakes how he could run No10 & the country better.
With a unified team behind him, he is the one to lead us to victory & prosperity 2/2— Nadhim Zahawi (@nadhimzahawi) October 23, 2022
First reaction to the interview from Iain Duncan Smith, probably the panel member on the BBC One show whose views could be the most interesting today.
The former leader said: “What we saw there was the same problem that every one of these three candidates will face. It’s a Conservative party that can’t make its mind up whether it wants to see savings through public expenditure, or whether it wants to see higher taxes.
“The trouble is that the more you pile on through taxes, the less business investment you get and the shorter term that process is.
“I suspect any of the candidates will arrive at the same conclusion. We can’t get away from the fact we are going to see efficiency savings in public expenditure, there are other things to do as well, like the deregulation process to improve efficiency in the British economy.”
Mordaunt is asked whether the Conservatives have any legitimacy in not having a general election having changed leader twice since the country last went to the polls nearly three years ago.
“In the 2019 election we had a huge majority and mandate to deliver that manifesto,” Mordaunt says.
“The country now doesn’t need six weeks of chaos and Westminster bubble. What it needs is us to deliver. Open up access to healthcare services, all those bread and butter issues that people want to work better, that’s what we have to do. That’s our mandate. I also want us to remember that as a party that we come together and we start to work on that.”
And that’s it from her.
Mordaunt then flatly denies reports that she has been in touch with Boris Johnson’s camp trying to negotiate a job.
She doesn’t respond to Kuenssberg’s question about whether she would prefer Rishi Sunak or Johnson as prime minister, saying she is standing for a reason.
The presenter then asks whether she would be comfortable about Johnson returning to Downing Street.
“It’s not about him, it’s not about me. It’s not about us, it’s about what we do, and people be able to see a GP, it’s about people being able to get through winter without being worried about keeping the heating and the lights on.”
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