Asked if Durham police have been in touch with Labour about the incident where Keir Starmer was filmed having a beer with party workers, Starmer says all that happened is that he and staff stopped for food when they were working.
Asked again if the police had been in touch recently about the story, Starmer sidesteps the question, and just says they looked at it months ago, and concluded that no rules were broken.
He also says it is absurd to suggest that no one returns to work after 10pm. That seems a reference to this tweet from Nadine Dorries, the culture secretary.
We are expected to believe that a curry and beers arrived for about 30 people at 10pm, and this was a break for a work meeting?
No reasonable person believes Labours story, so why do Durham police and what were they told?
https://t.co/XRopCmREzw— Nadine Dorries (@NadineDorries) May 1, 2022
Dorries has been widely criticised for this tweet, mostly (but not exclusively) because it includes a picture of Starmer eating in 2015, six years before lockdown.
Starmer suggests defence spending needs to rise, saying government needs to ‘look again’ at issue
In his Today interview Keir Starmer says the government will have to “look again” at defence spending. He does not mean with a view to cutting it.
He also restates Labour’s objection to the number of soliders in the army being cut.
This is from Ed Miliband, the shadow secretary of state for climate change and net zero, on the latest BP profit figures.
Yet again we see the oil and gas companies making billions upon billions of profits coming directly from the pockets of the British people and the government shamefully refuses to act.
The oil and gas firms may be doing their job for the shareholders of their companies but the government is negligently failing to do its job for the people of this country.
The refusal to levy a windfall tax to help cut energy bills is deeply wrong, unfair, and tells you all you need to know about whose side this government is on – and it’s not the British people.
As Julia Kollewe reports, BP’s profits more than doubled to $6.2bn (£5bn) in the first three months of the year, boosted by soaring oil and gas prices.
Keir Starmer is being interviewed on Today now. He is talking about the BP results announced this morning, which appear to back the Labour call for a windfall tax on energy companies because they show profits at their highest level for a decade. My colleague Graeme Wearden has more about those results on his business blog here.
Starmer says people are facing higher bills, but also having to pay more in tax because of the government’s national insurance hike. Most families will be much worse off, he says.
Good morning. Boris Johnson is giving his first interview to ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning. While Piers Morgan was a presenter there, Johnson never seemed to find time in his diary to make an appearance, but with the local elections just two days away, he will be on the programme shortly, with Susanna Reid asking the questions.
Later Johnson will be channelling Churchill as he gives a virtual address to the Ukrainian parliament. In his interview he will probably be less keen to talk about a new poll suggesting the Conservatives are on course to lose nearly 550 seats in the elections. The figure comes from a poll for Electoral Calculus using MRP (multilevel regression and post-stratification) analysis. In the past MRP polls have provided a better guide to election results than conventional polls because they take conventional polling and apply it on a constituency by constitiuency basis, using data about the demographic composition of those constituencies, and what the polling says about how different groups are voting.
The Electoral Calculus analysis of the findings is here. And here are its key conclusions.
Swing of 6pc to Labour away from Conservatives
Labour set to hold 3,500 council seats, with Conservatives holding fewer than 1,000 council seats
Labour likely to gain around 16 councils, giving them control of 85
Conservatives could lose several councils, including the flagship City of Westminster, and could end up with less than 40 councils
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.10am: Keir Starmer is interviewed on the Today programme. He is also on BBC Breakfast at 8.30pm, followed by Times Radio.
8.15am: Boris Johnson is interviewed by Susanna Reid on ITV’s Good Morning Britain.
Morning: Johnson is due to address the Ukrainian parliament by video link. As Aubrey Allegretti reports, Johnson will quote Churchilll, telling Ukrainians that their fight against Russia will come to be seen as their country’s “finest hour”.
After 4pm: Johnson is inteviewed on Times Radio.
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