No 10 claims delays at Dover not caused by Brexit as Tory leadership rivals prepare for televised debate – UK politics live

And the SNP has accused Keir Starmer of adopting Tory policies. This is from Kirsten Oswald, the SNP’s deputy leader at Westminster.

Keir Starmer’s rhetoric on the economy and growth would carry an ounce of credibility if his party were not the handmaidens of disastrous Tory policies which are harming the UK economy, hammering businesses, and making us all poorer.

The reality is that while the Tory leadership candidates try and out-Thatcher Thatcher, Keir Starmer believes that Labour’s path back to power is to adopt Tory policies wholesale – regardless of the damage they are doing to the economy.

On Brexit, freedom of movement, privatisation – you can no longer put a piece of paper between the two main Westminster parties.

Momentum, the Labour group set up to support Jeremy Corbyn and his agenda when he was leader, has dismissed Keir Starmer’s comments on nationalisation this morning (see 12.50pm) as “neoliberal dogma” rather than smart politics.

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the prime minister’s spokesperson insisted that the delays at Dover seen over the weekend were not caused by Brexit. He said the problems were down to a combination of factors “including a shortage of French border control staff”. He went on:

So these are not scenes that we think are necessitated by leaving the European Union.

We think we have operational procedures and processes in place that do not need to see these levels of queues.

Asked whether the UK would like the French to stop stamping travellers’ passports, the spokesperson said:

Generally speaking we have a good relationship working with our French counterparts on these juxtaposed controls.

It is for, obviously, individual governments to decide how to carry out checks at the border. Our view is that these should be done proportionately and sensibly given the good working relationships that we have.

Asked whether the government thought the French approach to controls at the border was proportionate and sensible, the spokesperson replied:

It’s not for me to pass judgment.

We did see significant improvements over the weekend where they deployed more staff which has significantly reduced congestion, and that is welcome, and we will continue to have discussions with our French counterparts to ensure that there is sufficient planning ahead of any increase as we move into next weekend.

The French government insists that Brexit is a major factor. And experts agree.

Rishi Sunak has challenged Liz Truss to agree to be interviewed by Andrew Neil, after it was confirmed that he will record an interview with Neil for broadcast on Friday. (See 1.20pm.)

Neil is widely seen as the most ferocious political interviewer in British broadcasting at the moment – partly because of his combative style, but mostly because he is always remarkably well briefed, with the result that he can frequently leave his interviewees looking inept.

Sunak is regarded as a better media performer than Truss, and this may help to explain why he has agreed to sit down with Neil. But his decision to accept the Neil invitation, and challenge Truss to do likewise, is also indicative of his standing as the underdog in the contest. Candidates who are well ahead in an election (as the polling suggests Truss is) are often reluctant to debate because they have little to gain and much to lose.

The Truss campaign has not said yet whether or not Truss will grant Neil an interview.

When Keir Starmer was running for the Labour leadership after the 2019 general election, he issued 10 pledges which included: “Support common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water.” He has been in retreat from these every since, but his comments today probably take him a bit further down the path of burying Labour’s interest in renationalisation.

At the Labour conference last year, after abandoning the commitment to renationalising energy companies, Starmer argued that his commitment to “common ownership” was different and he implied that his support for that still applied.

More recently he has refused to restate his commitment to all of the leadership campaign 10 pledges – including “common ownership”, his watered down version of nationalisation.

In her interview on the Today programme this morning Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, was specifically asked about the renationalisation of water, energy and rail. Rail is particularly problematic because Louise Haigh, the shadow transport secretary, told the rail union Aslef earlier this year that the party was “totally committed” to public ownership of rail. Labour claims Reeves was not categorically ruling this out. (See 11.33am.)

But Starmer implied that renationalising rail companies was not an option he favoured. In the Q&A after his speech this morning, in response to the first question on this, from a journalist asking if he was still interested in common ownership, he replied:

I take a pragmatic approach rather than an ideological one and agree with what Rachel Reeves said this morning.

Having come through the pandemic, it’s very important that we have very, very clear priorities and that’s why we’ve set our fiscal rules already as an opposition …

And my priority, as I hope is obvious from this morning, is growth. The mission of the next Labour government will be growth.

Starmer was then asked directly if taking rail companies back into public ownership was a priority. He again said that his approach was pragmatic, not ideological. He said:

Whether it comes to rail or [energy], I think what some of our mayors and metro mayors are doing with public transport is the right way forward: absolutely focus on keeping the price down and making sure there’s control over where things go, particularly buses …

I think that is the difference that Labour metro mayors can make in power.

In his Q&A Keir Starmer said that he agreed with what Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, said in an interview this morning about nationalisation. (See 11.05am.) That is not the most helpful answer because what Reeves said has been subject to some clarification.

On the Today programme Reeves was asked if Labour was now ruling out nationalisation of water, energy companies and rail companies if it won the election. She replied:

I’ve set out fiscal rules that say all day to day spending will be funded by day to day tax revenues …

Within our fiscal rules, to be spending billions of pounds on nationalising things that just doesn’t stack up against our fiscal rules.

And when it was put to her that nationalisation was a commitment, she replied:

They were a commitment in a manifesto that secured our worst results since 1935 … We have scrapped the 2019 manifesto. That is not the starting point. We’re setting out distinct policies under Kier Starmer.

But subsequently, as Sienna Rodgers from the House magazine reports, Labour said Reeves was not categorically ruling out rail nationalisation in her answer. (But the Labour clarification also does not make rail nationalisation sound particularly probable either, which is also what Reeves was implying.)

Starmer says the government needs an industrial strategy. This government does not have one, he says. And an industrial strategy isn’t about growing the size of the state; it is about partnership with business and university.

He confirms that Labour would legislate to set up a new industrial strategy council.

He suggests this could shape policy like the Climate Change Committee, or the Office for Budget Responsibility. It could focus on national priorities that go beyond the political cycle, he says.