Health Minister Andrew Gwynne has been sacked after he was found to have sent offensive messages in a Whatsapp group with other Labour figures. Gwynne had joked about hoping a constituent would soon be dead, and made sexist and racist comments about Angela Rayner and Diane Abbott.
On Sky News, housing minister Matthew Pennycook denounced Gwynne’s comments, and told Trevor Phillips that Keir Starmer had ‘acted decisively’ to ‘uphold the highest standards of public office’. Phillips asked if other Labour politicians in the same Whatsapp group would be suspended. Pennycook said an investigation was taking place, and that if any other Labour MP was found to have fallen short of Labour’s standards, they would be suspended as well.
Angela Rayner denies being defensive or aggressive in Grenfell meeting
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner confirmed this week that Grenfell Tower will be demolished. The tower block will be deconstructed gradually over a two-year period starting later this year after the eighth anniversary of the 2017 fire which caused the deaths of 72 people. Speaking to Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC, Rayner said that there had been no consensus among the survivors and the bereaved, but the decision to demolish Grenfell was a ‘really important piece of work that had to be done’. Kuenssberg said that some people who had been present at the meeting with Rayner had described it as a ‘car crash’, and that Rayner herself had been ‘defensive’ and ‘aggressive’. Rayner said that she would be ‘sincerely upset’ if anyone had felt that way. The Deputy Prime Minister said it was a ‘really difficult meeting’ that she had held to inform survivors of the government’s decision before it was made public.
Rayner admits Labour doubt around its 1.5 million homes pledge
Angela Rayner also spoke to Kuenssberg about her plans to dramatically increase house building by the end of this parliament. Kuenssberg pointed out that since Labour was elected, the number of sites approved for development has fallen, and house prices have hit a record high. Rayner said she knew how difficult it would be, and that Labour had been aware of downward trends in home building before they came to power. She admitted that she had been asked by colleagues whether she wanted to review the 1.5 million figure in Labour’s manifesto after she became housing secretary, but said she wouldn’t ‘give up on the target’.
Alex Burghart refuses to rule out a possible Conservative-Reform pact in the future
Trevor Phillips also interviewed shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Alex Burghart. Phillips brought up a poll which suggests Reform UK is currently ahead of Labour and the Conservatives with voters, and asked Burghart if the Tories could ever reach ‘an understanding’ with Nigel Farage. Burghart pointed out that Farage made it his mission to ‘destroy’ the Conservative party, and said talk of a deal with Farage was not a ‘sensible conversation’. When Phillips pushed him for a definitive answer, Burghart held back from completely ruling out the possibility, saying, ‘that is not a question for me, I am not that important, I don’t get to make that call’.
Israeli President on Trump’s Gaza plan: ‘We have to look for new ideas’
In an interview with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, Laura Kuenssberg asked whether the Israeli government was now aligned with Trump’s widely condemned proposal to hand over Gaza to the US, and expel the Palestinians to neighbouring countries. Herzog said he had interpreted Trump as saying that ‘going back to the same routine of getting to a ceasefire… and then Hamas attacks you and then we go to war… cannot go on’. Herzog said that Trump would meet with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan, and that it was necessary to ‘find a right way to make sure that what happened cannot occur again’.
Comments