Boris Johnson ‘uncomfortable’ that Mail on Sunday editor was summoned by Speaker over Rayner article – UK politics live | Politics

At PMQs Boris Johnson stated that there have been “500,000 extra individuals in paid employment now than when the pandemic started”. Not solely is that this unfaithful, in accordance with Full Reality, the very fact checking web site, Johnson has now said this falsehold 10 instances in parliament.

In keeping with ONS figures, there have been 33,073,000 individuals in work between December 2019 and February 2020 – earlier than the pandemic. The newest figures, protecting Decmber 2021 to February 2022, present 32,485,000 individuals in paid employment – nearly 600,000 individuals than earlier than the pandemic.

On the liaison committee final month, when Johnson was requested about this error, he stated that he accepted that it was solely payroll employment that was up (the large fall has been within the variety of self-employed employees) and he claimed he had corrected the record. That was additionally unfaithful; he hasn’t – not less than not formally, to parliament.

Commenting on the newest falsehood, Will Moy, the Full Reality CEO, stated:

The prime minister has made the identical false declare in parliament 10 instances now. And nothing has occurred. We’ve truth checked this employment declare and written to Quantity 10 on a number of events. Boris Johnson has acknowledged his mistake and stated he’ll appropriate the report, however we’ve seen no such factor. That is inexcusable and we deserve higher.

MPs should cease placing up with their friends deceptive the Home of Commons and in flip the general public. The system is damaged and as a way to rebuild belief in our political system, change is required.

Moy doesn’t accuse Johnson of mendacity in his assertion (maybe he’s charitably assuming that Johnson preserve forgetting what the reality really is?), however Peter Stefanovic, the campaigner whose video about Johnson’s lies to parliament has been considered 40m instances, is extra direct.

On the post-PMQs foyer briefing, the prime minister’s spokesperson successfully stated that Boris Johnson was siding with the Mail on Sunday, not the Speaker, on the problem of the summons to debate the Angela Rayner article. (See 9.27am.) Requested for a response to the choice by David Dillon, the paper’s editor, to not attend a gathering requested by the Speaker, the PM’s spokesperson stated:

The prime minister is uncomfortable on the concept of our free press being summoned by politicians. We now have a free press on this nation and reporters should be free to report what they’re advised as they see match.

The spokesman stated Johnson wouldn’t need “any notion of politicians in search of to in any manner curb or management what a free press seeks to report”.

As a journalist, Johnson was himself usually criticised for writing sexist or inaccurate materials. It’s not exhausting to see why he may not approve of such reporting being challenged by an authority determine.

And right here is the PA Media write-up of PMQs.

Boris Johnson was branded an “ostrich” together with his head within the sand as Keir Starmer raised cost-of-living considerations at prime minister’s questions.

A tax rise in individuals’s newest payslips has the prime minister’s “fingerprints throughout it”, Labour chief Starmer stated earlier than he labelled the Conservatives the “social gathering of extra oil and fuel earnings” as a result of their rejection of a windfall tax to chop vitality payments.

However Johnson repeatedly claimed Labour has “no plan” and defended his authorities’s financial report, saying of Sir Keir: “This man is doomed to be a everlasting spectator.”

At one stage throughout PMQs the Labour Occasion press workplace shared on Twitter a mocked-up picture of Mr Johnson as the previous Iraqi propaganda chief often known as Comical Ali.

In response to Johnson arguing world inflation was behind slower development for the UK, Starmer advised the Commons: “He sounds just like the Comical Ali of the cost-of-living disaster. He pretends the economic system is booming … however in the true world our development is about to be slower than each G20 nation besides one – Russia. And our inflation goes to be double the remainder of the G7. Does he suppose that denying the info staring him within the face makes issues higher or worse for working individuals?”

Johnson replied: “The info are, because the IMF has stated, that the UK got here out of Covid sooner than anyone else, that’s why we had the quickest development within the G7 final yr. That might not have occurred if we’d listened to captain hindsight. And if he research their forecasts we’ll return to being the quickest by 2024 and the quickest in 2025. That’s what the IMF’s forecasts say … that is the federal government, that is the social gathering that helps working individuals.”

However Starmer countered: “He’s an ostrich – completely pleased maintaining his head within the sand. Working individuals are fearful about paying their payments, they’re spending much less and reducing again – that’s unhealthy for enterprise and unhealthy for development. Working individuals are searching for assist however this week hundreds of thousands will take a look at their payslip and see a tax rise together with his fingerprints throughout it. Does he suppose his fifteenth tax rise has made issues higher or worse for working individuals?”

Johnson replied: “What we’re doing for working individuals just isn’t solely lifting the residing wage by a report quantity, serving to individuals on common credit score with a £1,000 tax reduce, but additionally reducing nationwide insurance coverage contributions, lifting the edge in order that on common individuals pay £330 much less.”

Final week Keir Starmer was reportedly criticised by a shadow cabinet colleague for focusing an excessive amount of on Partygate, as an alternative of on the price of residing. The cost was most likely unfair, however the truth that it was stated might have struck a chord. In the present day Starmer didn’t point out Partygate in any respect, and one other story of specific curiosity to the Westminster (Raynergate) solely obtained a cursory point out. As an alternative Starmer devoted all his inquiries to the economic system and the price of residing.

Every week tomorrow individuals can be voting within the native elections, and in consequence PMQs sounded, much more than regular, like shouty social gathering political broadcasts being broadcast in tandem. Boris Johnson appeared reliant on a random and dog-eared checklist of CCHQ speaking factors, regurgitated with out a lot reference to what he was being requested, and one among Starmer’s finest moments got here when he mocked his approach, referencing a line within the Mail on Sunday story about Angela Rayner.

This should be the Oxford Union debating abilities we’ve been listening to a lot about. Failing to reply the query. Rambling incoherently. Throwing in garbled metaphors. Highly effective stuff, Prime Minister.

Starmer has at all times been good at element and argument at PMQs, however extra lately he has discovered to do scorn and insult as properly, and that was on show right now as he delivered a strong drubbing. Johnson was the “Comical Ali of the cost-of-living disaster”, he stated. The PM was like an ostrich, together with his “head within the sand”, Starmer stated. The cupboard’s MOT value of residing wheeze was like John Main’s cones hotline.

That is how Starmer wound up, together with his peroration.

So that they’re the social gathering of extra oil and fuel earnings and we’re the social gathering of working individuals.

This authorities’s had its head within the sand all through the price of residing disaster. First they let costs obtained uncontrolled. Then they denied it was occurring. They didn’t do something about it. After which they made it worse with larger taxes.

Due to his decisions, we’re set to have the slowest development and the best inflation within the G7.

A vote for Labour subsequent week is a vote for a really completely different set of decisions. We’d ask oil and fuel firms to pay their justifiable share of diminished vitality prices. We’d not hammer working individuals with the worst attainable tax on the worst attainable time. We’d insulate houses to get payments down. And we’d shut the tax avoidance schemes which have helped his chancellor – the place is he? – scale back his household’s tax invoice whereas placing everybody else’s up. That’s correct plan for the economic system. So why doesn’t he get on with it and at last make decisions that make issues higher not worse for working individuals.

Johnson was ready for the ultimate query too. On the price of residing specifics, he was unpersuasive, however he resorted to last-ditch defence, the gist of which was that not less than his authorities was doing one thing, in contrast to the “everlasting spectator” Starmer who didn’t supply a correct various. Opposition leaders can at all times been accused of not really doing a lot (a characteristic of not being in workplace), however in lots of areas Labour’s plans are imprecise or insubstantial, and Tory-inclined voters will most likely really feel that on this Johnson had some extent. Johnson stated:

I can inform [Starmer], I’ve been listening to him for a lot of weeks, for a few years, this man is doomed to be a everlasting spectator.

We now have a plan to repair the NHS and repair social care. They don’t have any plan. We now have a plan to repair our borders with our cope with Rwanda. They don’t have any plan. We now have a plan to take our economic system ahead. They don’t have any plan.

Johnson ended up by summoning up the age-old Tory scare about Labour administrations ruining the economic system. It’s largely nonsense (Johnson included a reference to a Labour council spending £27,000 on EU flags, suggesting the CCHQ checklist of Labour monetary misfeasance is fairly a brief one), however the notion that “all over the place you look, a Labour administration is a bankrupt shambles” (as Johnson put it) is a smear that has has a strong influence in British politics for a lot of the final century. And the truth that Labour has solely simply pulled stage with the Tories in polling on managing the economy suggests it could nonetheless have some life in it but.

Chris Heaton-Harris, the Conservative chief whip, is investigating stories {that a} Tory frontbencher watched pornography on his telephone within the Commons chamber, an announcement from his workplace has stated. My colleague Rowena Mason has the story right here.