Sturgeon says Sky plan to exclude SNP from three-way leaders’ debate ‘outrageous’
Sky News is now proposing a three-way leaders’s debate, involving Jo Swinson, the Lib Dem leader.
Sky News(@ SkyNews)
BREAKING: Sky News is proposing a live TV debate between the leaders of the three main UK-wide national parties in the run up to next month’s# GeneralElection 2019.@ BorisJohnson,@ JeremyCorbynand@JoSwinsonhave all been invited to take part.
And (Nicola Sturgeon) , the Scottish first minister and leader of the SNP, has described the decision to exclude her as “outrageous”. Her party has 35 MPs, while Swinson’s has just 19 – and eight of those are defectors from other parties.
Nicola Sturgeon(@ NicolaSturgeon)
Simply outrageous and unacceptable to exclude@ theSNP– the third largest party in UK. What are the other parties so scared of that they won’t agree to real debate? And why are broadcasters letting down voters, especially in Scotland?https://t.co/V3xokFN1zt
This morningJonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, got the 8. 10 slot on the Today program to discuss Labor figures showing thatalmost 80, 000 operations were cancelled last year.
Jonathan Ashworth(@ JonAshworth)
A decade of the Tory NHS:
🔹Tightest funding squeeze in history, cuts to public heath & social care
🔹Over 15, 000 bed cuts
************************************** 🔹Short of 100, 000 staff
ospHospital repair bill ballooned to £ 6.5 bnIt means 80, 000 cancelled operations & record waiting lists.https: // t.co/ovPDmQEtMt
Ed Conway,Sky’s economics editor, has posted a good thread on Twitter explaining this figure in context. Here are the key points.
Labor’s research shows numbers of cancellations in past 3yrs exceeded 80 k. Much of that’s due to staffing issues & equipment failures. But the main question this chart makes me ask is: OK but if you had bars going further back would they really show it’s now an all time high?pic.twitter.com/Zxpvi5E9vA
(November 4, 2019
Ed Conway(@ EdConwaySky)
The short answer is: no. NHS England has a database of cancellations going back to the ’90 s. They suggest cancellation numbers are high, but not rising exponentially. NB Labor’s figs aren’t 100 PC comparable since they cover other parts of the UK tho not every trust / region.pic.twitter.com/SCOBgx1wYX
Ed Conway(@ EdConwaySky)
But even that doesn’t tell full story. There are more NHS patients / operations every yr. Best way of judging cancellations is by dividing them by no of admissions. Which gives you this chart. V different story. Cancellation rate up since 2012 but lower than late 90 s or early 2000 spic.twitter.com/5KbXG4uu7V
Lisa O’Carroll
More than 400, 000 EU citizens living in Britain applied for settled status in the last month, in a huge surge reflecting the threat of a no-dealBrexit.
The number of total applications has now passed 2.2m, up from 1.8m in September, the Home Office has said, with around 17, 000 applications per day. The new total represents 64% of the estimated 3.4m EU citizens living in the UK.
The rise in applications in the last four weeks reflect concerns among EU citizens that they would be left in legal limbo if the UK had crashed out of the EU as threatened by Boris Johnson on 31 October.
A spokesman for the Home Office said 1.8m had received either settled status (given to those in the country for five years or more) or pre-settled status (given to those in the country for fewer than five
Some 300, 000 applicants remainder are still being processed.
EU citizens and their family members have until at least (December) to apply whatever the outcome of Brexit. If the new prime minister seals a deal that deadline will be extended to June 2021.
Steven Morris
Wales is on course for a fundamental transformation in its political landscape with Welsh Labour’s dominance under threat, the first opinion poll of the campaign in the country is suggesting.
The YouGov poll for ITV-Cymru Wales and Cardiff University has the Tories level with Labor in Wales while the (Brexit) Party is in third place and the Lib Dems have lost ground.
Here are the voting intention figures (with changes on the last poll conducted last month in brackets).
Labor:29 ( 4)
Conservatives:28 (-1)
Brexit party:( 1)
Liberal Democrats:(-4)
Plaid Cymru:12 (no change)
Greens:3 (-1) ************
Others:1 (no change)
In a blogProf Roger Awan-Scully , head of politics and international relations at Cardiff University, cautiously suggests this could lead to Labor losing 10 seats in Wales, and the Conservatives gaining nine.
These are from the New Statesman’s Stephen Bush.
Stephen Bush(@ stephenkb)
This party political broadcast on behalf of Yes to AV is a bit wordy, isn ‘t it?# speakerelection
Stephen Bush(@ stephenkb)
I see the argument for doing an exhaustive ballot when you give the candidates time to make deals and win over eliminated votes, but when there are just 20 minutes between ballots, why not just rank candidates numerically?
Stephen Bush(@ stephenkb)
I mean what are they doing with the time? Whatsapping each other barcharts with “Rosie Winterton CANNOT win here!” To one another?
As Bush points out, the election of the Commons Speaker is taking a while because MPs use an exhaustive ballot (successive rounds of voting, as candidates drop out). In the other main internalHouse of Commonselections, for select committee chairs, they use the alternative vote.
The fact that they are not using first past the post (FPTP), the system used in the UK to elect MPs, might be seen as evidence that FPTP is not ideal and that there are much better voting systems available. But all the MPs who sit in the Commons have managed to get there via FPTP, and the arguments for replacing are rarely heard at the moment. (In fact, in the election campaign so far,the only party making a big issue of electoral reform is the Brexit party.)
Can anyone now beat Lindsay Hoyle?
Probably not.
There are now just 22 new votes up for grabs. Even if all of them go to Rosie Winterton, assuming no other changes, she would not catch Harriet Harman, and so there must be a strong chance of her dropping out after the next round of voting.
That would free up 68 votes – almost all the 70 that Hoyle would need to win. (See 4. 20 am.)
Of course, they won’t all go to Hoyle. But it would be fair to assume that quite a few at least of the votes for Hillier and Winterton (both Labor MPs) will go to Hoyle (also a (Labor) *********** (MP).
But Hillier and Winterton are also women, and many MPs may understandably be motivated by a desire to see another woman as Speaker, for only the second time in history.
This could be Eleanor Laing’s best route to victory. But is it a plausible one? Even if she were to pick up all the Hillier votes, and all the Winterton votes, and then all the Harriet Harman ones, she would still only be on 241 votes – 41 short of the 282 Threshold.
There are scenarios you can imagine which might see someone overhauling Hoyle. But, unlike a party leadership election, this isn’t one of those ballots where people will switch to backing another candidate for personal advancement. It is a secret ballot, and even if MPs do tell the person who eventually wins they are backing their cause, there is little they will gain from the Speaker’s patronage. He or she does not appoint a cabinet.
And switching of this kind only normally happens in an election where voting is driven by a strong desire to block a particular candidate. But Hoyle does not inspire that sort of feelings in MPs. He is well liked, and he is easily acceptable to the house as a whole. We are not expecting to see an operation to scupper his chances.
In other words, it is very hard to see how he does not end up as Speaker by the end of the day.
Ken Clarke tells MPs that no candidate is dropping out.
He says the new ballot papers will be printed.
Labor ***** John Speller complains. He says there was no need to print new ballot papers. MPs could have managed with the original ones, he says. He says they would have known who had dropped out.
Clarke says this is the system they are using.
He suspends proceedings until the new ballot papers are printed.
Lindsay Hoyle clear winner in first ballot, but short of 50% of votes needed
Ken Clarke announces the result.
He says 562 MPs voted. The results are:
Sir Lindsay Hoyle: 211
Dame Eleanor Laing: 113
Chris Bryant: 98
Harriet Harman: 72
Dame Rosie Winterton: 46
Sir Edward Leigh: 12
Meg Hillier:
Clarke says Hillier and Leigh are now out, because Hillier came last, and Leigh also received fewer than 5% of votes cast.
He says any other candidate who wants to drop out must say so within the next 10 minutes.
If the 562 MPs who voted stay for the rest of the day, a candidate needs 282 to get more than 50%.
That means Hoyle is only 70 votes short of winning.
Updated (at) . 23 am EST
In the Commons the division bells are ringing. That means the results of the first round of voting in the election of the new Speaker will be announced shortly.
Robert Colvile(@ rcolvile)
I bloody love BBC Parliament. ‘If a new Speaker is chosen and then doesn’t get elected, would they be the shortest-serving ever?’ ‘Well there was a guy who was chosen and then the Archbishop of Canterbury declared him a heretic the next day, but that was in 1395 … ”
Henry McDonald
Pro-remain independent unionist MP Lady Sylvia Hermon will hardly be punching the air with relief over Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald’s endorsement of her in the forthcoming general election. (See 1. 29 PM.)
North Down is a solidly unionist seat which is unique in being the only pro-union constituency in Northern Ireland that voted to remain in the 2016 EU referendum.
However, many remain unionist voters remain solidly pro another union as well as being Europhile – the one between Northern Ireland and Britain.
The most affluent parliamentary constituency in the region is also home to a large cohort of retired police officers and ex-military who admired Lady Hermon’s late husband, the combative, often highly controversial former Royal Ulster Constabulary Chief Constable Jack Hermon.
One veteran RUC detective whose own family were split down the middle between leave / remain in theBrexitreferendum today described Sinn Fein’s backing for Hermon as a potential “kiss of death” for the North Down MP.
Whichever single unionist candidate stands against her in the campaign will use Sinn Fein’s support for her throughout the weeks ahead in their bid to unseat her, he said.
Whether he is right or wrong most long term observers of the Northern Irish political scene would agree that this was one endorsement Lady Hermon could have done without.
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