Starmer to be grilled on economy and public services as No 10 firms up Trump links – UK politics live | Politics
Keir Starmer to be questioned by liaison committee as No 10 firms up Trump links
Good morning. It is the last day the House of Commons is sitting before the Christmas recess, and the main event will be in a committee room in Portcullis House where Keir Starmer will have his first question session with the liaison committee, the ‘prefects’ club’ comprising the chairs of all the other Commons select committees. For 90 minutes he will take questions on the economy, public services and global affairs from MPs who know their subjects pretty well. Most of them are Labour MPs, but they include people who have only become select committee chairs because, despite serving on the front bench before the election, they were not appointed ministers, and so it is wrong to assume they are all Starmer loyalists.
In theory, 90 minutes of intelligent questioning with the PM should produce a decent amount of news. In reality, past liaison committee hearings have often failed to produce much beyond a rehash of familiar No 10 lines to take. But we live in hope.
Relations with the US are almost certain to come up, and Starmer may be asked about an overnight story that suggests Starmer is firming up links with the incoming Donald Trump administration. Yesterday Starmer and Trump spoke on the phone. In its readout, No 10 says:
The prime minister began by congratulating President-elect Trump on his recent team appointments and President-elect Trump warmly recounted his meeting with His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in Paris earlier this month.
Both agreed on their joint ambition to strengthen the close and historic relationship between the UK and the US. They looked forward to working together on shared priorities, including international security and delivering economic growth and prosperity.
No 10 did not say which of the Trump appointments Starmer wanted to applaud. Some of them have horrified progressive opinion around the world. CBS has a useful list of all the names here.
And, overnight, the Telegraph and the Sun have revealed that Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, travelled to the US last week for talks with Trump’s team. The Guardian has confirmed the story. In his Telegraph story Ben Riley-Smith says:
Morgan McSweeney travelled to Florida to meet Susie Wiles, the political strategist who masterminded Mr Trump’s re-election campaign and will be his chief of staff in office.
Mr McSweeney also had policy discussions in Washington with Mike Waltz, the congressman who has been named as Mr Trump’s next national security adviser.
Riley-Smith also includes this quote from a “senior Downing Street source” summarising the position.
The mood music was very warm. President Trump is nothing but warm about the UK.
As the year closes, Team Starmer is confident the UK is in a good position for a strong bilateral relationship with the new presidency.
(Do they really talk like that in Westminster? I’m afraid they do.)
In his version of the story, Harry Cole from the Sun says Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s national security adviser, also attended the meeting.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Steve Reed, the environment secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Keir Starmer gives evidence to the liaison committee.
At some point today we are also expecting Downing Street to release a list of new peers.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I have still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Key events
British troops could start training Ukrainian troops in Ukraine, John Healey suggests
British troops could start training Ukrainian troops in Ukraine itself, John Healey, the defence secretary, has suggested. He revealed this in an interview with Larisa Brown in the Times. In her story Brown reports:
John Healey said the UK needed to “make the training a better fit for what the Ukrainians need” as he left the door open for it to take place in the war-torn country instead of Britain.
“We [need to] make it easier to the Ukrainians to access and we [need to] work with the Ukrainians to help them motivate and mobilise more recruits,” he said to The Times on a visit to Ukraine.
Asked if this meant extending training of Ukrainian recruits inside the UK to Ukraine itself, he said: “We will look wherever we can to respond to what the Ukrainians want. They are the ones fighting.”
Keir Starmer has met the Sultan of Brunei at Downing Street, PA Media reports. PA says:
The prime minister greeted Haji Hassanal Bolkiah at the door of No 10.
They then held a meeting in the White Room.
Starmer praised the “strong relationship” between the two countries.
He said he and the sultan would talk about the renewal of the garrison agreement between the two nations, and wider issues of trade and security.
At 10.30am there will be an urgent question in the Commons on hospice funding. It has been tabled by Caroline Johnson, a shadow health minister. She may be hoping to clear up the confusion about what the government will do to compensate hospices for the extra staff costs arising because of the employers’ national insurance rise in the budget, and about when the announcement is coming. Yesterday Wes Streeting, the health secretary, told there would be a decision before Christmas. But at PMQs Keir Starmer said it was coming in the new year.
Then there are four ministerial statement. After the usual Thursday statement on forthcoming business by Lucy Powell, the leader of the Commons, we’ve got:
Average water bill in England and Wales to rise by 36% over five years
Water bills in England and Wales will rise by 36% over the next five years, as suppliers were accused of forcing struggling households to pay for years of underinvestment to fix leaky pipes and cut pollution, Jasper Jolly and Helena Horton report.
What No 10 said about Starmer’s conversation with Trump yesterday
For the record, here is the full readout from No 10 about the conversation between Keir Starmer and Donald Trump yesterday.
The prime minister spoke to President-elect Donald Trump this afternoon from Downing Street.
The prime minister began by congratulating President-elect Trump on his recent team appointments and President-elect Trump warmly recounted his meeting with His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in Paris earlier this month.
Both agreed on their joint ambition to strengthen the close and historic relationship between the UK and the US. They looked forward to working together on shared priorities, including international security and delivering economic growth and prosperity.
Turning to global conflicts, the prime minister reiterated the need for allies to stand together with Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression and to ensure Ukraine is in the strongest possible position.
On the Middle East, the prime minister underscored the need to work together to ensure peace and security in the region.
They agreed to keep in touch and looked forward to seeing one another at the earliest opportunity.
Keir Starmer to be questioned by liaison committee as No 10 firms up Trump links
Good morning. It is the last day the House of Commons is sitting before the Christmas recess, and the main event will be in a committee room in Portcullis House where Keir Starmer will have his first question session with the liaison committee, the ‘prefects’ club’ comprising the chairs of all the other Commons select committees. For 90 minutes he will take questions on the economy, public services and global affairs from MPs who know their subjects pretty well. Most of them are Labour MPs, but they include people who have only become select committee chairs because, despite serving on the front bench before the election, they were not appointed ministers, and so it is wrong to assume they are all Starmer loyalists.
In theory, 90 minutes of intelligent questioning with the PM should produce a decent amount of news. In reality, past liaison committee hearings have often failed to produce much beyond a rehash of familiar No 10 lines to take. But we live in hope.
Relations with the US are almost certain to come up, and Starmer may be asked about an overnight story that suggests Starmer is firming up links with the incoming Donald Trump administration. Yesterday Starmer and Trump spoke on the phone. In its readout, No 10 says:
The prime minister began by congratulating President-elect Trump on his recent team appointments and President-elect Trump warmly recounted his meeting with His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in Paris earlier this month.
Both agreed on their joint ambition to strengthen the close and historic relationship between the UK and the US. They looked forward to working together on shared priorities, including international security and delivering economic growth and prosperity.
No 10 did not say which of the Trump appointments Starmer wanted to applaud. Some of them have horrified progressive opinion around the world. CBS has a useful list of all the names here.
And, overnight, the Telegraph and the Sun have revealed that Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, travelled to the US last week for talks with Trump’s team. The Guardian has confirmed the story. In his Telegraph story Ben Riley-Smith says:
Morgan McSweeney travelled to Florida to meet Susie Wiles, the political strategist who masterminded Mr Trump’s re-election campaign and will be his chief of staff in office.
Mr McSweeney also had policy discussions in Washington with Mike Waltz, the congressman who has been named as Mr Trump’s next national security adviser.
Riley-Smith also includes this quote from a “senior Downing Street source” summarising the position.
The mood music was very warm. President Trump is nothing but warm about the UK.
As the year closes, Team Starmer is confident the UK is in a good position for a strong bilateral relationship with the new presidency.
(Do they really talk like that in Westminster? I’m afraid they do.)
In his version of the story, Harry Cole from the Sun says Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s national security adviser, also attended the meeting.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: Steve Reed, the environment secretary, takes questions in the Commons.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2.30pm: Keir Starmer gives evidence to the liaison committee.
At some point today we are also expecting Downing Street to release a list of new peers.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X but individual Guardian journalists are there, I have still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
