It’s too late to replace Sunak so Tories must ‘march towards the sound of the guns’, Ben Wallace says – as it happened

Ofcom has ruled today that GB News broke impartiality rules on five occasions by using Tory MPs as news presenters.

But it has not imposed sanctions on the broadaster. It says these count as first offence, and that there may be sanctions if it happens again.

Ofcom criticised two episodes of a programme presented by Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, and three episodes of a programme presented by Esther McVey, the so-called “minister for common sense” in the Cabinet Office and her husband, the Tory MP Philip Davies.

In a statement it says:

Under the Broadcasting Code, news, in whatever form, must be presented with due impartiality. Additionally, a politician cannot be a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter unless, exceptionally, there is editorial justification.

In line with the right to freedom of expression, broadcasters have editorial freedom to offer audiences a wide range of programme formats, including using politicians to present current affairs or other non-news programmes. Politicians may also appear in broadcast news content as an interviewee or any other type of guest.

Individual programmes can also feature a mix of news and non-news content and move between the two genres. If, however, a licensee chooses to use a politician as a presenter in a programme containing both news and current affairs content, it must take steps to ensure they do not act as a newsreader, news interviewer or news reporter in that programme.

After careful consideration of the facts in each case – including forensic analysis of the content and detailed representations from GB News – we found that two episodes of Jacob Rees-Mogg’s State of the Nation, two episodes of Friday Morning with Esther and Phil, and one episode of Saturday Morning with Esther and Phil, broadcast during May and June 2023, failed to comply with Rules 5.1 and 5.3 of the Broadcasting Code.

All five programmes in question contained a mix of news and current affairs content. We found that host politicians acted as newsreaders, news interviewers or news reporters in sequences which clearly constituted news – including reporting breaking news events – without exceptional justification. News was, therefore, not presented with due impartiality.

Section 5.1 of the code says: “News, in whatever form, must be reported with due accuracy and presented with due impartiality.” And second 5.3 says: “No politician may be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified. In that case, the political allegiance of that person must be made clear to the audience.”

Ofcom says that these are GB News’ first breaches of these rules. If there are further breaches, the broadcaster may face sanctions, it says.

These are the first breaches of Rules 5.1 and 5.3 recorded against GB News. Since opening these investigations, there has only been one further programme which has raised issues warranting investigation under these rules. We are clear, however, that GB News is put on notice that any repeated breaches of Rules 5.1 and 5.3 may result in the imposition of a statutory sanction.

UPDATE: McVey and Davies are no longer part of the GB News line-up, and last hosted programmes on the channel last year, PA Media reports.

Rob Powell from Sky News says the Sunak speech does not match some of the advance hype.

Gosh that was a short & limited speech (around seven minutes) by the PM given it was being talked up as Rishi Sunak’s “first economic speech since the Spring Budget”.

Not sure that will necessarily shift the dial all that much.

Powell is referring in particular to the Times’ splash.

Sunak is now taking questions from the business figures in the audience. So far the answers have been quite dull, and Sky News has abandoned its live coverage. But we have a live feed at the top of the blog.

Sunak says the government is cutting taxes. And he confirms that its long-term ambition is to abolish national insurance.

He claims the government has cut red tape, saying more than 2,000 EU laws have been revoked, and 500 more will be abolished this year.

And he says the government will go further and cut regulation for small businesses.

This is what No 10 said about this in an overnight news release.

The prime minister is also expected to announce further deregulatory measures to simplify both non-financial and financial reporting for SMEs which is expected to save thousands of businesses across the UK around £150m per year.

This includes increasing the number of companies which qualify as a smaller or medium sized business through a 50% uplift to the thresholds that determine a company’s size. This is expected to benefit up to 132,000 businesses who will be spared from burdensome form-filling and non-financial reporting requirements.

The existing onerous and outdated thresholds were previously set by the EU, but our Brexit freedoms mean we can now raise the thresholds to ensure they’re more proportionate and better reflect the needs of British businesses. This has also allowed us to go further than the EU, who recently raised its thresholds by 25%.

We are also removing several duplicative and bureaucratic EU reporting requirements, including for what companies must set out in their annual reports, whilst also making it easier for companies to share digitalised annual reports rather than paper copies – ensuring businesses practices are fit for the modern age.

Taken together, these changes are expected to deliver around £150m of savings for SMEs per year and save small businesses at least 1 million hours per year in total.

Rishi Sunak has just started his speech on the economy.

He says he grew up in a small business. When he was not at school, he worked in his mother’s pharmacy, he says. He says the family had a stake in the business; if they worked hard, they would do well.

That is how it should be, he says.

He says he knows the economic situation has been tough. But the government’s plan is starting to work, he claims. Inflation has fallen by more than a half.

Labour has also overnight issued some details of its plans to set up a 1,000-strong unit to return people who have applied for asylum in the UK but had their applications rejected. In a news release it said:

[Labour] is now announcing details of a new 1,000-strong returns and enforcement unit to increase those removals, from failed asylum seekers through to foreign national offenders - funded through savings made from clearing the asylum backlog and ending hotel use, currently costing the British taxpayer £8m a day.

-Expedite case progression on removals of those with no right to remain and fix the processing gaps identified by the chief inspector of borders

-Include officers posted to foreign countries to negotiate more returns agreements, allowing the UK to return people back to their safe country of origin

-Work to identify, shut down and penalise workplaces that are illegally employing and exploiting asylum seekers, particularly looking at the practice of recruiting from asylum hotels, and co-operate with the police on arresting those responsible for the trafficking of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children from hotels.

James Cleverly, the home secretary, and Yvette Cooper, his Labour shadow, have been having a row on X overnight, prompted by a story in the Times saying that Rwanda wants a staggered start to the deportation bill, and that, if the Rwanda bill gets royal assent soon, the Home Office “hopes it will be able to issue about 150 migrants with removal notification letters by the end of this week”.

Cooper posted this.

Unbelievable. Govt finally admitting here that Tories’ flagship £500m Rwanda scheme will only cover around 150 people

Probable cost of this failing gimmick to British taxpayer is near £2m per person

Labour will put that money into border security instead

Cleverly said Cooper should read the article, which says: “The Rwandan government has said there is no cap on numbers and while there will be a staggered approach to the first flights, there would be no pause in numbers it can accept.”

And Cooper replied:

James - you’ve bust the Home Office budget by £5bn, you’re writing £500m in taxpayer cheques to Rwanda, your own immigration ministers say numbers will be low hundreds & you are trying to pay volunteers to fill flights because scheme is failing.

In your own words - “batshit”

Sadiq Khan will launch his campaign for a record third term as mayor of London by promising the “greatest council homebuilding drive in a generation”, Daniel Boffey reports.

Here are some more lines from Kemi Badenoch’s media round this morning.

• Badenoch defended Rishi Sunak’s decision not to immediately describe the reported remarks from the Tory donor Frank Hester about Diane Abbott as racist last week. Sunak attracted widespread criticism because initially No 10 just described the comments as unacceptable. It did not issue a statement saying the comments were racist until after Badenoch had denounced them in those terms herself, giving the impression that Sunak was following a lead taken by his business secretary. Today Badenoch told BBC Breakfast that she did not accept that interpretation. She said No 10 was taking its time because “they were establishing the facts of the matter”. She went on:

I gave a personal opinion. And to be honest, I don’t want a prime minister who is just going to be lurching out, making comments every five minutes in response to the media.

What he is not doing is following the media’s lead, and I’m very pleased that he agreed with me, but I was making my comments in a personal capacity as the only black woman in the cabinet.

• She said she was “surprised” people thought the Conservative party should return the donations (at least £10m, possibly £15m) it has received from Hester. She told LBC:

I’m actually quite surprised that people suggest this [that the party return the money]. This was something that happened five years ago … He’s apologised for it. I think that it is far more important that we accept the apology and [move on]. It’s taking too much attention, I think, away from what is actually meaningful to the people around the country.

• She claimed that the Hester comments were “not even really about Diane Abbott”. She told LBC:

He wasn’t talking to Diane Abbott. It wasn’t even really about Diane Abbott. He used her in a reference that was completely unacceptable.

Badenoch was referring to the fact that, in the comment as reported in the Guardian, Hester made his offensive comment about Abbott as he was elaborating on an offensive comment he was making about someone else. In response, a spokesperson for Hester said he accepted he was rude about Abbott, but claimed “his criticism had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”.

• Badenoch claimed that reports of a possible leadership challenge to Sunak were just “rumours” and based on the views of “one or two MPs”. She told BBC Breakfast:

I don’t think that there is very much to these rumours. It is almost the same thing we have been reading week after week for the last two years.

And we need to make sure that one or two MPs cannot dominate the news narrative when 350-plus MPs have different views.

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Good morning. Rishi Sunak is in fightback mode this morning, seeking to reassert his authority after what might have been his worst week as Tory leader and reports of new threats to his leadership.

You may feel you have read that sentence before on a Monday. And I’m afraid it is likely, before we head towards the general election, that you will read it again. Sunak’s premiership is stuck in a spiral of despair. But there are three features of what is happening this morning that make today’s crisis Monday different from previous ones.

1) A Sunak ally has floated the prospect of the PM calling an election if necessary as a means of averting a leadership contest. In their Times splash, Steven Swinford and Oliver Wright report:

A senior ally of the prime minister said that Sunak’s critics underestimate his resolve. They said that he would be prepared to call a general election if rebels force a leadership contest.

“He’s increasingly determined to prove his point and establish his own mandate,” they said. “You don’t get to achieve the things he’s done without some steel. He’s not just going to roll over.

“People should be careful what they wish for. It’s up to them. If they don’t want an election they should stop messing about. Rishi could easily say ‘OK, if that’s the mood of the party I don’t think it’s fair to put it to another leadership contest’. He can say reasonably he might just go to the palace instead.”

This is the first time No 10 has floated this prospect. It is only one quote, but it is from serious journalists in a serious paper, and there is a risk it could backfire, provoking Sunak’s critics rather than quelling them. He may get asked about this later.

2) Sunak is betting everything on economic recovery. According to extracts from his speech briefed in advance, he will say:

There is now a real sense that the economy is turning a corner with all the economic indicators pointing in the right direction.

This year, 2024, will be the year Britain bounces back.

Inflation has more than halved, with the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) forecasting it will hit its 2% target in just a few months’ time, a full year ahead of what they were forecasting just a few months ago.

3) No 10 has deployed Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, to deliver a unity message this morning. Badenoch is seen as favourite to succeed Sunak after the next election, and she regularly makes interventions that imply she is not loyal to his policy agenda. But this morning she had a rare outing as the government spokesperson on the media round, and she used it to urge Tory plotters to support the PM. She told LBC:

I have said many times that people need to stop messing around and get behind the prime minister.

But I think at this particular time, it is really important that we remember that there are thousands of councillors all around the country who are going to be standing for election in May. We need people to focus on what they have been doing to help their local communities and not be obsessed with Westminster psychodrama …

I’m here in Coventry in the West Midlands, look at what is happening with auto, they have had so much investment under [Conservative West Midlands mayor] Andy Street. That is what I want people to know about rather than who said what in the tea room in parliament. It is just Westminster bubble gossip, it is not important.

Badenoch also used her interviews to defend Penny Mordaunt, the leader of the Commons, from claims that she is actively plotting to undermine Sunak. “I’m sure if Penny was here, she would be distancing herself from those comments,” Badenoch said. But Mordaunt is one of Badenoch’s main rivals in the contest to be next Tory leader and implicit in this comment was a suggestion that, if Mordaunt really has nothing to do with the plot against Sunak reported over the weekened, perhaps she should say so on the record herself.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10.30am: Rishi Sunak is giving a speech on the economy in Warwickshire, where he is also doing a Q&A to promote government plans to reform the apprenticeship system.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

After 3.30pm: MPs debate Lords amendments to the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill.

Also, Sadiq Khan is launching his campaign today for re-election as London’s mayor.

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