Election in brief
Treasury committee chair to stand down as MP
The respected chair of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee, Andrew Tyrie, will stand down from Parliament at the general election. The announcement leaves open one of the most powerful non-ministerial positions in Parliament, covering the economy, finance and also elements of the Brexit process.
The Conservative MP for Chichester since 1997 said that he had made the decision “after very careful thought” adding that he remains “deeply committed to public service”. Under Mr Tyrie's leadership since 2010 the TSC has been a source of often forensic scrutiny of senior politicians, civil servants and financiers.
As chair, the 60-year-old clashed frequently with the former Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, over issues of governance at the central bank and had regular tussles with the former Chancellor,
George Osborne, over the disclosure of Treasury analyses. The Treasury Select Committee chair, along with a number of others, is elected by MPs at the start of a new Parliament under an Alternative Vote system. But Mr Tyrie was re-elected unopposed in 2015, reflecting his standing among fellow Parliamentarians.
Tory councillor defects from party
A Tory politician and former senior Government adviser has defected from the party over Theresa May’s Brexit strategy.
Surrey councillor Christine Elmer said she found it “impossible to be a member of the Conservative party” and had joined the the Lib Dems so she could campaign against “hard Brexit”. The pro-Remain politician, who has sat on Elmbridge Borough Council since 2006, added that the Prime Minister calling a general election had fuelled her discontent within the Tory ranks.
Councillor Elmer said: “I have been unhappy for some time with the political direction of the Conservative party. In recent days this situation had escalated by a series of events, including the announcement by the Prime Minister of a general election about the handling of the terms of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.”
“As a fervent Remainer I find I can no longer support the Government's line on this, nor that of the current MP Dominic Raab,” she added. “I now find it impossible to be a member of the Conservative party and have therefore decided to join the Liberal Democrat party.”
Elmbridge bucked the national trend in last year’s referendum, with 59.5 per cent of voters wanting to remain in the EU. Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, pledged to give voters the chance to reverse Brexit in a second referendum.
Labour vows to abolish NHS staff pay gap
Labour is promising to remove the Government’s harsh pay cap for NHS staff to end what it called a “recruitment crisis” threatening patient care. Wage rises for more than one million health service employees – including midwives, nurses, doctors, dentists, paramedics and cleaners – will no longer be limited to one per cent if the party wins the election, it said.
Decisions would again be made by independent review bodies, Labour said – making it almost certain that pay would no longer be cut in real terms, because of rising inflation. The pledge forms part of a “three point election guarantee for NHS staff”, including a new legal guarantee of safe staffing levels and “fully funded education”.
Under current Conservative plans, the one per cent pay cap will stay in place until 2020 – despite inflation, as measured by the Retail Prices Index, running at 3.2 per cent. By the end of the decade, the cap would have been in place for an unprecedented eight years, despite the Government’s own advisers urging a rethink.
Zac Goldsmith shortlisted to stand for Tories in Richmond Park
Zac Goldsmith has made it on to the shortlist to stand in his old constituency just four months after he lost it in a by-election he triggered.
The former MP gave up the Conservative whip and resigned from Parliament in October, forcing a byelection in his south London constituency of Richmond Park, in protest at the Government’s approval of a
third runway at Heathrow. But the gamble backfired when his 23,000 majority was overturned by Liberal Democrat candidate Sarah Olney in the December election on a wave of anti-Brexit feeling.
The constituency voted heavily for Remain during the EU referendum last year. It capped off a disastrous year for the politician after he also lost heavily to Labour’s Sadiq Khan in the 2016 London Mayoral race in May where he was accused of running a “dog whistle” racist campaign.
Mr Goldsmith has now returned to the Conservative fold and is one of three candidates on the shortlist for the seat, Tory blog Conservative Home reported. The two other candidates up for consideration are barrister and former BBC journalist Laura Farris and IT specialist Luke Parker.
Green Party pulls out of election seat to help Labour
The Green Party has pulled out of a crucial election seat in a bid to help the Labour Party beat the Tories – the first tactical withdrawal of its kind ahead of the general election.
The decision is expected to allow more votes to go to Labour MP Rupa Huq, who beat the Conservatives with a majority of just 274 votes in 2015, when no other party managed to attract more than seven per cent of the vote.
Green Party members in Ealing – where the party won 1,841 votes in the 2015 election – voted not to field a candidate last week, after Ms Huq promised to campaign for voting reform and the environment. It marks the first “progressive alliance” to be made between opposition parties in which they agree that one side will stand down in order to secure more votes for the other. They will hope to stop the Tories taking overall power on 8 June even if they win the most seats.