From my colleague Peter Walker
A new media trick from Downing Street: offer Boris Johnson for an interview, but do it in five minutes on such a horrible cell phone line from a Cornwall field that you can only hear one word in three. Much less chance of difficult titles.
– Peter Walker (@ peterwalker99) June 13, 2022
I’m not sure it was really worth the early start. The main conclusion of the interview is that the government still has a lot to do to improve the coverage of mobile phones in Cornwall. At times, the prime minister was barely heard. If it was an interview with someone else, Nick Ferrari would refuse and tell him to call back on a landline.
I will publish a summary soon.
Question: When will you reduce taxes?
Johnson says effective national insurance is declining next month (because the threshold is rising).
He says 8 million of the most vulnerable households receive £ 1,200.
He understands the need to reduce taxation. But they have an inflationary surge that they need to overcome now.
And that’s it. The interview is over.
Updated at 09.12 BST
Johnson says it would be a “gross overreaction” if the EU responds to the UK’s withdrawal from the NI protocol by launching a trade war
Question: Your protocol plan for Northern Ireland is a hole below the water line because there is so much opposition in your party, right?
Johnson says the government needs to resolve the issues with the protocol.
Question: But this is against international law.
Johnson says he doesn’t accept that.
Question: The CBI says it could provoke a trade war with the EU.
Johnson says it would be a “gross overreaction.”
Johnson rejects Prince Charles’ claim that his plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda is “terrifying”
Question: If only one person is on a flight to Rwanda tomorrow, will that justify the flight?
Johnson says it is important for traffickers to realize that their business model is no longer viable.
Question: But you fail to deport them. There may be less than 10 people on the plane.
Johnson said they always knew there would be legal challenges. There are active lawyers in the field. He respects the legal profession, he says. But the government needs to break the business model.
These people offer migrants false hope.
Question: Prince Charles says this is appalling. The Archbishop of Canterbury says it is against God’s judgment. How do you know better?
Johnson says most people can see a case of business model violation.
Question: So you are saying that Prince Charles is wrong?
Johnson says we should not continue the activities of criminal groups. They take people on fragile boats. And that undermines people who come to the UK legally.
He says there are workers from all over the world who have come to the UK legally on the farm where he is staying.
Updated at 09.05 BST
Boris Johnson interviewed by LBC
Boris Johnson is now in an interview.
He describes his visit to a farm in Cornwall. He says it is one of the few places in the world that can produce vegetables all year round.
Question: Henry Dimbleby, your food adviser, says that the plan does not achieve its main goals. So that’s a failure, isn’t it.
Johnson doesn’t accept that. He thanked Dimbleby for his work.
He wants to encourage more local production, he said.
Updated at 08.59 BST
Boris Johnson will be on LBC at 8.50 am, we are now told.
Updated at 08.46 BST
Data on GDP showing the contraction of the economy are “disappointing”, the minister said
George Justis, the environment minister, is giving interviews this morning. He described today’s GDP figures as “disappointing”. He told BBC Breakfast:
As the world emerges from the pandemic, there is obviously a lot of global pressure, especially inflation and obviously the events in Ukraine, and this huge jump in gas prices will have a huge impact on the world economy.
We are beginning to see this happening, and obviously these are disappointing numbers.
Here is the story of my colleague Richard Partington about the figures.
Boris Johnson joined farm workers to pick zucchini at a vegetable farm in Cornwall when he launched his new food strategy, according to PA Media. PA says:
The Prime Minister is shown how to look under the leaves, pick ready-made zucchini, twist and turn the vegetables and put them in crates at the back of a tractor moving slowly across the field.
“Beautiful shiny zucchini,” he exclaimed.
“They’re very fruitful, aren’t they?”
The prime minister was told to pick up speed while picking zucchini along with a dozen agricultural workers.
Dressed in a high-visibility vest, Johnson talked to the workers as he was shown how to pick vegetables.
After being told he was from Tajikistan, Bulgaria, Lithuania and spoke Russian, Johnson asked what the Russian word for zucchini was.
After picking up a few vegetables, the farm worker who showed him the ropes said, “Once you get used to it, you can go a little faster.”
Johnson was driving a tractor slowly over a field of zucchini and was shown a modern machine for planting vegetables on a farm in Cornwall.
The prime minister climbed into the cab and was shown how to steer the vehicle, moving it very slowly forward as zucchini pickers followed from behind, sorting vegetables in crates at the back.
The farmer then showed Johnson a machine capable of planting 150,000 plants a day, saying it was much more efficient than traditional planting techniques.
“So you can plant a lot of cabbage,” he said, describing it as “amazing” and “fantastic”.
He said his grandmother had raised prize pumpkins, adding that some had “exploded”.
Perhaps if all ministers stay on a farm before work every morning, it could help tackle labor shortages in the industry. This was stated by the Commons Environment Committee on the issue in a report earlier this year.
The food and agricultural sectors are suffering from severe labor shortages, mainly due to Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. In August 2021, the number of vacancies was estimated at 500,000 out of 4.1 million positions in the sector. We have found clear evidence that labor shortages have badly affected the food and agricultural industries – threatening food security, animal welfare and the mental health of those working in the sector. Businesses are severely affected, with the pig sector particularly affected.
The food sector is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK, but faces a steady contraction if failure to tackle acute labor shortages leads to higher wages, higher prices, reduced competitiveness and ultimately food production. , which is exported abroad and increases imports.
Updated at 09.15 BST
Nick Ferrari tells his audience on LBC that they will hear Boris Johnson “later in the show”.
This is from Rachel Reeves, the shadow chancellor, for today’s GDP figures.
These figures will contribute to the concerns that families still feel about their own finances and the long-term health of our economy. They will also contribute to growing concerns about endless growth and a sharp drop in conservative living standards.
Instead of dealing properly with the structural weaknesses and uncertainties they have created, all that conservatives use are stickers. Labor will create a stronger, more secure economy by strengthening our energy security, supply chain security and business security.
Updated at 09.15 BST
We were told to expect Boris Johnson on LBC at 8.20am. As is often the case, he is late. He was also late for his Good Morning interview in the UK, but this time there was food poisoning as an excuse.
Updated at 08.33 BST
Good morning. Boris Johnson will be interviewed by Nick Ferrari on LBC soon. Johnson is reluctant to give such interviews reluctantly, and his latest major intervention in the morning broadcast – his interview with Susan Reed in ITV’s Good Morning Britain last month – was not a great success. But a week after the no-confidence vote, Johnson wants to show that his government is not exhausted.
Ferrari has something to ask him. The bill on the Northern Ireland Protocol is published today and Archie Bland has a good overview in his briefing for the First Edition.
Ferrari may ask for data released this morning, showing that the size of the economy shrank in April. This means that it has been shrinking for two months in a row.
The government has published its food strategy, which has been criticized by its chief food adviser. We review this here.
And, of course, the dispute over the plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda for the first time tomorrow continues, with two legal challenges still ongoing.
Here is the agenda for the day.
8.20 am: Boris Johnson was interviewed on LBC.
10 a.m.: The Court of Appeals is hearing an appeal against the Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to allow the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda. In a similar move, Asylum Aid began a new attempt to obtain an order to stop the deportations in the Supreme Court at 14:00.
11.30 am: Downing Street holds a briefing in the lobby.
Afternoon: Liz Truss, Secretary of State, publishes the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill. Ministers do not usually make statements to the municipality to accompany the publication of a bill, but Trus is expected to record a video for television operators.
16:00: Michael Gove, Secretary for Raising the Level, gives a statement to the Municipal Equalization Committee on the equalization bill.
I’m trying to follow the comments below the line (BTL), but it’s impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, include Andrew somewhere in it and I’m more likely to find it. I try to answer questions and if they are of common interest, I will publish the question and answer over the order (ATL), although I cannot promise to do this for everyone.
If you want to get my attention quickly, it’s probably better to use Twitter. I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
Alternatively, you can email me at andrew.sparrow@theguardian.com
Updated at 09.16 BST
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