Shadow foreign secretary says Conservatives should hold the leadership election after the party conference
Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, said this morning that the government wants “far more light, far less heat” in political debate in the UK. Expanding on what she said on Sky News (see 9.36am), she told ITV’s Good Morning Britain:
We had the independence referendum in Scotland, we had endless rows about Brexit that became very polarising across the whole of the UK and particularly in England, we found all these different ways to divide ourselves from one another, and I reflected on it a few years ago, standing in a debate in the House of Commons, where I was hearing remain-supporting and leave-supporting MPs hurling insults at each other across the floor, calling each other traitors.
It’s no surprise then that, when we walk out on to the streets of Britain, we hear that language reflected back to us, and that’s why I was so pleased that the prime minister, his first instinct [yesterday, after the attempt to kill Donal Trump] was to get on the phone to President Trump to express our utter condemnation.
When kids were turning on their TV sets last night across England, every single one of them will have been able to see themselves reflected in that team. And in doing so he’s told an inclusive story about the country that we can be.
It has felt very difficult for people to feel part of our national story, and it’s firmly my intention that this government will be different, will be far more Gareth Southgate, and far less Michael Gove.
