Question Time - Summary
Here are the main points from the Question Time leaders’ special.
- Jeremy Corbyn virtually confirmed that he would not be willing to use nuclear weapons - but declined to say so explicitly. This generated his most difficult moment of the debate, as some audience members reacted angrily to his stance. Asked how he would respond if Britain was under threat from nuclear weapons, he said:
I would do everything I can to ensure that any threat is actually dealt with earlier on by negotiations and by talks, so that we do adhere to our obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. I think the idea of anyone ever using a nuclear weapon anywhere in the world is utterly appalling and terrible.
Asked it he was saying he would “never ever, under any circumstances press the red button” to launch a nuclear strike, Corbyn replied:
I think we have discussed this at some length about the aspirations we all have. I do not want to be responsible for the destruction of millions of people, neither do you. Therefore we have to work for a world where they are not available and not used.
After the programme, Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, said:
I thought it was really spine-chilling to hear Jeremy Corbyn announce that all Labour’s support for our nuclear deterrent, all Labour’s support for our armed forces was completely meaningless because when it came to the business of defending this country he wouldn’t do it.
- Theresa May said she called the election because she had “the balls” to do so. Asked if she regretted calling the election, she said:
In this job I do what I believe is the best for Britain. I could have stayed on doing that job for another couple of years and not called an election. I had the balls to call an election.
- May defended the government’s decision to cap pay rises for public sector workers by saying there was no “magic money tree”. Nurse Victoria Davey told her:
My wage slips from 2009 reflect exactly what I’m earning today. How can that be fair, in the light of the job that we do?
And a male nurse said: “I’ve had a real-terms decrease of 14% since 2010, so don’t tell us we’re getting a pay rise.” May replied:
I recognise the job that you do, but we have had to take some hard choices across the public sector in relation to public sector pay restraint. We did that because of the decisions we had to take to bring public spending under control, because it wasn’t under control under the last Labour government. And I’m being honest with you in terms of saying that we will put more money into the NHS, but there isn’t a magic money tree that we can shake that suddenly provides for everything that people want.
- May accused Diane Abbott, the shadow home secretary of wanting to take the DNA of criminals off the DNA database. She said:
[Abbott] wants to wipe the records of criminals and terrorists from the DNA database. That would mean that we could catch fewer criminals and fewer terrorists.
Abbott used Twitter to say May was wrong.
And Abbott retweeted this.
- May defended her decision not to sign the joint letter with the leaders of Germany, Italy and France protesting about President Trump’’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate change deal, saying she did not need to sign it because she spoke to him in person last night.
I haven’t [signed it] because I actually have spoken to Donald Trump and told him that the UK believes in the Paris agreement and that we didn’t want the United States to leave the Paris agreement.
- May appeared not to know that some UK aid funding has gone to North Korea. Asked by a member of the audience why the UK had given the communist country £4m, May said she did not know the details of that.
- May mocked the idea of a Corbyn government being dependent on the support of other parties. She said:
We have a situation at the moment where if Jeremy Corbyn was to get into No 10, he’d be being propped up by the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish nationalists. You would have Diane Abbott who can’t add up sitting around the cabinet table, John McDonnell who is a Marxist, Nicola Sturgeon who wants to break our country up and TIm Farron who wants to take us back into the EU - the direct opposite of what the British people want.
- May said she wanted to improve work capability assessments, which are used to determine whether people qualify for disability benefits. One woman told her:
The NHS is an absolute shambles for mental health at the moment. I have suffered so much over that year in part because of the work capability assessment.
Let me tell you, I am partially sighted, I have mental health problems and other issues. I went into my assessment and I was asked in detail about suicide attempts and I came out crying because I was so upset because of the way I was treated by that nurse. And she came out after me because she had forgotten to measure my eyesight. She found time to insult me by asking for all these upsetting details.
May replied: “I’m not going to make any excuses for the experience you had. That’s why I think it’s so important that we do deal with mental health.” She also said she wanted to take action to improve work capability assessments.
- Corbyn acknowledged that some small firms would have difficulty paying the £10 minimum wage, but said a Labour government would “work with them, either to give them tax relief or support in order to make sure the real living wage was paid but they didn’t close down as a result”.
- He said Ken Livingstone may face a further Labour investigation into alleged antisemitism after the election. Livingstone is currently suspended because of comments he made about Hitler and Zionism. A woman in the audience told Corbyn the fact Livingstone had not been expelled suggested Corbyn did not take antisemitism seriously. Corbyn said:
There is no place for antisemitism anywhere in our society and certainly not in our party. Members have been suspended if they have committed any remarks seen to be of an antisemitic nature. We have a process that is independent of me within the party which investigates these and makes a decision on it ...
[Livingstone] has been suspended and further investigations may or may not happen after the election. He is suspended from membership, but he is suspended so that investigation can take place.
- Corbyn insisted he deplored “all acts of terrorism”. When asked why he never regarded the IRA as terrorists, he said:
I don’t approve of any terrorism of any sort, any terrorist act of any sort. It only divides communities and kills people.
- He criticised May for not debating with him. In his opening remarks, he said:
I’m very sorry this is not a debate, this is a series of questions. I think it’s a shame the prime minister hasn’t taken part in a debate.
- He rejected a claim from someone in the audience that the Labour manifesto was “just a letter to Santa Claus”. He said it was “a serious and realistic document that addresses the issues that many people in this country face”.
And here is our main story.
That’s all from me. Good night.
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