Tax rises like this must never be just done to business, CBI boss tells Reeves – live

After enjoying his beloved Arsenal beating Nottingham Forrest 3-0 at home on Saturday, Sir Keir Starmer took his daughter to an escape room on Sunday.

The prime minister thought he would get away with dropping her off for the birthday treat and enjoying a cup of coffee while he waited.

“No, no, no,” his daughter told him, “you’re in there with me”.

So Sir Keir was dragged into the escape room and was locked in having to decode clues to discover a way out.

He also revealed his new kitten Prince has not yet met Downing Street’s famous mouse catcher Larry, as he spoke about his family’s Christmas plans.

Asked for an update on the Starmer family Siberian kitten, Sir Keir told ITV’s This Morning: “Prince is the name of the kitten.

“So, Prince and Larry haven’t met yet. I am worried that Larry will come off the better – the kitten is tiny.”

Instead of showing weakness, it would indeed show strength from Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer – that they had listened, understood and were ready to think again.

I am personally not so sure that they will, because I don’t think they really “get it”, in relation to the removal of the winter fuel allowance. As Martin Lewis states; it was a cliff-edge decision, with so many pensioners just marginally over the pension credit threshold losing out. Of course, it needed reforming, but not in such a punitive, cack-handed fashion.

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Sir Keir Starmer has hyped up his handiness in the kitchen, detailing the deliciousness of his salmon and quorn tandooris.

The prime minister said he loves to cook, especially on Saturdays, because he finds it relaxing. Asked on ITV’s This Morning what his top dishes are, the PM said: “My tandoori salmon and tandoori quorn is coming on very, very nicely.”

But Sir Keir said he is often overruled at dinner time by his kids, who demand a standard pasta bake. “I get the recipe book out and say I am going to do this, then the kids get involved, we negotiate and end up with a pasta bake very often because that is what they will always eat,” Sir Keir added.

Challenged over his cooking, the PM committed to showing up for another episode of the ITV show to present his own cooking segment.

Leading academic experts in the fields of health, end-of-life care and the legal system have joined together to sign an open letter opposing the assisted dying bill which MPs are due to debate on Friday.

The bill tabled by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater would for the first time allow for the NHS to assist people to take their own lives.

Ms Leadbeater and supporters of the legislation claim the bill would provide the “strictest safeguards anywhere in the world” to prevent the system being abused and ensure it only applied to terminally ill patients. Among these are that any requests to end life would need to be signed off by two doctors and a judge.

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Sir Keir Starmer has ruled out calling another general election, but said he was “not surprised” some people who did not support Labour might want a second poll.

The Prime Minister was asked by ITV’s This Morning about a petition calling for another election on the Parliament website, now signed by two million people.

Sir Keir told the programme: “Look, I remind myself that very many people didn’t vote Labour at the last election.

“I’m not surprised that many of them want a rerun. That isn’t how our system works.

“There will be plenty of people who didn’t want us in in the first place.

“So, what my focus is on is the decisions that I have to make every day.”

Salman Amin, chief executive of McVitie’s bakery products’ parent company Pladis, said it is “becoming harder to understand” the case for investing in the UK.

Speaking at the CBI’s annual conference on Monday, he said: “Historically, we’ve been super bullish on the United Kingdom.

“In fact, by far our greatest investment across all of our countries over the last decade or so has come to the UK.”

He added: “Going forward, it’s becoming harder to understand what the case for investment is.

“Small amounts one can understand, but the quantums that I think we need to make a difference in the growth rate of the economy are in the order of tens of millions every year.

“In the last couple of years, it’s just become a lot harder to really see how does that play out.”

Rachael Maskell, the MP for York Central and a devout Christian, said Lord Falconer’s claim that Shabana Mahmood was trying to “impose” her Muslim beliefs on those in favour of assisted dying was “hugely offensive and discriminatory” and urged him to apologise.

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Brexit is still on the minds of business leaders, although its name is seldom spoken, since it tends to reheat old arguments and the government has said rejoining the EU is not on the agenda.

Still, CBI boss Rain Newton-Smith makes a reference to the long shadow it has cast over the economy and business in her speech: “After eight years of downcast ambitions of weak growth, I know we are all dead set on getting our economy moving again.

“So my message today to government and to all parties is, work with us to get there. Let’s build that bridge together.”

A big part of CBI boss Rain Newton-Smith’s speech was about industrial strategy, something of a sore topic for businesses in the last decade.

A business strategy is just a plan on which areas of the economy you will help out since they show promise or you need them. Under most of the last government there wasn’t one, since it ideologically didn’t like meddling by aiding one sector of business over another.

The trouble is, as Ms Newton-Smith suggests, other countries did like doing that meddling, putting Britian’s competitors in the driving seat. She doesn’t mention which areas of the economy, but it tends to be ones that require a large amount of capital investment like green energy or ones that are fast-paced and need laws which can catch up, like developing medicine.

She said: “If you look at the most successful economies of the last 50 years, there’s one common denominator, a strong, clear and modern industrial strategy. We’ve got a commitment from government to deliver it.”

“But what is not yet clear is how it will help businesses in the everyday economy, the large employers who are often the first step into the world of work, the unsung heroes in our communities, how we support their workforce to be more productive.

“Because I can tell you, if you don’t do that, your industrial strategy will not stand the test of time. So today, I’m proud to say the CBI is launching its own blueprint for competitiveness.”

She wants a broader-based strategy that also helps big employers like retailers who feel they’ve been hit hard in the budget. In a familiar refrain to win over those who think it’s anti-competitive – get your business catchphrase bingo cards out – she says “this isn’t about picking winners. It’s about picking races, races we can win.”

Rain Newton-Smith, chief executive of the Confederation of British Industry, told her organisation’s annual conference: “What really defines growth is the decisions made in boardrooms up and down the country.

“It’s CFOs (chief financial officers) asking, ‘can we afford to invest? Can we afford to expand? Can we afford to take a chance on new people?’

“Well after the Budget, the answer we’re hearing from so many firms is still ‘not yet’.

“The rise in national insurance, the stark lowering of the threshold, caught us all off guard.

“Along with the expansion and the rise of the national living wage – which everyone wants to accommodate – and the potential cost of the Employment Rights Bill, they put a heavy burden on business.”