The Welsh Conservatives have criticised a decision to remove John Steinbeck’s 1930s novel Of Mice and Men from the GCSE curriculum because class discussions about the book, and the racial slurs it contains, have been distressing for some black pupils,As the BBC reports, Wales’ children’s commissioner Rocio Cifuentes said many black children “specifically mentioned this text and the harm that it caused them” when she spoke to them as part of research on racism in secondary schools,Referring to the decision by the WJEC exam board to take it off the GCSE curriculum from next September, she said:It’s not censorship,This is safeguarding the wellbeing of children who have told us how awful those discussions have made them feel in those classrooms,They’ve very often been the only black child in that classroom when discussions all around them are focusing on very derogatory, negative depictions of black people.

But Natasha Asghar, the Conservative education spokesperson in the Senedd, said this was censorship, and that it would not solve the problem of racism.In a statement she said:Instead of banning Of Mice and Men, we should teach it within its historical context, showing students how overt racism and sexism was commonplace and accepted in the past and why this was harmful and wrong.Censorship doesn’t solve the problem; it prevents young people from confronting and understanding these prejudices some of which, sadly continue.Sadly, even in 2024 we continue to see racism and sexism in society.If we want to tackle this then instead of banning a classic text, we would do better to challenge media companies that produce music containing misogynistic language and words with racism connotations.

The UK economy had zero growth between July and September and is expected to have stagnated over the entire second half of 2024, undermining Keir Starmer’s promise to reboot growth.Kemi Badenoch has said she does not believe Elon Musk is going to make a multimillion-pound donation to Reform UK, even as the party’s treasurer claimed the US billionaire was now ready to do so.The Conservative leader made the comment in an interview for the Today programme podcast during which she also defended refusing to give off-the-cuff answers to policy questions (see 11.14am), claimed her leadership was going well and that Tory infighting was over (see 9.25am) and said her comment about not all cultures being equal was a general one, and not specifically about Islam (see 11.

51am),Keir Starmer and his family are to take a short overseas holiday over the new year, Downing Street has said,The Welsh Conservatives have criticised a decision to remove John Steinbeck’s 1930s novel Of Mice and Men from the GCSE curriculum because of concerns about racism,(See 3,31pm.

)The Welsh Conservatives have criticised a decision to remove John Steinbeck’s 1930s novel Of Mice and Men from the GCSE curriculum because class discussions about the book, and the racial slurs it contains, have been distressing for some black pupils.As the BBC reports, Wales’ children’s commissioner Rocio Cifuentes said many black children “specifically mentioned this text and the harm that it caused them” when she spoke to them as part of research on racism in secondary schools.Referring to the decision by the WJEC exam board to take it off the GCSE curriculum from next September, she said:It’s not censorship.This is safeguarding the wellbeing of children who have told us how awful those discussions have made them feel in those classrooms.They’ve very often been the only black child in that classroom when discussions all around them are focusing on very derogatory, negative depictions of black people.

But Natasha Asghar, the Conservative education spokesperson in the Senedd, said this was censorship, and that it would not solve the problem of racism,In a statement she said:Instead of banning Of Mice and Men, we should teach it within its historical context, showing students how overt racism and sexism was commonplace and accepted in the past and why this was harmful and wrong,Censorship doesn’t solve the problem; it prevents young people from confronting and understanding these prejudices some of which, sadly continue,Sadly, even in 2024 we continue to see racism and sexism in society,If we want to tackle this then instead of banning a classic text, we would do better to challenge media companies that produce music containing misogynistic language and words with racism connotations.

John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, has described the figures out today saying there was zero growth in the third quarter of the year as “deeply alarming”.Speaking to PA Media, Swinney said:The data that has come out today about the performance of the UK economy in the last quarter is deeply alarming.There’s been an absence of growth and that’s going to be added to by the decisions taken in the UK budget, when the chancellor decided to increase employers’ national insurance contributions, which is, bluntly, a tax on jobs.So, I’m really worried about what that decision will mean for the future prospects of the economy.Swinney said the Scottish government’s recent budget was aimed at making Scotland an “attractive place for investment”.

But, he went on:Fundamentally, I am worried about the economic outlook that the Labour government has taken forward because of some mistakes that were made in the budget about increasing employer national insurance contributions and the implications of that will be very significant for Scotland.Natalie Bennett, the Green peer and former party leader, says today’s figures showing zero growth in the third quarter of the year highlight a key problem with the government’s approach.She posted this on Bluesky.The government’s Plan A is “rely on growth to tackle our many problems”.What is Plan B?Reminder, you can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet, and now when there is growth, the profits go to the few, not the manyPaul Johnson, the outgoing director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies thinktank, has said it is “a little unfair” to blame the government for the lack of growth highlighted by today’s revised figures from the ONS.

Speaking on Times Radio, asked if the government was to blame, Johnson said:I think it’s probably a little unfair.The government had no choice, really, but to fix some of the massive problems, and they’re right about this.The last government did leave them absolutely massive problems.I think some of what they’ve done to fix it has been less than ideal.So what we’ve essentially had in terms of tax was the last government, I thought very cynically, reduced the employee national insurance rate and then this government essentially made it up by increasing the employer national insurance rate.

And in the short run, at least, that is a net loss to the economy because that makes it more expensive for employers to hire people.So I think there is a problem there …You’ve got a significant increase in spending relative, at least, to what was planned.Now again, we can see the need for this in the NHS and the justice system and elsewhere, and the remarkable thing is, we’re all complaining, as it were, about the big tax rises, but the spending rises are even bigger.So one of the issues here is the government is borrowing more.In other words, it’s pumping more money into the economy and that can have inflationary consequences.

Johnson also said the chancellor may want to raise taxes again next year.Asked about what might happen next year, he replied:I’m not expecting a recession.But again, the government’s going to be talking about hard choices.They’ve got the hardest of all choices to make in the summer when they do their spending review and then I think we’ll have a lot of miserable cabinet ministers because they’re not going to get very much money.And who knows? It’s not impossible that the chancellor [Rachel Reeves] will feel she needs to come back for yet more money next autumn if the economy doesn’t pick up.

Then, again, she’s stuck in this really difficult place – you increase taxes in order to fund public services adequately or because there’s no growth, you don’t have the money you need for the public services and you disappoint people on that front,Reeves has repeatedly said that, after raising taxes significantly in the October budget, she is not planning a similar tax-raising budget this parliament,At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson also rejected claims that Peter Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to the US could be problematic because of past comments from Mandelson criticising Donald Trump,On Friday Chris LaCivita, a consultant involved in Trump’s election campaign, described Mandelson in a post on X as an “absolute moron”,He was commenting on a news story about Mandelson calling Trump a “danger to the world” and a white nationalist five years ago.

Asked if the PM was worried the LaCivita comment showed that having Mandelson as ambassador could cause problems, the PM’s spokesperson replied:No.The appointment shows just how seriously we’re taking this relationship.[Mandelson] has got extensive foreign policy and economic policy expertise, particularly in the crucial issues of trade, business links.He’s got experience at the highest levels of government and he will be a significant asset in the UK’s relationship with the United States.A jailed UK-Egypt pro-democracy activist feels “hurt” by Keir Starmer not raising his case with his Egyptian counterpart, according to his family, PA Media reports.

PA says:Campaigners have urged the prime minister to step up his efforts to help free Alaa Abd el-Fattah, who has been detained since 2019 and is unable to see his young son who lives in Brighton.Human rights experts, including Amnesty International secretary general Agnes Callamard, have written to Starmer insisting Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi can “resolve this case with the stroke of a pen” and they are “convinced” the prime minister’s direct intervention is needed.Succession actor Brian Cox, addressing Starmer in a video message, also said: “It’s time to make the call, prime minister.Pick up the phone and bring Alaa home for Christmas.We’re counting on you.

”In December 2021, Abd el-Fattah was sentenced to five years in prison after being accused of spreading false news and the Free Alaa campaign says he should have been released in September this year based on his time served behind bars since 2019,His mother, Laila Soueif, 68, has been on hunger strike for 85 days and will continue her action in London until she hears news about her son being released or “she collapses and is hospitalised”,Starmer raised Abd el-Fattah’s plight with Sisi in August but he “did not raise the case” at the recent G20 summit attended by the pair, according to the Foreign Office,Sanaa Seif, who travelled to Cairo to visit her brother in prison last week, said: “Alaa was so, so hurt to hear that the prime minister met Sisi at the G20 and didn’t even raise his name,This is the first time Sisi met a British prime minister and didn’t have to talk about Alaa.

On Keir Starmer, Alaa said ‘he’s not treating me as if I am a British citizen’.”Downing Street said today Starmer will raise the case in his next talks with Sisi.The prime minister’s spokesperson said: “It remains our priority to secure the release of Mr el-Fattah so he can be reunited with his family.We continue to raise his case at the highest levels.The prime minister raised his case with President Sisi in August.

The foreign secretary has raised the case multiple times, including most recently a few days ago on 20 December,At all levels, whether ministers or officials, we continue to call for consular access to Mr el-Fattah,”Today the Daily Telegraph has splashed on a story saying that Peter Mandelson, who will be the new UK ambassador to Washington, will use Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, to help build good links with the Trump administration,Before he was appointed Mandelson said he thought it would be a good idea for the British embassy to be making use of “friends” of Trump, like Farage, and today’s story is mostly based on a briefing saying Mandelson still stands by what he said in November,But it includes a quote from “a source close to Lord Mandelson”, asked about Labour people arguing Farage should be sidelined, saying:I am sure that would be a view held by some but not those who need to conduct UK-US relations in the most optimum way.

TELEGRAPH: Mandelson set to work with Farage on Trump #TomorrowsPapersToday pic.twitter.com/8RBDFki6X0At the Downing Street lobby briefing this morning, the PM’s spokesperson was asked if Keir Starmer would be happy for Mandelson to make use of Farage’s connections in this way.The spokesperson said he was “not going to get into that”.But he pointed out that Starmer had a half-hour conversation with Trump only last week, and dinner with him in New York in September, and he said that, as the new ambassador, Mandelson was a “highly respected figure with extensive foreign and economic policy expertise”.

The Financial Times’ political columnist Stephen Bush has a good short thread on Bluesky about Kemi Badenoch’s Today podcast interview, and her claim that it would be wrong to set out detailed policy now.(See 9.25am and 11.14am.) She hasn’t got this quite right, he says.

Badenoch right that oppositions should set out broad principles for the most part.Starmer’s opposition had announced 200 policies about the topic du jour, by the end of its first 2 years, most of them were trivial and left no-one any the wiser as to what Labour’s guiding priorities were, BUT:🧵She both isn’t sticking to this (the Tory party under her has already made specific commitments to farmers and private schools) and seems to have confused the lesson of “don’t just spam random policies about the news story of the day” with “you can set out your principles & positions without policy”Her answer on Thames Water is a good example.There are three possible answers on Thames Water: you think privatisation can’t work, you think that privatisation can work with a different operator/regulatory backdrop, you are absolutely crackers and think status quo is working.What Farage is doing, smartly, by saying “we would renationalise” is essentially him going “I’m with you on everything” to the socially conservative voters he didn’t win last time, and laying the ground for credulous coverage of his left-right position in 2029.Badenoch is failing to set out a clear sense of where she stands, or to say to really, any group of voters “I am with you”.

The dangerous lesson the Tory party has taken from the election is that the Reform vote can be won just by being louder.Downing Street has said the government has always been “upfront” about the state of the economy.Asked about the latest figures saying there was no growth in the economy in the third quarter of the year, the PM’s spokeperson told journalists at the morning lobby briefing:The government was upfront when it came in that it had a difficult economic inheritance, and that is why we’ve had to take some of the tough decisions that we’ve taken since the prime minister came into government.And it is why we have said that our priority is on delivering growth that people will feel the impact of … We will continue to work day and night to deliver growth, to deliver the investment and reform that our public services need and rebuild the country.Keir Starmer is getting a holiday.

He was due to get a post-election holiday in the summer, but he cancelled it so that he could stay in the UK to deal with the summer riots.The PM is spending Christmas with his family at Chequers.But they will be going abroad “for a few days” over the new year, his spokesperson told journalists at the No 10 lobby briefing this morning.The spokesperson did not reveal any further details about where he would be going, or for how long he would be away.Asked if Angela Rayner would be in charge while he was away, the spokesperson said Starmer would remain in charge.

Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelenskyy both agreed it was “vital” for Russia to fail in Ukraine when they spoke by phone this morning, Downing Street said,In a read-out of the call, a No 10 spokesperson said that Starmer started by telling Zelenskyy about his trip to the Joint Expeditionary Force leaders’ summit last week, and the resolve of JEF members “to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position going into 2025”,The spokesperson went on:At the summit, the group underscored the importance of matching their words with concrete action, including through further sanctions on the shadow fleet, the acceleration of lethal aid, and support for the Ukrainian defence industrial base, the prime minister added,President Zelenskyy reflected on the situation on the frontline in Ukraine and the need to ensure Ukraine could degrade Russian forces for the long haul,What happens in Ukraine in the coming weeks and months matters to Europe and Nato, and it was vital President Putin’s ambitions fail in Ukraine, the leaders agreed.

Most Britons don’t want Elon Musk, the tech billionaire and Donald Trump ally, having an influence over UK politics, a poll suggests.Last week Musk met Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader, and Nick Candy, his party treasurer, to discuss how he might be able to Farage’s party, which is closely aligned to the Trump/Musk project.A financial contribution was discussed, although Musk has denied reports saying he might give $100m.But, according to a poll by Survation, 66% of voters say Musk “should not be influential in British politics”.Only 19% say he should be influential