But one person may be disappointed. In an interview with the Spectator, Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leadership candidate most popular with party members according to most surveys, has said she is a “huge fan” of his.
The magazine asked all four candidates if they thought Musk had been good for freedom of speech, and Badenoch, the former business secretary, replied:
I think Elon Musk has been a fantastic thing for freedom of speech. I will hold my hand up and say, I’m a huge fan of Elon Musk.
I look at Twitter before he took over and after: there is a lot more free speech. Yes, there are many, many more things that I see on X, as he calls it, that I don’t like.
But I also know that views are not suppressed the way that they were, that there was a cultural establishment – that was very left – that controlled quite a lot of discourse on that platform.
All the other candidates were far more circumspect in how they replied to this question.
Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister and current favourite in the contest, said that he did not have a strong opinion about the X owner, but that he was “not going to be booking a tête-à-tête with Elon Musk any time soon”.
James Cleverly, the former home secretary, said that when Musk took control of X, he tried to counter the perception that right-of-centre voices were being silenced on it. But Cleverly said you should be “very, very careful about curtailing voices that you disagree with”.
And Tom Tugendhat, the former security minister, said he was worried about malign states exploiting the internet for propaganda purposes. (There are claims this is happening much more on X since Musk took over, but Tugendhat directly make that connection.)
a statement ahead of the meeting, Healey said:
I’m proud to be the first UK defence secretary to host a meeting of Aukus defence ministers in Britain.
As Aukus partners, we stand shoulder-to-shoulder in an increasingly unstable world. This is a partnership that will boost jobs, growth and prosperity across our three nations, as well as strengthening our collective security.
I’m delighted that we will soon be commencing negotiations on a bilateral Aukus treaty with Australia, which will help create a more secure and stable Indo-Pacific for decades to come.
after Greece but before Nepal.
Before the speech (morning US time, afternoon UK time) he is due to meet US business leaders, including Jon Gray, president of the investment giant Blackstone, whih is announcing a £10bn deal to develop Europe’s largest AI data centre in Blyth, Northumberland. Rowena Mason and Lisa O’Carroll have the story here.
Yesterday, as well as addressing the security council, Starmer met Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, who confirmed that the two will meet in Brussels next week. Starmer said this would be a chance to “reset our relations with the EU”.
I want to reset our relationship with the EU and make Brexit work for the British people.
Looking forward to visiting Brussels next week to start discussions with @vonderleyen.
In Westminster parliament is in recess and, with Labour recovering after their party conference, and the Conservatives getting ready for theirs, there is a bit of a hiatus in the news cycle. Here are some of the events in the diary.
9.30am: The ONS is releasing violent crime figures for England and Wales.
Morning: Prof Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, gives evidence to the Covid inquiry as part of the module looking at the pandemic’s impact on the NHS.
Noon: John Swinney, the first minister, takes questions in the Scottish parliament.
2.15pm: John Healey, the defence secretary, holds a press conference with his US and Australian counterparts, Lloyd Austin and Richard Marles, about the Aukus defence pact.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line (BTL) or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. I’m still using X and I’ll see something addressed to @AndrewSparrow very quickly. I’m also trying Bluesky (@andrewsparrowgdn) and Threads (@andrewsparrowtheguardian).
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos (no error is too small to correct). And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Source: theguardian.com
