Party Lines: November 23rd

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Speaking on BBC News early this evening, Ed Balls said that Theresa May’s plan for an immigration cap lacked “substance”, due the numerous areas of immigration that it ignores:

“She’s right to say we should toughen up our approach, but there’s no substance behind that.

“They can’t control EU migration, they can’t control the areas of business that have now been exempted. They’ve got no policy yet on students from overseas, so this is a very hard commitment without much policy to back it up, and they ditched the one thing which would have really worked – the points system which we introduced”

After North Korea launched rocket strikes against South Korea, shadow foreign secretary Yvette Cooper condemned the attack:

“I completely condemn North Korea’s aggression and the loss of life from this attack.”

“While North Korea continues to act like an international outsider, all other countries must stand together to show its behaviour is unacceptable. North Korea is in clear breach of UN Security Council resolutions as it continues to test missiles and to enrich uranium.”

“Rather than putting the needs of its people first and joining the international mainstream, its actions indicate it would rather face further isolation and tougher sanctions.”

And appearing on the Daily Politics, Alistair Darling was keen to stress the importance of avoiding “contagion” from Ireland’s financial crash:

“If we’re not careful this is going to go from Ireland, to Portugal, then back to Greece again and the fundamental problems in Europe, the structural imbalances between the richer countries and the poorer countries, the lack of any coherent policy to get growth in the future…that should worry all of us because we depend on those markets to grow, to export, and it’s those exports that George Osborne is depending on.”