Ben Wallace says he is backing Liz Truss because she understands ‘threats’ faced by UK – live

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Labour former shadow chancellor John McDonnell was at the CWU picket line this morning, and told the PA news agency:

These workers are being forced to take industrial action. I’m a Labour MP so I’m a member of the Labour trade union. When the call comes out from CWU for solidarity to join the picket lines, of course I respond positively.

He added: “If you’re a Labour MP, whether on the frontbench or the backbench, you should be on the picket lines.”

CWU general secretary Dave Ward criticised the Labour leadership for not supporting them and for sacking Sam Perry who was sacked from his role as a shadow transport minister earlier this week following media appearances at an RMT picket line.

Ward said:

The actions of the Labour leadership is disgraceful. We will have to deal with that. I think what will happen is that people will see through Labour unless they change their position because it seems to me that Labour want to win an election without any principles or any policies and people won’t accept that.

He added: “Clearly Labour are in a position now that I think they’ve set out their path. It’s not the same path that we’re going down.”

The British public would never have forgiven the Conservatives if the financial markets had crashed after Rishi Sunak quit as chancellor, Ben Wallace has said as he stepped up attacks on the Tory leadership candidate after endorsing his rival Liz Truss.

Wallace, the defence secretary, also suggested he was throwing his weight behind Truss because she recognised that the “threats we face every day” needed to be “funded properly”.

Speaking after coming out for Truss overnight in an article for the Times, Wallace continued to go on the offensive against her opponent, telling Sky News that Sunak’s decision to cut entrepreneurs’ relief when he was chancellor was not a way to create “either wealth or indeed growth”.

Sunak was the second senior cabinet minister to resign from Boris Johnson’s government this month, after Sajid Javid, triggering Johnson’s downfall a few days later. Allies of Johnson blame Sunak more than anyone else for his departure.

Wallace contrasted his own decision and that of the home secretary, Priti Patel, to stay in their posts with Sunak and others’ resignations.

“What if the markets had crashed? What if the home secretary had done that and there had been a terrorist attack? The public would never forgive us,” Wallace told Sky News.

He appeared to echo criticism of Sunak’s record on defence spending. As chancellor, Sunak reportedly resisted pressure for a big increase in UK defence spending in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

Wallace said: “I am the secretary of state for defence, I want to find a candidate that’s going to do right by the department and recognise that the threats we face every day are very real and are growing and that they need to be funded properly.”

In a thinly veiled swipe at Sunak, Wallace wrote in the Times that Truss was “a winner not because she’s a slick salesperson but because she is authentic”.

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Rishi Sunak was not in support of the multi-year defence settlement, Ben Wallace has said.

The defence secretary, who is supporting Liz Truss in the Conservative Party leadership contest, was asked by LBC’s Nick Ferrari how obstructive the former chancellor was in granting more cash to the armed forces.

Wallace replied: “I don’t think he was obstructive…”

When pressed further, the defence secretary said:

I mean, the multi-year settlement that we got was not what the Treasury had wanted. They wanted a one-year settlement. This was back in 2019, I think. And it was vital that we got a multi-year settlement. And the prime minister effectively asserted his authority and made sure that’s what happened.

Ferrari asked: “But Mr Sunak was not in support?” Wallace replied: “Not that I remember.”

He said it was Boris Johnson’s “determination” to secure the settlement.

Put to him that the Treasury has delivered increased defence budgets, the defence secretary told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

The prime minister did. It was the prime minister’s determination that we got a multi-year settlement, that we got one when we desperately needed one, and we got 24 billion extra.

And that investment I’m keen continues. I don’t want it to be a sort of boom or bust, which has often happened to defence, and that’s why it gets into big trouble.

Labour MP Sam Tarry, who was sacked from his role as a shadow transport minister earlier this week following media appearances at an RMT picket line, joined a rally for striking BT workers on Friday morning.

Addressing the Communication Workers Union (CWU) rally as thousands of BT and Openreach workers strike in a dispute over pay, Tarry said “it’s good to be back”.

He said:

We need a Labour leadership that is prepared to stand up and does not look the other way when BT workers are going to foodbanks.

He said the Labour Party needed to be clear they would defend workers right to the hilt and extend their rights in the workplace.

He added:

Let’s be absolutely clear – it is not good enough, it is not good enough for the Labour Party to say that we probably won’t be able to give you a pay rise in line with inflation. Because that means the Labour Party is committed to cut people’s wages in real terms and that is totally unacceptable.

He added:

If I’m sacked for having said that live on TV and not supposed to [have] been on that picket line then people need to have a really hard think about what the Labour Party is for.

Because for me the clue is in the name: Labour. On the side of working people.

He added that “things were changing” and it was “time to fight back” and “reclaim our party”.

The UK defence minister Ben Wallace has said that Russian forces in Ukraine are in “a very difficult spot”, and said that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s strategy is akin to putting his forces through a meat-grinder.

He told listeners of the BBC’s Today programme in the UK that “by any benchmark, Russia is in a position where it hasn’t achieved its major objectives. It has taken huge numbers of losses and casualties.”

In his opinion, he said Russia was “certainly not able to occupy the country. They may be able to carry on killing indiscriminately and destroying as they go, but that is not a victory.”

“Putin hasn’t changed from his desire to occupy the whole of Ukraine, take Kyiv and Odesa,” he said, adding “but his army has been effectively crippled by huge amounts of losses. Over 25,000 dead. Maybe twice as many injured.”

He likened the current tactics to the first world war, saying:

When I talk about meat grinder, which is what they’re doing, is that they are resorting to a sort of Soviet tactic of just a massive Russian meat grinder moving very slowly metres, not miles, a day, in some parts.

And in the top of the meat grinder they’re shoving in, and this is the cruelty of that system, they are recruiting from the poorest districts in Russia, and the ethnic minorities, and they are using mercenaries, shoving these people in with very little regard to the outcome, grinding forward.

He said that longer-range western weapons were “now having a material effect”, and the Russians “are operating their army at roughly about 40-to-50% combat effective.”

Wallace said the Ukrainian attack on bridges, which appears to have had an impact on the ability to resupply troops in Kherson north of the river Dnieper, has put them “in a very difficult spot” and left the Russians “in a defensive position” in the south.

You can follow our liveblog on the Russia-Ukraine war here:

Liz Truss is the candidate that will do best by defence of this nation, Ben Wallace has said.

The defence secretary and Truss’ supporter told BBC Breakfast:

Rishi will be a fine member of anybody’s Cabinet. They would be lucky to have him, but for me, Liz is the one that I think will do best by defence of this nation, by investing in it and making sure that we get to a point where we can provide that resilience that does have a knock on effect of the cost-of-living.

Some of the challenges we have right now because of global insecurity and defence has a real role in helping stabilise countries from Africa, to Europe and even over the Pacific. And that’s important we can do that.

He added:

When I was in government, without any prompting or asking, Liz, I remember, wrote a letter to the prime minister saying that defence needs more money, it’s a more dangerous, risky world.

She did that off her own back. She’s been very consistent. And you know, I think also she has that experience. As I have said earlier, she hasn’t just been in the Treasury. She has done a whole range of other jobs across Government over the years. I think she’s one of the longest serving cabinet ministers now or who has attended cabinet as well. And I think that is ultimately why I think she’s best for me.

Good morning and welcome to our live political coverage.

The defence secretary has criticised the way his former colleagues resigned en masse which led to the demise of Boris Johnson.

Suggesting that Rishi Sunak was behind what happened, Ben Wallace told Sky News triggering cabinet ministers walking out at a time of a crisis was not “the right course of action” and said the former chancellor could have used other methods to oust the prime minister.

He said:

Some ministers don’t have the luxury of walking out. If you actually look at that article, I was asked why I didn’t resign. And I said some ministers don’t have the luxury of resigning because, fundamentally, we have duties and obligations.

Asked if he would have liked to resign, he said “no”, adding:

But I also made clear, and I made a tweet at the time for those colleagues who do want to express confidence in the government, there’s a very simple way of doing that.

There was going to be a 1922 committee on the Monday the next week, a couple of days after Rishi resigned, and they could have done it that way. They could have voted the Prime Minister through confidence in the party.

He added:

I just don’t think triggering cabinet ministers walking out at a time of a crisis is the right course of action.

There were other mechanisms to do what they wanted. If Rishi Sunak didn’t want the Prime Minister to be Prime Minister, there are other mechanisms to do that. And that goes for all the other ministers.

The Defence Secretary has suggested he supports Liz Truss in the Tory leadership race because she recognises that the “threats we face every day” need to be “funded properly”.

Explaining why he had chosen to back Truss, Ben Wallace told Sky News he had decided at the beginning of the contest to “stand back” and look at their performances during hustings events.

I am the Secretary of State for Defence, I want to find a candidate that’s going to do right by the department and recognise that the threats we face every day are very real and are growing and that they need to be funded properly.

We can’t just sort of pretend they will go away by themselves.

So you know, I looked at their performances. I looked at them on the hustings, but I also know them both. I’ve been in Cabinet for two years with both the Chancellor and indeed Liz Truss. And so, you know, it was important for me to work out who was the right person to take us forward. So, you know, I know Liz, she’s very straight. She’s authentic, what you see is what you get, but also she has been very consistent in her support for defence and security. She reads the same intelligence reports I do.

I felt it was the right person to back.

Welcome to today’s Politics Liveblog. I’ll be covering for Andrew Sparrow today. Do drop me a line if you have any questions or think I’ve missed anything. My email is nicola.slawson@theguardian.com and I’m @Nicola_Slawson on Twitter.