THREAD: Questions to Keir Starmer's spokesperson this afternoon 🧵

Does Keir want an elected head of state? "No." Is he a proud patriot? "Yes." His past support for abolishing monarchy? "We all reflect on what we said when we were in our 20s... Keir has been proud of what the monarchy has done to help the country through the pandemic."
On use of Union Jack by Labour: "The union flag represents the country that Labour wants to govern and that Keir wants to be the PM of. It’s a symbol of the country we want to lead. You can call that patriotism, you can call it whatever you want, but that’s what we stand for."
Added: "Keir believes in our union of the United Kingdom… The flag represents that union, but also it’s the wider point of how we are better together."
On leaked Labour strategy document: "It's not right to say it was presented as our strategy. That’s not what it was, and to claim otherwise is wrong. It was an external review shared with the party… but we will write our own strategy."
Reaction to Clive Lewis saying that proposed approach is "moving down the track of the nativist right”: “We don’t agree with that."
Does Keir agree (with voters) that Piers Morgan is effective? “Is he an effective TV host? Yes.”

Does Keir think politicians should dress more smartly? “I’m not going to get into that.”
On Forde Inquiry delays: "It has taken longer than that initial timeline but ultimately it’s for the Forde Inquiry to set out when they’re going to be publishing. Keir’s view on it was set out in April last year when he called for a July deadline."
Wouldn't comment on community organising unit news or get into the detail of which strategy recommendations/findings KS agreed with and didn't agree with.

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@danielashby @AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd I'll bite. Let's try to keep it factual. There's a reasonable basis to some aspects of this question, that it might be possible to agree on. Then there are other, more variable, elements which depend on external factors such as transport and energy policy. /1

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd First up, we know reasonably well how much energy it takes to propel a high-speed train along the HS2 route. We can translate that into effective CO2 generated by making some assumptions about how green the electricity grid is. /2

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd Secondly, we have a reasonable grasp of how much CO2 is going to be generated by building HS2 - there are standard methods of working this out, based on the amount of steel, concrete, earthmoving, machine-fuelling etc required. /3

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd Thirdly, we can estimate how much CO2 is generated by cutting down trees, and how much is captured by planting new trees. We can also estimate how much CO2 is needed to keep the railway running and generated by maintaining the track /4

@AdamWJT @Greens4HS2 @TheGreenParty @GarethDennis @XRebellionUK @Hs2RebelRebel @HS2ltd We know how much CO2 is saved by moving goods by freight train on the lines freed up by moving the express trains on to HS2, rather than by truck. /5

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