It’s all going wrong for the MPs behind reintroducing the Assisted Suicide Bill in this session. Peter Bedford, one of the MPs to sponsor Lauren Edwards MP’s Private Members Bill – which has Labour MPs tearing their hair out – has been whinging online about “misleading” reporting of his comments to a constituent over the matter. Bedford had egg on his face after his office told a constituent on 26 May – after the start of the new parliamentary session – that the MP: “does not agree with this [the assisted suicide Bill] being debated again in the near future”. Seemed clear enough at the time…
The MP also told the constituent that “he does not think it will succeed if brought back as a Private Members Bill again during this parliamentary session”. He then helped bring it back himself as one of the Bill’s co-sponsors…
The Bill is set to return even though its supporters don’t think it will pass – a bizarre own goal. Labour whips are anxious about the division it is set to cause in the PLP, given a full in-tray for Andy Burnham and a mountain of unresolved Starmer legacy legislation. For Peter Bedford, a month is a long time in politics…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”