Starmer’s been backed into a corner, declaring he has “full confidence” in his Transport Secretary Louise Haigh after her remarks almost torpedoed a whopping £1 billion investment deal from DP World. His team is now scrambling to spin her “success,” highlighting her ability to “deliver significant investment in electric buses” and supposedly end “industrial disruption.” Meanwhile, when Haigh was asked today if she felt “thrown under the bus,” she marched off in a huff…

Now, Haigh’s latest stroke of genius is to dish out £300 bonuses to train guards who can muster up the strength to work five days a week. Staff at CrossCountry, who typically clock in for just four days, will pocket this bonus alongside their regular pay through mid-November in a bid to avert Saturday strikes. A plan that’s unlikely solve disputes forever, but Haigh, ho…

Labour’s vaunted International Investment Summit is losing steam before it even starts. Rayner and Haigh have put their foot in it…

Dubai-based DP World, which owns P&O Ferries, has paused plans to invest a whopping £1 billion in its London Gateway container port after getting heated criticism from Labour cabinet ministers. Haigh and Rayner have called P&O a “rogue operator” in a press release which accused its hiring of foreign workers as a “national scandal.” Released right before the big summit’s kick off on Sunday – no wonder Rayner has been snubbed from hosting it…

Downing Street says the summit will act as a “reset” after a disastrous first 100 days. DP World’s chairman Ahmed bin Sulayem will now miss the event and pull the £1 billion. How’s “letting the cabinet ministers do their own thing” going then, Keir?

UPDATE: Labour tries to save the situation by saying its official press release of two days ago doesn’t “reflect the government view.” Uh-huh…

UPDATE II: DP World now says it will show up to the summit after Starmer repeatedly slapped down his own Deputy PM and Transport Secretary’s words in an official government press release.

Labour MPs have been riding the gravy train, pocketing over £1.8 million in campaign cash from union bosses. Now it seems the unions are calling in their chips, demanding higher wages and shorter hours on the clock. The domino effect is already in motion, with ASLEF launching fresh strikes against LNER last week. Meanwhile, Guido hears that Transport Secretary Louise Haigh conveniently went on holiday just before the strike announcement derailed the headlines. You’d think she’d stay at home to deal with the fallout given LNER is now under state control…

It seems she’s changed track from her former stance on a Secretary of State’s hands-on approach to railway strikes. Haigh was more than happy to steamroll then-Transport Secretary Grant Shapps for his lack of involvement when dealing with the 2022 railway strikes. She told the Commons:

“Ministers [must] step up and show leadership. It requires them to get employers and unions round the table and address the very serious issues, involving pay and cuts in safety and maintenance staff, that are behind this dispute… the Secretary of State is washing his hands of any responsibility… Should the strikes go ahead tomorrow, they will represent a catastrophic failure of leadership.”

After a delayed response from her team, No 10 finally told Guido that Haigh has been “fully across all business at all times“, though didn’t deny that she had been on holiday. Labour isn’t working?

The BBC reports that ASLEF and the Labour government are now “hopeful” of reaching a pay deal as they meet today. The union rejected the Rail Delivery Group’s last offer, which would have boosted the average annual pay for a driver to £65,000, because the Tory government proposed implementing training efficiencies. After 18 driver strikes they must be confident there will be no such cost-saving demands from Labour…

According to Electoral Commission records ASLEF has historically donated £922,252 to Labour and its politicians, £380,648 of which was trousered in the last four years. Money talks…

The Rail Delivery Group has been taken off negotiations, which are now run directly by the DfT under Louise Haigh. A former union employee, Haigh spoke at an ASLEF meeting in 2022 to proclaim it “an honour to work with this fantastic union on building a world class rail network.” Anyone who remembers British Rail will be dreading a re-nationalised Labour rail system…

UPDATE: Deal reached. 15% pay rise. Quelle suprise…

Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner took to Twitter this morning to boast of the government’s commitment to “hard yards of governing in the national interest.” She promised Labour would ditch the “gimmicks and slogans” that have befallen the public in the past…

A Government of public service means fixing the fundamentals to deliver for the British people.

No more gimmicks and slogans, but the hard yards of governing in the national interest.

The department I lead will be the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government.

— Angela Rayner (@AngelaRayner) July 9, 2024

One to bookmark, but not for long – her fellow cabinet members just couldn’t resist. Approximately an hour and a half after Rayner’s tweet, Transport Secretary Louise Haigh declared her department’s new motto is, insufferably, “Move Fast and Fix Things”. Sounds suspiciously like an empty slogan…

Shadow Secretary of State for Transport Louise Haigh has some history of calling for “urgent action” on the “climate crisis”, though she’s kept quiet on her long-held activism for a little while. Co-conspirators might wonder whose side will she take when the eco-loons clamber on top of commuter trains…

In 2019 Haigh joined an Extinction Rebellion protest and exclaimed to listening eco-terrorists:

“It is your right if not your duty to stand up and wake up the world to this existential threat facing our humanity, so I am here alongside you tonight because over the world, scientists, teachers, doctors, police officers, parents, and teachers, have joined this movement. Not troublemakers, not uncooperative crusties, but people people make waking us up to the fact that we have failed.”

In a Starmer government Haigh will be responsible for the entirety of England’s transport system and no few elements of devolved ones. Extinction Rebellion will be glad to have such a devoted ally of theirs round the cabinet table…