Care minister Stephen Kinnock tried to defend Starmer’s U-turn on cancelling local elections this morning on Sky News. Asked what exact change in legal advice forced Labour to make the decision, Kinnock eventually gave up, saying he is only a “care minister”. Tough gig…
Care minister Stephen Kinnock is on the morning round reinforcing the Labour message to Andy Burnham. Stay up in Manchester, buddy…
He told BBC Breakfast:
“Well, Andy Burnham is an incredibly talented and effective leader as the mayor of Greater Manchester. Look at the work he’s doing around re-industrialisation, around tackling homelessness. I know the PM and other members of the Cabinet hugely valued the role he played in the aftermath of those awful events at the synagogue in Manchester. So it’s absolutely clear that Andy’s doing a great job in the role that he currently has. In terms of the selection process for this by-election, it will run according to Labour Party rules and procedures. The NEC will set out those rules and procedures in due course.”
Kinnock remarked to Times Radio that Burnham has “been around the block a few times himself and he can make up his own mind on these issues.” There are various levers the NEC can pull to stymie Burnham. Each one more decisive and politically unviable than the last – no sign of ‘put up or shut up’ from the Prime Minister…
Care minister Stephen Kinnock has refused to say the government will publish contextual meeting minutes and correspondence around Deputy National Security Adviser Matthew Collins’ written evidence to the CPS. Speaking to GB News Kinnock said there are “government processes and protocols around this, of course we have to be very careful about the information that gets released.” Kinnock found time to praise Starmer for the “huge amounts of transparency” he showed in deploying the red herring evidence…
Kinnock added the published statements “clearly show the position of the government from the Conservative to Labour transition.” This is despite the fact that the new evidence provided in August contains political language to describe China literally lifted from the Labour manifesto…
The minister claimed “the broad position has remained the same which is that youcan’t boil the relationship with China down to one word of it being an enemy, you have to see it in the round in terms of all of the important cooperation we need to have with them on vital issues like climate change.” Crikey…
The government is now going hard on its blame game with the CPS over the case’s collapse. Poisoned chalice…
Care minister Stephen Kinnock refused to challenge his dad’s call to scrap the two-child benefit cap this morning. Stop Kinnock on Kinnock violence…
The suddenly vocal former Labour leader has been fleshing out his policy platform and said the cap should be lifted gradually: “I really want them to move in that direction because the figures are that if that did occur it would mean that about 600,000 kids fewer are in poverty.” He again suggested it could be funded by a “wealth tax” on the top 1%…
Asked if “your dad is right or wrong” on BBC Breakfast Stephen refused to give an answer. On Sky News said:
“I am very clear that any changes to our fiscal policy are a matter for the Chancellor and only the Chancellor. So those conversations are ongoing and I’m not going to preempt them.”
That is different to the spin put out just two months ago when the successful backbench rebellion to kill the welfare reforms apparently destroyed all prospect of a removal of the cap. Since then the ‘Let Keir be Keir’ strategy has seen a continued to pitch to the left…
Labour’s first serious rebellion has resulted in a dire outcome for Starmer: an almost total u-turn on his welfare reform package overnight. Labour MPs are forcing No10 to change course as if this were the dying days of a Labour government…
One problem is fiscal. Dumping the reforms skews the basis for Reeves’s entire tax and spend position. Health minister Stephen Kinnock, when asked whether there would be further tax hikes, said:
“The full details of what we’re doing will be set out in parliament next week and then the financial side of it will be set out by the Chancellor in the Budget in the autumn. I don’t think it’s right for me to speculate now on taxes.”
According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the U-turn will cost £1.5 billion by the end of the Parliament – on top of the £1.25 billion u-turn on winter fuel announced just weeks ago. Huge tax rises are now inevitable after the summer…
The bigger problem is political. As Guido revealed, a blame game consumed the Downing Street team with acrimonious finger pointing over the handling of the vote. Labour sources this morning blame an ‘incompetent’ whips office and are asking whether Chief Whip Alan Campbell will make it through to September. Another camp views the shredding of welfare reform as the end of Starmer’s relationship with Morgan McSweeney, his chief adviser and an electoral realist. The U-turn isn’t even over yet, there are measures left in the Bill that Labour rebels still strongly oppose…
Care Minister Stephen Kinnock was asked a pretty simple question ahead of the budget this morning: “Are six-figure earners working people?” No response – six times in a row…
Kinnock eventually said Labour hadn’t worked out what a “working person” was yet: “Obviously the definitions have to be seen in the round and that’s what’s going to be put on the table.” Rachel Reeves made it clear, though, what the party’s definition of working people was during the election campaign: “Working people are people who get their income from going out to work everyday, and also pensioners that have worked all their lives and are now in retirement.” Which obviously includes those who receive a large salary…
Kinnock just said: “our manifesto made it absolutely clear that we will not be raising National Insurance income tax or VAT on working people.” A cynical combination of two entirely different sentences in the manifesto…
Streeting said yesterday that Labour’s “focus” when it came to not hiking taxes was on “people who are on lower or middle incomes.” It only took a hundred days for Labour to give up its growth-friendly façade…
Lucy Powell on LBC, asked by Tom Swarbrick for her reaction to Labour MP Samantha Niblett’s call for a ‘summer of sex’ debate in Parliament: “I personally don’t own any sex toys, but each to their own… I’m not really sure that’s the right place for it, no.”