Labour has spent the past twenty four hours facing significant backlash over their benefit cap U-turn and one person leading the charge against Starmer is his former party leader. On LBC this morning, Jeremy Corbyn spoke of Labour MPs’ anger at the flip-flop:

“I have spoken to quite a lot of Labour MPs about it yesterday, not so much on the front bench, but I have spoken to many about it, and they are seething with anger. Particularly as commitments have been made regularly by the party that we would take children out of poverty. Even the Blair government, which Keir Starmer often quotes, did do a great deal to lift children out of poverty…”

You know it’s getting serious when Jeremy Corbyn is praising the Blair government…

A long list of Labour politicians have already publicly outed themselves as among those “seething with anger”. This includes MPs John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Ian Lavery, Rosie Duffield, Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Stella Creasy, Clive Efford, Stephen Timms, Kim Johnson, Zarah Sultana and Meg Hillier, as well as Scottish Labour Leader Anas Sarwar and Sadiq Khan, alongside three other Labour mayors. Could someone from the Shadow Cabinet be next…

This is not to mention Jezza’s fellow independent, Jamie Driscoll, who resigned yesterday over the issue. In this context Corbyn was also asked about his own plans to stand as an independent Mayor of London. He didn’t rule it out.

Lucy Powell is out on the airwaves this morning, defending Labour’s U-Turn on the two-child benefits cap in the wake of backlash from the backbenches. Speaking on ITV News, she defended their move to no longer oppose the policy, invoking Liam Byrne’s infamous “no money” letter:

“There are lots of things that he would like to reverse, but the economic reality means that we just can’t. To coin a phrase, there just frankly is no money left”

Looks like Lucy’s been learning from Greg Hands…

Yet another week in Westminster has begun with yet another Labour U-Turn. This time, the party has said that it will now keep the two-child benefit cap, which their Deputy Leader previously called “obscene and inhumane”. Despite the fact Jonathan Ashworth, the Shadow Cabinet member responsible for *checks notes* benefits, decried the “heinous policy” just last month, Keir Starmer said on Sunday that Labour wouldn’t change the policy. It’s left Yvette Cooper facing some tough questions on the morning round…

Speaking to Kay Burley on Sky News, Yvette Cooper couldn’t say whether Labour supported the cap – though she was quick to spell out that they “opposed it when it first came in”. Should give CCHQ the chance to flog more flip-flops in time for summer recess.

The Sun got an interesting briefing from the Shadow Chancellor’s office on Sunday night, revealing that Rachel Reeves is now backing a freeze of fuel duty to “help hard-pressed motorists”. Freezing fuel duty given current rates of inflation would cost the taxpayers around £6 billion…

Reeves told the paper:

“With so many families and businesses reliant on their cars, the government must rule out yet another fuel duty rise at the Budget to ease some of those pressures and prevent yet another shock to our economy.”

However given major questions about whether voters can trust a word Sir Keir’s Labour says, Reeves will struggle to explain why she appears to have performed such a volte-face on the issue of freezing fuel duty.

Responding to Rishi’s March 2020 budget, the then-backbencher Reeves slammed the government for spending £2.7 billion on “yet another fuel duty freeze”, despite COP26 in Glasgow being just around the corner:

“Yet what have we had in the Budget today? We have had £27 billion to invest in 4,000 miles of roads, and the fuel duty freeze, which costs £2.7 billion, but just £6 billion for local transport and a mere £140 million for a one-year extension of the electric vehicle grants. Frankly, that does not speak of a Government who recognise the scale of the challenge we face”

Later on, she tweeted that “yet another fuel duty freeze” was the sign the government “don’t recognise the challenge of the climate emergency.”

It wasn’t just Reeves slamming the government’s now-relatively modest spending on a fuel duty freeze. Lisa Nandy, the now-Shadow Levelling Up secretary also slammed the decision given:

“Car usage is the biggest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions – but instead of investment in low carbon transport, they’ve frozen fuel duty.”

We’re now supposed to believe the Labour Party sincerely believes in spending £6 billion on freezing fuel duty. Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides – provided voters can afford to fill up their cars…

Rishi Sunak has followed where Liz Truss left off and has already made a major U-Turn. On Twitter this morning the Prime Minister announced he would be attending COP27 after all. He added:

“There is no long-term prosperity without action on climate change. There is no energy security without investing in renewables. That is why I will attend @COP27P next week: to deliver on Glasgow’s legacy of building a secure and sustainable future”

Off to a flyer…