Labour is charging through government so far. Downing Street is hilariously already embroiled in a bitter turf war between Sue Gray and the ‘McIavelli‘ Morgan McSweeney. You usually save this stuff for later in the cycle…
It’s not just internal battles coming thick and fast. Labour is deploying U-turns on pledges at a high rate. Guido has compiled a helpful rolling list:
- Cancelling hospital and railway line construction investment. Labour pledged in its manifesto to fulfil the 2019 New Hospital Programme…
- Reversing claims that Labour wouldn’t come into power and find a black hole in the public finances.
- Not raising tax on working people.
- U-turning on plans to repeal Starmer’s special DPP tax perk.
- Going back on suggestions that Labour would look at ID cards for citizens.
- Scrapping their pledge to immediately repeal Section 21 evictions.
- Scrapping £1.3 billion in tech and AI project funding.
- Lowering housebuilding targets in London by 20%.
- Leaving the door open to scrapping the two-child benefit cap by launching a delaying ‘taskforce’.
- Pulling the cash pledged to fill one million potholes. That filled a few days of Labour campaigning in the election…
- Reversing the position: Margaret Thatcher was good.
More major U-turns are set to appear further down the line. Guido will provide live updates as they come…
Labour’s casting around for cash to fund its political projects is descending into farce. They’re struggling to keep a straight face on the media round…
Just two months ago Starmer made a big song and dance about the elderly’s inability to pay their heating bills, which he described in a campaign video as “awful” and “the biggest thing in the world” which “eats away at people“. Darren Jones sent a formal complaint over rumours that the Winter Fuel Allowance would be means tested last year. Meanwhile, Wes Streeting told the BBC just a few weeks ago:
“One of the things that we have committed to is, obviously the cap on care costs is due to come in, I have wanted to give the system the certainty this side of the election of knowing we are not planning to come in and upend that and scrap that.”
Means testing benefits is fine, deceiving the public over what your priorities are isn’t…
New polling from Savanta could be the start of an election-year tightening. Labour’s lead is down to only 12 points this morning as the party gets punished for their latest U-turning shenanigans. Fieldwork was undertaken from 9-11 February, which means that the latest developments from Azhar Ali/Graham Jones haven’t been factored in. Guido wonders what effect they will have…
The Tories get a small boost and Reform is taken down a point. Savanta’s research director Chris Hopkins elaborates that the result “may well be in response to a torrid couple of weeks for Keir Starmer’s party, and part of a wider trend“. The overall trend is still that the Tories are disastrously behind, however. One poll does not a summer make, though subsequent polls will be watched closely…
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.
