Starmer says he will ‘reflect’ on welfare bill fiasco, but claims government ‘will come through it stronger’
Good morning. Tomorrow it will be a year since the general election, and on Saturday it will be one year from the day when Keir Starmer started forming a government. It has not been a good week to celebrate the anniversary.
In a long interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson last night, only some of which has now been broadcast (the rest is coming later), Starmer defended Rachel Reeves, his chancellor, saying that she would be in office “for a very long time to come” and that an undisclosed personal matter, not politics, was the reason why she was in tears at PMQs yesterday.
As Graeme Wearden reports on his business live blog, UK government borrowing costs are down a bit this morning.
Yesterday they rose after PMQs as bond traders responded to speculation that Reeves might be sacked, and replaced by a chancellor less committed to fiscal discipline.
But that does not mean the political crisis for the government is over. In his BBC interview, Starmer said he needed to “reflect” on what went wrong this week, when the government had to abandon the main thrust of its welfare bill about 90 minutes before MPs were due to vote on it. He said:
I’m not going to pretend the last few days have been easy, they’ve been tough.
I’m the sort of person that then wants to reflect on that, to ask myself what do we need to ensure we don’t get into a situation like that again, and we will go through that process.
But I also know what we will do and that’s we will come through it stronger.
Labour MPs would love to see the government “come through it stronger” but with some tough decisions just postponed, and autumn tax rises all but inevitable, that won’t be easy.
This morning Starmer wants to focus on something else – his 10-year health plan. Here is Denis Campbell’s preview story.
Starmer will be speaking about this at a press conference this morning.
Here is the agenda for the day:
9.30am: Angela Rayner, the deputy PM and housing secretary, gives a speech at a Local Government Association conference.
10.30am: Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, announce the 10-year NHS plan at an event in London.
After 11.30am: Streeting is expected to make a statement to MPs about the 10-year NHS plan.
3.45pm: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing. (The usual morning one is not happening because of the PM’s event.)
Afternoon: Peers vote on the order banning Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
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Updated at 09.31 BST
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Starmer accepts blame for welfare fiasco and says No 10 ‘didn’t get process right’
Keir Starmer admitted in his BBC interview No 10 “didn’t get the process right” in handling the government’s controversial welfare bill this week, Alexandra Topping reports.
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Updated at 09.33 BST
Starmer says reasons for Reeves being tearful at PMQs were ‘purely personal’ and ‘nothing to do with politics’
Keir Starmer has told Virgin Radio that the reasons Rachel Reeves was tearful in the Commons yesterday was “purely personal” and “nothing to do with politics, nothing to do with the ups and downs of this week, or her relationship with anybody in the Labour party”.
He said she had a “long chat” with the chancellor last night.
She’s fine … She’s very resilient and strong is Rachel. She’s driven through lots of change in the Labour party. We’ve had to change the Labour party, fought an election together. I’ve seen her resilience first hand. I admire it. She’s a really powerful woman, and she’s also very widely respected.
The sort of messages of concern that have come in over the last 24 hours or so show the great affection and respect in which she is held.
People are held in respect for a reason, and that’s because people know they’re very good at what they’re doing.
He also said it was in the nature of politics that people were “on show the whole time”, even at times of personal difficulty.
We [politicians] are humans in the end and sometimes personal things are obviously on our minds and, in this case, that was the situation ..
There are moments that catch us off guard and if you’re in front of a camera for large periods of your life, unfortunately, that could be caught on camera in a way, if it had been anybody else at work, it would have not really been noticed.
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Starmer says he will ‘reflect’ on welfare bill fiasco, but claims government ‘will come through it stronger’
Good morning. Tomorrow it will be a year since the general election, and on Saturday it will be one year from the day when Keir Starmer started forming a government. It has not been a good week to celebrate the anniversary.
In a long interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson last night, only some of which has now been broadcast (the rest is coming later), Starmer defended Rachel Reeves, his chancellor, saying that she would be in office “for a very long time to come” and that an undisclosed personal matter, not politics, was the reason why she was in tears at PMQs yesterday.
As Graeme Wearden reports on his business live blog, UK government borrowing costs are down a bit this morning.
Yesterday they rose after PMQs as bond traders responded to speculation that Reeves might be sacked, and replaced by a chancellor less committed to fiscal discipline.
But that does not mean the political crisis for the government is over. In his BBC interview, Starmer said he needed to “reflect” on what went wrong this week, when the government had to abandon the main thrust of its welfare bill about 90 minutes before MPs were due to vote on it. He said:
I’m not going to pretend the last few days have been easy, they’ve been tough.
I’m the sort of person that then wants to reflect on that, to ask myself what do we need to ensure we don’t get into a situation like that again, and we will go through that process.
But I also know what we will do and that’s we will come through it stronger.
Labour MPs would love to see the government “come through it stronger” but with some tough decisions just postponed, and autumn tax rises all but inevitable, that won’t be easy.
This morning Starmer wants to focus on something else – his 10-year health plan. Here is Denis Campbell’s preview story.
Starmer will be speaking about this at a press conference this morning.
Here is the agenda for the day:
9.30am: Angela Rayner, the deputy PM and housing secretary, gives a speech at a Local Government Association conference.
10.30am: Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, announce the 10-year NHS plan at an event in London.
After 11.30am: Streeting is expected to make a statement to MPs about the 10-year NHS plan.
3.45pm: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing. (The usual morning one is not happening because of the PM’s event.)
Afternoon: Peers vote on the order banning Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
Share
Updated at 09.31 BST