This week there have been reports of Tory ministers calling for Rishi Sunak to be replaced by Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch, who consistently tops polls on the popularity of cabinet ministers. On Sky News this morning, Trevor Phillips showed Badenoch a graph which gave her a favourability rating of 64 per cent, contrasted with Rishi Sunak on minus twenty-six per cent, and asked her if she was involved in plotting for a leadership change. Badenoch said she was not, and said prime ministers ‘cannot be treated as disposable’, and Tory MPs needed to ‘stop messing around and get behind the leader’. Later on with Laura Kuenssberg on the BBC, Badenoch responded to a focus group that was disaffected with politicians by saying there was too much focus on personality in politics. Badenoch claimed the Tory rebels did not care about her or her family, ‘they are just stirring.’
Staff from UN agency for Palestinian refugees accused of participating in Hamas attack
The UK and other western nations suspended funding for the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine this week, after an investigation into 12 of its members of staff who may have participated in the Hamas attack on 7 October. Trevor Phillips asked Kemi Badenoch if this would have dire consequences for the people of Gaza who are reliant on aid. Badenoch said the allegations against the agency were ‘very significant’, and that suspending funding was the right thing to do. She claimed that aid would still arrive via other organisations that the UK is continuing to fund.
The Post Office has a ‘series of problems’
The fallout from the Horizon IT scandal continues. Badenoch confirmed to Trevor Phillips that the Post Office chair Harry Staunton had been asked to leave on Saturday night, despite only holding the position for one year. Phillips asked if Badenoch had picked the wrong person for the job. Badenoch said she hadn’t appointed Staunton, but ‘difficulties with the board’ had meant she had to intervene. She added that the Post Office has issues that ‘go well beyond the Horizon scandal’, and hinted that there could be further changes, although she claimed she didn’t want to do ‘HR on TV’.
Jonathan Reynolds: ‘People don’t want promises they don’t think can be delivered’
Having watched the BBC’s focus group give tepid reactions to Keir Starmer, even among Labour voters, Laura Kuenssberg asked Shadow Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds why so many people say they don’t know what Starmer stands for. Reynolds listed clear positions Starmer had taken, but Kuenssberg pointed out Labour’s uncertainty surrounding their £28 billion-a-year green ambitions as an example of his vague plans. Reynolds claimed Labour were trying to react to financial realities and did not want to make false promises.
US Navy chief says the world should be worried about Trump
Lastly, in an interview with Laura Kuenssberg, US Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro was criticised Donald Trump, and said President Biden had shown ‘mature leadership’ and built up relationships with US allies. Trump aligned himself with dictators. Del Toro claimed Trump had a ‘suspicious attitude to democracy’, and that the world ‘would suffer’ under a second Trump term.
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