Louise Haigh resigned as transport secretary this week after it emerged she had committed a fraud offence in 2013, falsely telling police that her work mobile phone was stolen in a mugging. In 2022, Starmer had declared to the Commons: ‘lawbreakers cannot be lawmakers’.
On Sky News, Trevor Phillips asked cabinet minister Pat McFadden if Keir Starmer had known about the offence before appointing her to the cabinet. McFadden denied having any knowledge outside of the public domain, saying he didn’t know ‘who knew what and when’.
He did imply that ‘new information’ regarding Haigh had come to light, but he claimed not to know what that was, saying he respected Haigh for choosing to resign because the offence would become ‘an enormous distraction for the government’. McFadden also claimed that the speed with which Labour dealt with this issue differentiated them from previous Conservative controversy.
Trevor Phillips tells Atkins: ‘This is a spectacular attempt to avoid answering the question’
New figures have shown that net migration to the UK hit a record 906,000 last year, much higher than previously thought. This week Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch admitted that the Tories had failed on their immigration promises, and announced plans for a ‘strict numerical cap’ on visas, although she did not give any indication on what that number would be.
Trevor Phillips spoke to shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins, who attended the farmers rally in Westminster last month, protesting against Labour’s new inheritance tax hikes. Phillips asked if the Tories migration cap plans might affect the numbers of seasonal workers that farmers rely on.
Diane Abbott: Keir Starmer has shown ‘poor political judgment’
Next week Keir Starmer will give a speech declaring long term missions and his ‘plan for change’, which some are viewing as an attempted reset for the government. Sitting on Victoria Derbyshire’s panel, Labour MP Diane Abbott was asked how she felt Starmer’s time in power had gone so far.
Abbott said Starmer has shown ‘poor judgment’ over issues like his acceptance of clothing gifts, and the winter fuel allowance cuts and that pensioners ‘don’t forgive and forget… and actually do vote’. She also said it was interesting that ‘recycled Blairite’ Pat McFadden was giving interviews this week, because Labour ‘always wheel him out when they’ve got a problem’.
BBC’s international editor: ‘The Middle East is in total flux’
Islamist rebels have captured central Aleppo and other territory across north-western Syria, in a surprise offensive, the most significant challenge to President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in years. The BBC’s international editor Jeremy Bowen told Victoria Derbyshire that the dominant faction among the rebels are known as HTS, whose leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani has tried to portray himself as a more moderate Islamist leader.
Bowen said that despite the rebel gains, the military support of Russia may protect Assad’s ‘resilient’ regime, as it has done since 2011. Bowen also argued that this attack was an example of the ‘continuing aftermath and fallout of the Hamas attacks last year on the 7 October.’
Greg Wallace claims complaints against him come from ‘middle-class women of a certain age’
MasterChef host Greg Wallace has stepped back from his role while multiple complaints of inappropriate sexual behaviour are investigated. In an Instagram post, Wallace claimed that he had worked with thousands of contestants and staff over the years, and that the only complaints had come from ‘middle-class women of a certain age’ on Celebrity MasterChef.
He suggested that lots of female contestants had made ‘sexual remarks’ themselves. On Victoria Derbyshire’s panel, chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall said Wallace’s intervention was ‘not wise’, that Wallace had clearly ‘crossed some lines’, and that he should ‘probably be listening’ at the moment. Labour’s Diane Abbott said it was ‘not a crime to be a middle-class woman of a certain age’, and that ‘the world has moved on’.
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