James Heale is The Spectator’s deputy political editor.
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It’s D-Day for Labour’s welfare reforms. MPs will vote tonight on the party’s watered-down benefits cuts. Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall formally announced Labour’s climbdown yesterday, telling MPs that the government had ‘listened carefully’ and was bringing in ‘positive changes’. Well, that’s one way of putting it. Even so, Labour is braced for a
Tonight, we will find out just how many Labour welfare rebels there really are. A vote on the second reading of the government’s reforms is expected after 7pm. Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is facing the Commons this afternoon as she tries to whittle numbers down to as few as possible. There are
You wait ages for a right-wing movement to come along – and then two do so at once. Former MEPs Ben Habib and Rupert Lowe both launched rival outlets yesterday. Habib now leads ‘Advance UK’, a political party whose first aim is to reach 30,000 members. Meanwhile, Lowe has started ‘Restore Britain’, a ‘bottom-up movement’
This afternoon Liz Kendall will update the House of Commons on her revised plans for welfare, following the concessions wrung out of her by Labour MPs. The Work and Pensions Secretary announced plans on Thursday night for £3 billion in additional funds. This will allow current claimants of personal independence payments to keep their current
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There have been a number of navel-gazing interviews with the Prime Minister over the weekend. Across thousands and thousands of words, he seems to be saying – if you read between the lines – that he doesn’t particularly enjoy being PM. In better news, Labour seems to have quelled the welfare rebellion. Liz Kendall is
Keir Starmer’s address to the Welsh Labour conference this morning was exactly the kind of speech we expected. With eleven months to go until a difficult set of devolved elections, the Prime Minister fell back on the greatest hits to play to the party faithful. Labour is the party with the ‘interests of working people
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As Labour rebels appear to have forced concessions from Keir Starmer over welfare this week, former Conservative MP Steve Baker joins James Heale to reflect on his own time as a rebel, and to provide some advice to Labour MPs. Steve, an MP for 14 years and a minister under Theresa May, Liz Truss and
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Keir Starmer has performed a screeching about-turn on his flagship welfare reforms, all in the hope of quelling the rebellion from more than 120 MPs who have been promised ‘massive concessions’ over concerns about disability benefits. These include moderating the bill to make it easier for people with multiple impairments to claim disability benefits, and
If the Labour party were a cinema, then it would currently be showing a double billing: Groundhog Day and Knives Out. For older heads, the Welfare Bill has echoes of the 2015 vote on Universal Credit; newbies MPs are now experiencing what it is like to be in a full-on government briefing war. Plenty of
At last, Keir Starmer has bowed to the inevitable. Having first adopted a posture of defiance, then conciliation, the Prime Minister has tonight admitted capitulation on the great welfare revolt. The Guardian reports that the ringleaders of the 126 rebels who signed a wrecking amendment to the Welfare Bill are now claiming ‘massive concessions.’ It follows a
The Prime Minister has never been a huge fan of the press. But there is an apt Fleet Street phrase to describe his screeching shift in tone on the great Labour welfare rebellion: reverse ferret! Just yesterday, he was all bullish talk, claiming that the more than 100 Labour MPs who want to vote down
Summer is here – and for some in Labour it cannot come soon enough. After a tricky first year in office, the parliamentary party is in fractious mood. More than 100 of Keir Starmer’s MPs are raging against his welfare cuts; others are fuming about Israel. Some aides in No. 10 hope recess will give the
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Keir Starmer is facing war on both fronts. He is in the Netherlands to talk about defence and announce a major change in the UK’s nuclear posture in response to rising challenges in the Middle East. But everyone in Westminster wants to talk about a different kind of warfare: the warfare over welfare. MPs will
Keir Starmer is in the Netherlands to attend the Nato summit – but that is not the subject which is gripping everyone back home. This afternoon, the Prime Minister held a press conference to confirm that the UK will shortly be expanding its nuclear deterrent by buying a squadron of American-made fighter jets. It is
With Keir Starmer at Nato, the hospital pass of this week’s PMQs was handed instead to Angela Rayner. The welfare row is tearing apart the Labour party, with more than 120 MPs now committed to voting against the changes to disability benefit next Tuesday. In such circumstances, the obvious choice to fill in for Kemi
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It is rare to see the President so visibly frustrated (see The Apprentice, circa 2004), but after Iran and Israel seemingly ignored his ceasefire announcement – and his plea on Truth Social, ‘PLEASE DO NOT VIOLATE IT!’ – Donald Trump has come down hard on both sides. In a clip taken this afternoon he exclaimed:
It is a year next week since the general election and Labour is marking the occasion with the biggest backbench rebellion of Keir Starmer’s premiership. Overnight, scores of Starmer’s MPs have signed a reasoned amendment to the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) Bill. This would effectively kill the Bill at its second reading
It is a year of two major anniversaries for the Tories. The first is the centenary of Margaret Thatcher’s birth; the second is the half-centenary since she was elected leader. To mark the occasion, the think-tank Policy Exchange is laying on a series of events to commemorate the Iron Lady. Today’s was a sit down
Reform UK are on the rise – quite literally. The party is planning to move one floor up in their headquarters at Millbank Tower, giving its 40-odd staff a commanding view of Westminster from their office. That change in circumstance was reflected in Nigel Farage’s speech this morning, when he strolled in to Westminster’s Church
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The weekend saw the US launch airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, with Tehran warning of ‘everlasting consequences’. Despite an emergency Cobra meeting and Luke Pollard’s morning media round, we are still waiting for an answer on whether the government supports Trump’s action. Keir Starmer’s assured and confident position on the world stage now looks