Four remanded in custody after RAF aircraft ‘damaged by Palestine Action'
Reeves in tears at PMQs after 'altercations with Starmer and Speaker'
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Telegraph
33 minutes ago
- Telegraph
I shouldn't have gone to PMQs, says Reeves
Rachel Reeves has admitted she regrets attending prime minister's questions after she was seen in tears on the Government front bench. The Chancellor said she had been dealing with a 'personal issue' when her bottom lip shook and tears ran down her face during a moment of distress in Parliament on Wednesday. Ms Reeves was speaking after she made a surprise appearance alongside Sir Keir Starmer to unveil the Government's 10-year plan for the NHS. In an interview with The Guardian, Ms Reeves said she regretted going into PMQs after a 'tough day at the office', but hoped people 'could relate' to her distress. She said: 'In retrospect, I probably wished I hadn't gone in... But you know, it is what it is.' The Leeds West and Pudsey MP said she never thought about resigning despite backbench anger over the way she had handled the economy, adding: 'I didn't work that hard to then quit.' A backbench rebellion saw the government forced to drop key welfare cuts, which has left the Chancellor with a £5 billion black hole to fill. She has insisted she is 'totally' up for the job of Chancellor and asserted that she and the Prime Minister remain united. Ms Reeves said: 'People can see that Keir and me are a team.' Sir Keir stood by his Chancellor in the aftermath, telling BBC Radio 4 Today's Nick Robinson: 'She is going to be Chancellor into the next election and for many years afterwards.' He was quick to deny any political link to her tears, insisting it was a personal matter, saying: 'I'm not going to go into the personal matter of a colleague.' Labour insiders have claimed that the Chancellor has made herself 'unsackable' after the public tears. A government source said that Sir Keir 'seems to have tied himself to her' after her tears, which triggered a £3 billion market sell-off and crash in the pound's value. 'I thought at the beginning of Wednesday she would go, then thought it was confirmed when I saw her crying at PMQs but then she didn't,' said the source. Another source said Ms Reeves had enjoyed an 'outpouring of sympathy' over an incident that was still 'inescapably linked to the political facts' of the welfare rebellion. A third added that being pictured distraught on television had 'shored up her position'. In a turbulent week for the government, Ms Reeves refused to rule out tax rises in the autumn budget, saying: 'I'm not going to, because it would be irresponsible to do that. 'We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement. 'So we'll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.'
South Wales Guardian
3 hours ago
- South Wales Guardian
Keir Starmer says he understands what ‘anchors' Donald Trump
The Prime Minister told the BBC Radio 4 podcast Political Thinking With Nick Robinson it was 'in the national interest' for the two men to connect. He said: 'We are different people and we've got different political backgrounds and leanings, but we do have a good relationship and that comes from a numbers of places. 'I think I do understand what anchors the president, what he really cares about. 'For both of us, we really care about family and there's a point of connection there.' Sir Keir said in the interview to mark a year in office he has a 'good personal relationship' with Mr Trump, and revealed the first time they spoke was after the then-presidential candidate was shot at a campaign rally in July last year. He said Mr Trump had returned the phone call a few days after the Prime Minister's brother Nick had died on Boxing Day. Sir Keir said he secretly visited his 60-year-old brother before and after the general election during his cancer treatment. He said: 'It's really hard to lose your brother to cancer. I wanted fiercely to protect him. 'And that's why both before the election and after the election, I went secretly to see him at home, secretly to see him in hospital. 'He was in intensive care for a long time.' Addressing recent political turmoil, Sir Keir said he will always 'carry the can' as leader after coming under fire over a climbdown on welfare reforms and that he would 'always take responsibility' when asked questions. 'When things go well… the leader gets the plaudits, but when things don't go well, it is really important that the leader carries the can – and that's what I will always do.' Sir Keir also backed Rachel Reeves and said she would be Chancellor 'for a very long time to come', after the politician was visibly tearful in the House of Commons on Wednesday following a U-turn to welfare reform plans that put an almost £5 billion black hole in her plans. "It was a personal matter." Sir Keir Starmer has told @bbcnickrobinson that Rachel Reeves' tears at PMQs had "nothing to do with politics". The prime minister has backed Rachel Reeves to remain as chancellor in an interview on BBC Radio 4's Political Thinking.#R4Today — BBC Radio 4 Today (@BBCr4today) July 3, 2025 Ms Reeves said it was a 'personal matter' which had upset her ahead of Prime Minister's Questions. The Government had seen off the threat of a major Commons defeat over the legislation on Tuesday after shelving plans to restrict eligibility for the personal independence payment, the main disability benefit in England. Sir Keir said he cannot 'pretend… that wasn't a tough day', and stressed the welfare system 'isn't working for the people that matter to me'. 'In the world that isn't politics, it is commonplace for people to look again at a situation and judge it by the circumstances as they now are and make a decision accordingly,' he said of the changes. 'And that is common sense, it's pragmatic, and it's a reflection of who I am. 'It was important that we took our party with us, that we got it right. 'And Labour politicians come into public life because they care deeply about these issues.
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Opinion: Starmer is by far the worst PM of my lifetime
Will we one day look back at Sir Keir Starmer 's disastrous prime ministership with something like nostalgia? Might we come to see his ill-starred stint in No 10 as shipwrecked sailors recall a nasty squall before the deadly hurricane that destroyed their ship, and left them utterly stranded? I suspect so. Starmer is arrogant, untrustworthy, incompetent and weak. He is by far the worst prime minister in my lifetime (I omit Liz Truss from consideration). I long to see the back of him – and so apparently does much of the nation. But what if his successor were even worse? What if this person set out with even more determination than Sir Keir to destroy the wealth-creators in our country, empower the trade unions and give comfort to our enemies? Step forward Angela Rayner – the woman who notoriously described Tories as 'scum'. She was one of Jeremy Corbyn 's closest allies, and served loyally in his shadow cabinet from 2016 to 2019. Here is the most likely next prime minister of our country. And it may not be long. Two things are clear after the Government was forced to eviscerate its modest welfare bill in the Commons on Tuesday evening at a cost of some £5 billion, which will be borne by the taxpayer. One is that respect for Starmer's authority has dwindled among many Labour MPs . Rachael Maskell, a leading Labour welfare rebel, said that the virtual abandonment of the bill by the Government saw a 'change in power' away from Sir Keir as the legislation 'disintegrated before our eyes'. The other lesson of Tuesday is that the parliamentary Labour Party is more militantly Left-wing than many observers had assumed. It won't allow the Government even to trim ballooning welfare expenditure this side of the next election. A number of Labour MPs, including Maskell, have called for higher taxes on the better off. Here is an extraordinary thing. Many on the Right correctly regard Starmer as being significantly to the Left of Tony Blair. The Government he leads has raised taxes and genuflected in front of human rights law. Like previous Labour administrations, it is addicted to tax and spend. But lots of the party's MPs regard the PM as too Right-wing. They can't abide even his half-hearted attempts to cut the welfare budget. They think he sounds too Right-wing on Israel and is too chummy with President Trump. They don't like the sound of his anti-immigration rhetoric, some of which Starmer has recently disowned. Tuesday's rebellion wasn't entirely about welfare. It was an expression of disapproval by many Labour MPs fed up with this enormously unpopular Prime Minister. They fear he is leading them towards an electoral bloodbath in which most of them will lose their seats. So who better than Angela Rayner to save them? She, not the more moderate though milksop Wes Streeting, is the heir apparent. Outwardly she remains loyal to Starmer, and yesterday repeated her insistence on Lorraine Kelly's daytime TV show that she doesn't want to be Prime Minister. Good God, no! This canny – if intellectually wanting – politician is positioning herself. The Deputy Prime Minister is said to have brokered the deal with rebels on Tuesday, effectively kiboshing the Government's welfare bill. Already she looks as though she is in charge. Meanwhile, despite previous opposition from Starmer, Rayner is reported to have finally succeeded in acquiring a fully fledged Deputy Prime Minister's office in the Cabinet Office with space for 30 staff . She is advertising her importance. How can Sir Keir fight her off? Without achieving success he can't, and success isn't in prospect. The economic growth on which the Government has set its heart won't materialise. The Office for Budget Responsibility has just admitted that its very modest growth forecasts have been too optimistic. There will be more tax rises in October – that is certain. Cabinet Minister Pat McFadden accepted yesterday that there will be 'financial consequences' to Starmer's capitulation on the welfare bill, and refused to rule out tax increases. Starmer will of course sacrifice Rachel Reeves in a hopeless attempt to save himself. From the start of Prime Minister's Questions yesterday, the Chancellor appeared tearful, and the tears appeared to stream ever faster after Sir Keir refused to guarantee that she would remain in her job. A spokesman for Reeves claimed a 'personal matter' was the explanation for her unusual behaviour. Perhaps so. But losing your job is pretty personal. She must know she is doomed, and is unlikely to draw much comfort from No 10's subsequent assertion that she enjoys the PM's 'full backing'. Starmer is a ruthless character, even by the standards of high politics. A cold fish. He must have known what people, including Reeves, would make of his refusal to endorse her in the Commons. Because he is essentially weak and pliable, he will give in to the inevitable backbench demands for higher taxes for the better off. It may buy him some time but I doubt it will save his job. No, Rayner is in the ascendancy. So long as she doesn't make any mistakes, her day is coming. There are many people, including perhaps even some on the Right, who will welcome her over Starmer. Unlike him, she knows what she believes, and works hard to achieve her ambitions. Nowhere has this been plainer than in her championing of greater workers' rights. Starmer has allowed her to pursue her dream, presumably in the hope that it would keep her busy and reduce her scope for plotting against him. He has been shamefully oblivious to the harm that it will cause the economy. Measures include protections against instant dismissal from the first day of employment and a ban on zero-hours contracts. By the Government's own cautious calculation, the cost to businesses will be some £5 billion a year. I daresay it'll be much more. Smaller companies, already hard-pressed because of higher taxes, will suffer most. If Angela Rayner becomes Prime Minister, all of Starmer's mistakes will be magnified. There will be more tax and more government spending. The trade unions will be rampant. Net zero will be on steroids. As for illegal immigration, there's no reason to believe she will be more effective than Sir Keir. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of Labour coming to power. Only one year! So much needless damage done, so much more disillusionment with the political process. Think of the harm that the uncouth, politically extreme, economically illiterate Angela Rayner could inflict over three or four years. It would be like being on a locked train hurtling towards the buffers with no possibility of escape. I've little doubt that, whoever is in charge, Labour will bankrupt the country as our deficit widens and foreigners are no longer prepared to lend the Government money at affordable rates . The crash, though, would be worse under Rayner. We must be careful what we wish for. Another four years of Sir Keir Starmer is a nightmare. But having the unspeakable Angela Rayner installed in No 10 would be a new order of catastrophe.
