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Darren Jones says Starmer ‘listening to colleagues’, and does not rule out PM announcing resignation timetable
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, is the minister doing the broadcast interview round this morning.
Yesterday Peter Kyle, the business secretary, was the government spokesperson speaking in this slot. He was bullish in support of Keir Starmer.
This morning Jones has been a lot more equivocal. On Times Radio, asked if Starmer was considering setting out a timetable for his departure, Jones said:
He’s listening to colleagues and he’s talking to colleagues. I can’t get get ahead of any decision he might take.
In an interview with Sky News, he took the same line. Asked by Sophy Ridge if he had spoken to the PM, Jones replied:
I spoke to the prime minister last night, as you would expect, and he is talking to colleagues who have raised issues yesterday. But he was also very clear, as I’m sure all of my colleagues are, that coming into the office this morning, as we all are doing, we’re absolutely focussed on our jobs, on delivering the things that we’ve promised to deliver for the public.
Jones was asked if he expected the PM to lead the party into the next election. Until today, cabinet ministers asked this question have almost always said yes. But today Jones replied:
I’m not going to get ahead of any decision that the prime minister may or may not take.
Asked if Starmer was considering setting out a timetable for his resignation, Jones said:
Obviously colleagues are asking the prime minister to consider different options in the future. And, as I say, he rightfully is listening to them. It’d be wrong if he wasn’t listening to them.
Jones also repeated his line about how he did not want to “get ahead of any decision the prime minister may or may not take in the future”.
Ridge told Jones that she was surprised by the tone of his replies. She said, listening to him, that she felt it was “all coming to an end”.
Jones did not accept that. But he accepted that he was “sad that we’re in this situation in the first place” and sad about the election results.
Asked about reports that Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, has asked Starmer to set out a timetable for his resignation, Jones said he would not discuss private conversations. But he stressed that politics was “a team sport”.
Asked if he knew what Starmer had decided to do, Jones said he would not discuss private conversations. But he went on:
[Starmer’s] got an important job to do as prime minister of our country … He’s got an important job as leader of the Labour party. and if the prime minister, decides to say anything further to his speech yesterday, I’m sure he’ll come and do that on on Sky news very shortly.
Key events
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, is now being interviewed on the Today programme. Nick Robinson, the presenter, is asking him if he knows whether Keir Starmer has decided how to respond to the pressure on him to resign. Jones is avoiding the question, as he did on Sky News earlier. (See 7.43am.)
Jones said that the arguments that Starmer made in his speech yesterday about the damage caused by frequent changes of prime minister still applied. He also said that at cabinet today ministers would be talking about the situation in the Middle East, and how to respond.
Jones also claimed that listeners were not hugely interested in “the internal ups and downs of Labour party”.
Robinson rejected that; he said people were interested in who the next PM might be.
Robinson also put it Jones that he seemed to be pulling back from the position he adopted in earlier interviews, when he spoke about not wanting to “get ahead of” a decision the PM might take later. (See 7.43am.) Robinson said those comments clearly implied Starmer would be taking a decision about his future.
Jones claimed that in those interviews he was trying to avoid answer questions about who might be PM at the time of the next election. He said he did not want to play “fantasy politics”.
Robinson ended the interview by poining out that the cabinet ministers who arrived at No 10 last night to speak to the PM weren’t there to talk about the Middle East.
UK government borrowing costs rise in response to leadership uncertainty
UK government borrowing costs are rising this morning. This is what Graeme Wearden has posted on his business live blog.
The yield, or interest rate, on benchmark 10-year UK gilts has risen by almost 10 basis points (0.1 of a percentage point) to 5.1%, up from 5% last night.
Bond yields rise when prices fall, and this morning’s move adds to a rise in borrowing costs yesterday.
Longer-dated borrowing costs have also risen. The yield on 30-year UK bonds has risen by 10 basis points to over 5.77%, very close to the 28-year high (5.78%) set earlier this month.
Michael Brown, senior research strategist at brokerage Pepperstone, says bond investors are concerned about a possible change of prime minister. Brown says: “The market’s main concern here, and the reason for this gilt underperformance, is twofold – firstly, that a new PM would shift to the left, and loosen/scrap the UK’s current fiscal rules; and, secondly, that doing so would exacerbate the UK’s inflation problem. With political uncertainty likely to persist for a while, and the fiscal rhetoric only set to ramp up, those considering buying the dip in Gilts may be minded to wait a while.”
There is more here.
Greens’ Zack Polanski admits failing to pay correct council tax on houseboat
Zack Polanski, the Green party leader, has admitted he may have failed to pay the correct council tax while living on a London houseboat. Jamie Grierson has the story.
Here are some more lines from Darren Jones’s interviews this morning.
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Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, said that it would be better if Labour was having its internal leadership debates in private. He told BBC Breakfast:
I would just say to my colleagues: it’d be better to have that conversation internally as opposed to in public, because it detracts from our work as a government and detracts from the wrongdoings of the other parties.
It’s a gruelling job. I think anybody who thinks that they can just walk into the job of prime minister and, like the second coming of the Messiah, fix all of our problems probably hasn’t really thought carefully enough about how difficult it is.
The vast majority of [Labour MPs] are focused on using the time we have in government to be able to deliver the types of change for people across the country that we’re also passionate about delivering, but … we have to work together then as a party in this new political era of five-party politics, of the rise of populist parties in our country, to be able to set the course for winning that next election.
King’s speech still set to go ahead tomorrow, despite leadership turmoil, Darren Jones says
Tomorrow King Charles is coming to parliament to deliver the king’s speech at the state opening of parliament. It is the event that marks the start of a new session of parliament (lasting about a year, normally), and the speech sets out all the bills the government is planning to pass.
The king delivers the speech on behalf of what he describes as “my government”. The speech does not normally mention the PM by name, but it is delivered on the assumption that the PM (who has to listen to the speech standing with other MPs near the entrance to the Lords chamber, and who has to give a speech defending it in the Commons later) will remain in office to implement it.
If Keir Starmer were to announce a timetable for his resignation today, then the king would have to deliver a speech drafted by the Starmer administration in the knowledge that, within a few months, a new prime minister with different legislative priorities might be in office. That would certainly be unusual, and perhaps even unprecedented.
In his Sky News intervew, Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, said that the speech was still set to go ahead. He said:
As far as I’m aware, the king’s speech is going ahead tomorrow.
We’ve been working very hard to bring together a programme of bills for the next session that meet the challenges that we face as a country and it’s important that we get on with that work.
Beth Rigby, political editor at Sky News, says in a summary of Keir Starmer’s predicament this morning that some Labour figures think pressure for him to go is unstoppable.
– Crunch cabinet this morning. Will be first time Streeting will see PM.
– leading soft left figures been trying to ‘stop people losing their heads so we can have a less fraught response’ but one admitted late last night ‘it feels like it’s unstoppable now though’
– Cabinet minister last night: “I think the Lab party is about to put itself out of power for a serious period of time by repeating mistakes of the Tories”
Chris Mason, the BBC’s political editor, presented a similar view in his early morning upsum on the Today programme. He said he had spoken to a cabinet minister last night who supported the PM but who took the view that “the reality of where we were is that it all points in one direction”.
There will be huge interest in what happens to UK government borrowing costs today. Graeme Wearden is covering this on his business live blog.
Yesterday gilt yields (the cost of borrowing for the Treasury) edged up, in a move attributed to the political uncertainty at Westminster.
On the Today programme this morning, the BBC’s chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman said some Wes Streeting supporters were arguing that, if yields shoot up today and if Starmer announces his resignation, they will say this shows Labour needs to stage a leadership contest quickly to end any uncertainty.
(Obviously, a quick contest would suit Streeting if it meant there was not time for Andy Burnham to win a byelection so he could be a candidate.)
Darren Jones says Starmer ‘listening to colleagues’, and does not rule out PM announcing resignation timetable
Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, is the minister doing the broadcast interview round this morning.
Yesterday Peter Kyle, the business secretary, was the government spokesperson speaking in this slot. He was bullish in support of Keir Starmer.
This morning Jones has been a lot more equivocal. On Times Radio, asked if Starmer was considering setting out a timetable for his departure, Jones said:
He’s listening to colleagues and he’s talking to colleagues. I can’t get get ahead of any decision he might take.
In an interview with Sky News, he took the same line. Asked by Sophy Ridge if he had spoken to the PM, Jones replied:
I spoke to the prime minister last night, as you would expect, and he is talking to colleagues who have raised issues yesterday. But he was also very clear, as I’m sure all of my colleagues are, that coming into the office this morning, as we all are doing, we’re absolutely focussed on our jobs, on delivering the things that we’ve promised to deliver for the public.
Jones was asked if he expected the PM to lead the party into the next election. Until today, cabinet ministers asked this question have almost always said yes. But today Jones replied:
I’m not going to get ahead of any decision that the prime minister may or may not take.
Asked if Starmer was considering setting out a timetable for his resignation, Jones said:
Obviously colleagues are asking the prime minister to consider different options in the future. And, as I say, he rightfully is listening to them. It’d be wrong if he wasn’t listening to them.
Jones also repeated his line about how he did not want to “get ahead of any decision the prime minister may or may not take in the future”.
Ridge told Jones that she was surprised by the tone of his replies. She said, listening to him, that she felt it was “all coming to an end”.
Jones did not accept that. But he accepted that he was “sad that we’re in this situation in the first place” and sad about the election results.
Asked about reports that Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary, has asked Starmer to set out a timetable for his resignation, Jones said he would not discuss private conversations. But he stressed that politics was “a team sport”.
Asked if he knew what Starmer had decided to do, Jones said he would not discuss private conversations. But he went on:
[Starmer’s] got an important job to do as prime minister of our country … He’s got an important job as leader of the Labour party. and if the prime minister, decides to say anything further to his speech yesterday, I’m sure he’ll come and do that on on Sky news very shortly.
Keir Starmer to face crucial cabinet meeting as ministers and MPs urge him to resign
Good morning. “Stories beat spreadsheets,” Keir Starmer declared in his speech yesterday. But yesterday was a day when the spreadsheets had the upper hand. Most news organisations were using them to keep a track of Labour MPs who were coming out and calling for Starmer’s resignation and, after his speech in the morning, the numbers started to escalate. Here is the LabourList one; by the end of last night they were on 77.
The sort of names on the spreadsheets changed too. Initially it was mostly leftwingers calling for the PM to go, with the Andy Burnham supporters stressing the need for a timetable for an orderly transition (ie – a slow process, allowing Burnham to win a byelection before a leadership contest). But in the afternoon government loyalists, and some prominent Wes Streeting supporters, started speaking out. And by early evening parliamentary private secretaries (technically, people on the government “payroll”) were joining in too.
And now some cabinet ministers are starting to tell Starmer, privately, that he needs to go. Here is our overnight story by Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot.
And here is an extract.
The Guardian understands that two senior cabinet ministers – Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the home secretary – told the prime minister he should oversee an orderly transition of power after crushing election defeats risked ringing the death knell on his premiership.
At least two others – believed to be John Healey and David Lammy – discussed with Starmer how they should take a “responsible, dignified, orderly” approach to what might follow. Several others – including Richard Hermer and Steve Reed – were defiant, urging him to fight on.
The cabinet is meeting this morning, at 9am or soon after. Starmer said yesterday he would fight any bid to force him out, and some of his allies are urging him to stay. But his position looks perilous; it is possible that before the end of the day he may have announced a plan to stand down.
We will be focusing on this throughout the day, although some other politics may get a mention.
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