Starmer speech should have been joyous victory lap but PM is already stumbling – and there is fury among backroom staff

Published

9 months ago

September 24, 2024

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Eighty days into government after a landslide election win, Sir Keir Starmer came to Liverpool as the first Labour prime minister in 15 years to address conference.

It should have been a joyous victory lap, but instead this is a PM already stumbling, wrong-footed by a row over the amount of freebies he took as leader of the opposition, and dysfunction in Number 10.

Politics latest: PM laughs off heckler as he defends winter fuel cut

A year ago in the very same conference hall, Sir Keir was being cheered on stage almost like a rock star, with staffers nearly in tears as their leader made his pitch to become prime minister.

And while the reception was still very warm as he delivered his speech on Tuesday, the country is fast cooling on their new leader.

The hope – and hunger – on display at last year’s conference when Labour were on the cusp of power, and Sir Keir was riding high in the polls, has given way to the hard reality of governing.

New polling by Opinium reveals that the prime minister’s approval rating has dropped 45 points to -26 since he became the country’s leader. It now makes him – by a point – less popular than his predecessor Rishi Sunak.

Meanwhile, the row over the prime minister taking free clothes, holidays and tickets to football matches and concerts has also cut through, with two-thirds of people in a recent YouGov poll saying it was wrong to do it.

So his task at conference was to try to get his “mission-led” government back on track and try to convey the purpose of the short-term pain he is warning us all about.

It was a speech of three parts.

The first was to convey the “change begins” message by running through some of the measures his new government have put in train – from setting up a new border security command to beginning planning reforms or launching Great British Energy to invest in renewable power.

The second was to “fix the foundations” as he explained the “tough decisions” he was making, and acknowledging the decision to cut winter fuel allowance had driven concern. His message was consistent to that in the election and immediate aftermath – change will take time and “it will be hard”.

The third element was to try to inject some sense of where the country could end up.

He told the audience: “The truth is that if we take long-term decisions now, if we stick to the driving purpose behind everything we do – higher economic growth, so living standards rise in every community; our NHS facing the future – waiting lists at your hospital down; safer streets in your community; stronger borders; more opportunities for your children; clean British energy power in your home – then that light at the end of this tunnel, that Britain belongs to you, we get there much more quickly.”

This was another Starmer speech brimming with rhetoric around “national renewal” and a government “in the service of working people”. But for his massive majority, the announcements in this speech were modest.

When this government says “change begins”, the word “begins” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Insiders tell me that the inheritance from the Conservatives was much worse than they thought, the chancellor is finding her job much more difficult than she expected, and improvements to public services will be coming at the end of the parliament.

But while the public might have sympathy for that, where the leadership seems to be falling down is on the culture change that Sir Keir promised when he was leader of the opposition.

His was to be a government of service. He was going to restore trust in politics. He was going to heal the “wounds of trust” between voters and those who govern.

On this, Starmer has struggled, as the message discipline and slickness of the leadership campaign gives way to infighting and rows over freebies.

Away from the podium speeches and around the fringes of this conference, in a late night bar or over a quiet coffee, the mood is defensive and a little deflated.

There is private admission from senior ministers and staffers that the PM has got into a mess over the “free gear Keir” row.

Two figures tell me that it should have been shut down earlier and more emphatically, instead of running over the weekend into conference.

“We should have killed it off, it looks bad,” said one senior government figure.

Another expressed frustration that the government had gone off message and Downing Street didn’t clean it up quickly enough, with the headlines over donations kick starting the conference, adding: “We need to get back to the missions.”

One figure told me Starmer had been “upset” by all of it, particularly as it has brought his wife Victoria into the spotlight.

You can only imagine the frustration he must privately be feeling as he comes into the first conference in 15 years where Labour are in power on the backfoot, with his ratings falling and public opprobrium just weeks after delivering a landslide.

There is also unhappiness around the Number 10 leaks. On the side-lines, political operatives are whispering about the fury felt among many of the backroom special advisers who are seeing their pay cut as they move into government, while Sue Gray’s pay rise puts her on more than the prime minister.

“The advisers hate Sue Gray,” is how one figure put it.

It is a huge frustration to Starmer, who I am told highly values her advice.

Cabinet ministers also speak highly of Ms Gray in private. One told me: “On the machinery of government, she’s really helpful linking up different departments and cabinet ministers and helping us work out how it is done.”

Those who know the PM well say that Ms Gray is not going anywhere, and that the task after this conference will be to get the barnacles off the boat and focus relentlessly again on the missions.

Sir Keir wanted to lift voters’ eyes back to the horizon and “the light at the end of the tunnel” in his first conference as prime minister.

But instead he is personally weighed down by his promise to do things differently and his decision to take over £107,000 in freebies in the last parliament.

It’s hard to sell a message of “change begins” when there are questions about whether your actions match your words.

UK

Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Published

7 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota: Liverpool players join mourners as Premier League star and his brother Andre Silva buried in Portugal

Liverpool players past and present have joined the family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva for their funeral in Portugal.

A service was held in the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in their hometown of Gondomar near Porto in northern Portugal on Saturday morning.

Mourners lined the streets and some in the crowd clapped as the brothers’ coffins were carried into the church.

The funeral – in pictures

Jota, 28, leaves behind his wife of only 11 days, Rute Cardoso, and three young children.

His younger brother, 25, was an attacking midfielder for Penafiel in the second tier of Portuguese football.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, captain Virgil Van Dijk and teammates including Andy Robertson, Conor Bradley, Ryan Gravenberch, Cody Gakpo, Curtis Jones, Darwin Nunez and Joe Gomez were seen at the service.

Former teammates Jordan Henderson, James Milner and Fabinho were also there.

Van Dijk carried a red wreath with Jota’s number 20, while Robertson had a wreath featuring number 30, Silva’s number at Penafiel.

Some of Jota’s teammates in the Portuguese national side also attended, including Bruno Fernandes, of Manchester United, Ruben Dias and Bernardo Silva, of Manchester City, Joao Felix and Renato Veiga, of Chelsea, Nelson Semedo, from Wolves, Joao Moutinho and Rui Patricio.

Ruben Neves was one of the pallbearers after flying in from Florida where he played for Al Hilal in the Club World Cup quarter-final on Friday night.

‘More than a friend’

In a post published on Instagram before the service, he told Jota he had been “more than a friend, we’re family, and we won’t stop being that way just because you’ve decided to sign a contract a little further away from us!”

Jota’s fellow Liverpool midfielder, Alexis Mac Allister, said on Instagram: “I can’t believe it. I’ll always remember your smiles, your anger, your intelligence, your camaraderie, and everything that made you a person. It hurts so much; we’ll miss you. Rest in peace, dear Diogo.”

Porto FC president Andre Villas-Boas and Portugal national team manager Roberto Martinez were also in attendance.

‘With us forever’

Speaking after the ceremony, Martinez said the period since their deaths had been “really, really sad days, as you can imagine, but today we showed we are a large, close family.

“Their spirit will be with us forever.”

The service was private, but the words spoken by the Bishop of Porto, Manuel Linda, were broadcast to those standing outside the church.

He told Jota’s children, who were not at the service, that he was praying for them specifically, as well as their mother and grandparents.

“There are no words, but there are feelings,” he said, adding: “We also suffer a lot and we are with you emotionally.”

The brothers died after a Lamborghini they were travelling in burst into flames following a suspected tyre blowout in the early hours of Thursday morning.

No other vehicles are said to have been involved in the incident.

Liverpool have delayed the return of their players for pre-season following Jota’s death and players past and present paid tribute to him and his brother on social media.

Flowers have been left outside Anfield, where flags have been lowered to half-mast and all club shops, museums and tours have been closed until Monday.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

10 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“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.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

11 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.