Good morning. Tomorrow it will be a year since the general election, and on Saturday it will be one year from the day when Keir Starmer started forming a government. It has not been a good week to celebrate the anniversary.
In a long interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson last night, only some of which has now been broadcast (the rest is coming later), Starmer defended Rachel Reeves, his chancellor, saying that she would be in office “for a very long time to come” and that an undisclosed personal matter, not politics, was the reason why she was in tears at PMQs yesterday.
As Graeme Wearden reports on his business live blog, UK government borrowing costs are down a bit this morning.
Yesterday they rose after PMQs as bond traders responded to speculation that Reeves might be sacked, and replaced by a chancellor less committed to fiscal discipline.
But that does not mean the political crisis for the government is over. In his BBC interview, Starmer said he needed to “reflect” on what went wrong this week, when the government had to abandon the main thrust of its welfare bill about 90 minutes before MPs were due to vote on it. He said:
I’m not going to pretend the last few days have been easy, they’ve been tough.
I’m the sort of person that then wants to reflect on that, to ask myself what do we need to ensure we don’t get into a situation like that again, and we will go through that process.
But I also know what we will do and that’s we will come through it stronger.
Labour MPs would love to see the government “come through it stronger” but with some tough decisions just postponed, and autumn tax rises all but inevitable, that won’t be easy.
This morning Starmer wants to focus on something else – his 10-year health plan. Here is Denis Campbell’s preview story.
Starmer will be speaking about this at a press conference this morning.
Here is the agenda for the day:
9.30am: Angela Rayner, the deputy PM and housing secretary, gives a speech at a Local Government Association conference.
10.30am: Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting, the health secretary, announce the 10-year NHS plan at an event in London.
After 11.30am: Streeting is expected to make a statement to MPs about the 10-year NHS plan.
3.45pm: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing. (The usual morning one is not happening because of the PM’s event.)
Afternoon: Peers vote on the order banning Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.
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Updated at 04.02 EDT
