Who's to blame for Labour's welfare 'clusterf***'? Knives out for Keir Starmer's top team after Commons shambles - but PM tells critics to lay off his chief aide Morgan McSweeney

Daily Mail​

2 days ago

One Labour MP branded it 'absolutely shambolic', another said it was 'the most unedifying spectacle I have ever seen', while a third labelled it 'a total clusterf***'.
So, after ministers were forced to gut their welfare plans in dramatic scenes in the House of Commons last night, who is to blame for the Government's humiliation?
The architects of Labour's initial welfare plans were Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Chancellor Rachel Reeves, and Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall.
They wanted to cut nearly £5billion from Britain's ballooning benefits bill by tightening access to welfare payments.
This included restricting eligibility for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which is the main disability payment in England.
But, in the face of a rebellion by Labour MPs, the Government shelved its plans to change PIP rules during an eleventh hour climbdown.
The failure to realise the strength of anger among Labour MPs at the proposed cuts has been blamed on the party's chief whip Sir Alan Campbell.
Key members of Sir Keir's team of aides in Downing Street are also seen as being at fault.
This includes Claire Reynolds, the PM's political director, and Morgan McSweeney, the No10 chief of staff.
Yet Sir Keir has launched a full-throated defence of Mr McSweeney, telling Cabinet ministers that briefings against his most powerful adviser must stop.
Who's to blame for Labour's welfare shambles?
Keir Starmer
The PM ultimately takes responsibility for what is now the third U-turn he has made in a matter of weeks.
The welfare climbdown follows other reversals on axing winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners, and the holding of a national inquiry into grooming gangs.
Sir Keir recently admitted he had failed to get to grips with the revolt by Labour MPs over benefits cuts as he was distracted by the Middle East crisis and a NATO summit.
The Prime Minister spent much of the previous fortnight out of the country to attend a meeting of G7 leaders in Canada, and then a NATO gathering in The Hague.
He was also hunkered down in domestic emergency meetings over the Israel-Iran conflict, as well as the US bombing of Iran 's nuclear sites.
Sir Keir told the Sunday Times he had been 'heavily focused' on international affairs.
He added had not been able to give the welfare row his 'full' attention until after he returned from The Hague.
Rachel Reeves
Following the Government's climbdown on welfare cuts, the Chancellor is now facing an even bigger black hole in the public finances.
The £4.8billion savings that she had hoped for will now have to be found elsewhere, increasing the likelihood of further tax rises.
It is the Chancellor's demand for those savings in the first place, in order to balance the books, that is attracting criticism from Labour rebels.
Some in the party want Ms Reeves to loosen her 'iron-clad' fiscal rules.
There is a belief that her strict approach meant she approached welfare reform from the standpoint of trying to make savings, rather than getting more people into work.
Ms Reeves is also accused of compounding Labour's benefits shambles amid claims her efforts to talk round rebel MPs ended in disaster.
One phone call between the Chancellor and a rebel MP is reported to have left the latter 'deeply shaken' and 'in tears'.
Liz Kendall
The Work and Pensions Secretary is spearheading the Government's Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill, which has now been shredded.
Ms Kendall is facing claims the legislation was rushed and poorly drafted, while she has also been criticised for her performance in the Commons on Monday afternoon.
Rather than successfully heading off a Labour revolt by detailing the Government's initial concessions on welfare cuts, she was accused of making the situation worse.
This led, ultimately, to ministers having to perform an even greater climbdown on Tuesday night.
The drastic action was taken in order to stave off the threat of a humiliating defeat when the Commons voted on the Bill's second reading.
Alan Campbell
As Labour's chief whip, Sir Alan Campbell is responsible for corralling the party's MPs in order for the Government to push its legislative agenda through the Commons.
But last night's climbdown suggests Sir Alan had little confidence the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill would pass its second reading.
Questions are now being asked about how Sir Alan allowed the Labour rebellion on welfare cuts to grow to such a scale that the Government was at threat of defeat.
Claire Reynolds
The wife of Jonathan Reynolds, the Business and Trade Secretary, is Sir Keir's political director in No10.
Her job is to liaise between Labour MPs and the Government in order to keep enough of the party's backbenchers on board with Sir Keir's agenda.
It should be a fairly simple task, seeing as the PM won a huge majority at last year's general election.
But, as Tuesday night demonstrated, there was a stunning absence of loyalty among Labour MPs towards the PM.
There have been gripes that Ms Reynolds has failed to meet or speak to all of Labour's 400-plus MPs since the party's election victory.
Morgan McSweeney
The PM's chief of staff is under pressure following Sir Keir's hat-trick of U-turns in recent weeks.
The welfare row saw some calls for 'regime change' in No10, with Mr McSweeney criticised for alienating or ignoring Labour backbenchers.
He is also accused of presiding over a 'bunker mentality' in Downing Street.
But Sir Keir has made clear he won't be ditching his most senior adviser, who is widely credited with masterminding Labour's general election landslide.
In a pointed address to the Cabinet on Tuesday morning, the PM said he 'will not countenance' criticism of Mr McSweeney.
'We will learn from our mistakes, but we will not turn in on each other,' Sir Keir said.
'We will not resile from our record of achievement and we will not turn on our staff - including our chief of staff, without whom none of us would be sitting around this Cabinet table.'
Mr McSweeney replaced Sue Gray as Sir Keir's chief of staff in October, as he emerged the apparent victor of a bitter No10 feud.