logo
UK politics live: Rachel Reeves breaks cover after crying in Commons during PMQs

UK politics live: Rachel Reeves breaks cover after crying in Commons during PMQs

Independent20 hours ago
Rachel Reeves has appeared in public with Sir Keir Starmer a day after breaking down in tears alongside the prime minister in the Commons.
The public show of unity came after Sir Keir gave her his full backing and said he did not appreciate how upset she was in the Commons because he was focused on answering PMQs.
The pair were both at the launch of the government's 10-year plan for the NHS in London.
The prime minister said all people could be caught 'off guard' by their emotions, but the chancellor had to deal with it while on camera in Parliament.
He said she was doing an 'excellent' job, would remain in place beyond the next general election, and that they were both absolutely committed to the chancellor's 'fiscal rules' to maintain discipline over the public finances.
UK government bonds rallied and the pound steadied on Thursday, after reassurances from the prime minister about the chancellor's future.
Now Reeves turns to laughter
After three questions in a row to Sir Keir Starmer about Rachel Reeves having appeared alongside him at the speech, the chancellor has turned to laughter.
When ITV asked how she is doing today, after yesterday's tears in the Commons, she could be seen looking towards the correspondent and laughing at the premise.
Jabed Ahmed3 July 2025 11:18
Rachel Reeves sighs at Beth Rigby question
Rachel Reeves audibly said 'ugh' when Sky's Beth Rigby asked Sir Keir Starmer about her tears in the Commons on Wednesday.
She was the second journalist in a row to ask about the chancellor, who has appeared alongside Sir Keir in a show of unity as he unveils his NHS plan.
But she is clearly in no mood to go into the personal matter that left her in tears, if her audible sigh is anything to go by.
Archie Mitchell3 July 2025 11:13
Starmer says NHS reform is 'about fairness'
Reforming the NHS is 'about fairness' for everyone, Sir Keir Starmer said as he spoke at the launch of the NHS 10-year plan.
The Prime Minister said: 'Millions of people across Britain no longer feel that they get a fair deal, and it's starting to affect the pride, the hope, the optimism that they have in this great country, and our job is to change that.'
He continued: 'For 77 years this weekend, the NHS has been the embodiment, if you like, of British pride, of hope, that basic sense of fairness and decency. 77 years of everyone paying in, working hard, doing the right thing, secure in the knowledge that if they or their family needs it, the NHS will be there for them.
'In 10 years' time, when this plan has run its course, I want people to say that this was the moment, this was the Government, that secured those values for the future.
'Look, when people are uncertain about the deal they're getting from this country, what fairer way is there to respond than that, by giving them more control, by partnering with them to build an NHS that is fit to face the future? And that is what this plan that we are launching today will do.'
Jabed Ahmed3 July 2025 11:11
Starmer credits Reeves' decisions for record NHS investment
Sir Keir Starmer has hailed the decisions made by Chancellor Rachel Reeves as playing a part in the government investing 'record amounts in the NHS'.
He said: 'It's all down to the foundation we laid this year, all down to the path of renewal that we chose, the decisions made by the Chancellor, by Rachel Reeves, which mean we can invest record amounts in the NHS.
'Already over 6,000 mental health workers recruited, 1,700 new GPs, 170 community diagnostic centres – really important – already open.
'New surgical hubs, new mental health units, new ambulance sites. Record investment right across the system.'
Jabed Ahmed3 July 2025 11:10
Pictured | Starmer, Reeves and Streeting at launch of NHS 10-year plan
Jabed Ahmed3 July 2025 11:09
Watch live | Starmer joined by Reeves as Labour unveil 10-year NHS plan
Jabed Ahmed3 July 2025 11:06
Starmer says NHS still needs work but future 'already looks better' under Labour
Sir Keir Starmer acknowledged improvements were needed in the NHS but said the situation was better than when Labour first took over from the Conservatives a year ago.
The prime minister said: 'I'm not going to stand here and say everything is perfect now, we have a lot more work to do and we will do it.
'But let's be under no illusions: because of the fair choices we made, the tough Labour decisions we made, the future already looks better for our NHS.
'And that is the story of this Government in a nutshell.'
Jabed Ahmed3 July 2025 11:02
Reeves says NHS plan is 'good for nation's health and finances'
Labour's plan for the NHS will be 'good for the health of our nation and good for the health of our nation's finances', Rachel Reeves has said in her first public appearance since crying in the Commons chamber on Wednesday.
Smiling as she spoke at a health centre in London, the chancellor said: 'I want to be clear, we are spending money on taxpayers' priorities, but that wouldn't have been possible without the measures that we took in the budget last year.
'We fixed the foundations and we've put our economy back on a strong footing.'
She went on to say the government was 'making this country fairer for those who have paid in all their lives by guaranteeing that the NHS will be there when they need it'.
Ms Reeves added: 'This is the right way forward, good for the health of our nation and good for the health of our nation's finances.
'This government will always deliver on the priorities of ordinary working people, and I am proud that with this plan the NHS will always be there for those who need it for the next 77 years, and many more beyond that too.'
Jabed Ahmed3 July 2025 11:01
Analysis: Rachel Reeves needed to be visible today
A beaming chancellor Rachel Reeves is definitely making an effort to look much happier today.
She has not mentioned the tears of yesterday at PMQs and the prime minister has now rallied to her saying she is safe in her job as chancellor.
Ms Reeves was not previously slated for this NHS 10-year plan launch but it was important she was here today to try to move on from a very difficult week for the government.
This is a show of unity and strength with three of the biggest figures in the government - Keir Starmer, Reeves and health secretary Wes Streeting.
David Maddox
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Keir Starmer told me he'd met every challenge. But things look bad right now
Keir Starmer told me he'd met every challenge. But things look bad right now

BBC News

time22 minutes ago

  • BBC News

Keir Starmer told me he'd met every challenge. But things look bad right now

Will Keir Starmer allow himself to celebrate his first anniversary as prime minister this weekend? Or will he be taking a long, hard look in the mirror and asking himself what went wrong?That is what is in my mind as he greets me in the Terracotta Room on the first floor of 10 Downing Street for a long-planned conversation about his first 12 months in office, this looks surprisingly relaxed, given that his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, had been in tears sitting behind him in the Commons just hours earlier. That triggered fevered speculation about how long she would last in the job, moving markets to sell the pound and increase the cost of that is the impression he wants to convey to me as he shares a story about his photo opportunity with Formula One cars parked outside his front door - the most famous door in the is determined that the problems of recent weeks - and boy there's been a long list of those - will not overshadow the achievements he believes deserve just as much attention."We have done some fantastic things," he tells me, "really driven down the waiting lists in the NHS, really done loads of improvements in schools and stuff that we can do for children - whether that's rolling out school uniform projects, whether it's school meals, breakfast clubs, you name it - and also [brought in] a huge amount of investment into the country. And of course we've been busy getting three trade deals."It's clear that, given the chance, his list would go on. And yet, I point out, there is another long list - of things he's recently admitted to getting the last year, he's said hiring Sue Gray - Starmer's former chief of staff who left Downing Street in October - was wrong. He's also held his hands up about plans to end winter fuel payments, about rejecting a national grooming gang inquiry, and cutting benefits for disabled people. That's not even the full list, yet it's quite a number of things that he's admitting to being a prime minister thinks I've rather crudely summarised his personal reflections on what he might have done better. He challenges the idea, which is prevalent in Westminster, that changing your mind represents weakness, or a "humiliating U-turn".Listen: The inside story of Starmer's stormy first yearInDepth: Why Sir Keir's political honeymoon was so short-livedThis is the fourth time we've sat down for an extended and personal conversation for my Political Thinking podcast."You know this from getting to know me," he says. "I'm not one of these ideological thinkers, where ideology dictates what I do. I'm a pragmatist. You can badge these things as U-turns - it's common sense to me."If someone says to me, 'here's some more information and I really think it's the right thing to do', I'm the kind of person that says, 'well in which case, let's do it'."There is, though, no doubt that scrapping so much of his welfare reforms was a U-turn - a costly and humiliating one. Starmer and his chancellor have not only lost authority and face, they've lost £5bn in planned savings, something that will have to be paid for somehow, through extra borrowing, lower spending or, most likely, higher taxes."I take responsibility," he says, "we didn't get the process right". But somehow he implies that it might have been someone other than the leader of the Labour Party's responsibility to persuade Labour MPs to back his plans. He doesn't spell out what he means by getting the process right and, perhaps more importantly, he dodges my attempts to get him to spell out clearly what story he's trying to tell the country about Labour be on the side of disabled people and people like his own mother, who had a crippling disease that meant she eventually had to have a leg amputated? Or should they adopt her unwillingness to be written off, which he described to me the last time we spoke? When told by her doctors that she wouldn't walk again she refused to listen. Wounded by the events of the past week, Starmer refuses to even address that choice. But surely, I suggest to him, the nation doesn't just want a problem-solver, or a chief executive of UK plc? Voters surely want a leader who has a story to tell?Starmer clearly knew this question - or a variation of it - was coming. I've pushed him on it every time we've spoken at length. "It's about a passion, if that's the right word," he says. "But certainly a determination to change the lives of millions of working people and, in particular, to tackle this question of fairness.""It's almost like a social contract," he adds, "that people are getting back what they're putting in, that there is a fairer environment for them that supports them and respects them."That's a bit long to sew on to an election banner, to chant in the streets, or write in a post on X, but it is a theme. He is a self-proclaimed pragmatist who doesn't want there to be something that can be labelled as "Starmerism", but at least we can now say that his guiding principle is fairness. In truth, what matters more than anything else to him is not losing, something he tells me he hates, whether in politics or on the five-a-side pitch playing football regularly with his mates - as he still does and has done for decades.I tell him people think he is losing now - some say he is the most unpopular prime minister since records began. He reacts with the defiance of a man whose football-playing friend recently described him as a "hard bastard". A man who served in Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet and then had him thrown out of the party; who stood to be leader on promises to keep much of Corbyn's agenda before tearing up those promises to win power; and someone who hired then fired Sue Gray as his first Downing Street chief of staff. "Every challenge that's been put in front of me I've risen to, met it, and we're going to continue in the same vein," he says.I end our conversation by reminding him what they say about failing football managers who have "lost the dressing room". Has he lost the Labour Party dressing room? His reply is emphatic."Absolutely not," he says. "The Labour dressing room, the PLP, is proud as hell of what we've done, and their frustration - my frustration - is that sometimes the other stuff, welfare would be an example, can obscure us being able to get that out there."Almost as an afterthought he adds: "I'm a hard-enough bastard to find out who it was who said that, so that I can have a discussion with him." Knowing Starmer I suspect he's much more likely to deliver a crunching tackle on the pitch than a quiet word off the prime minister's message is clear to me: Don't count me out, however bad it looks now. To pretty much everyone other than him it currently does look bad. Very bad.

University of Lincoln staff hold one-day strike
University of Lincoln staff hold one-day strike

BBC News

time27 minutes ago

  • BBC News

University of Lincoln staff hold one-day strike

Staff at the University of Lincoln will strike on Friday over plans to cut University and College Union (UCU) said it would form a picket line and hand out flyers to prospective students visiting the campus for an open branch chair, Dr Owen Clayton, said industrial action was taking place because "the university hasn't ruled out compulsory redundancies".In a statement, the university said it aimed "to mitigate the need" for compulsory job losses. The dispute is over the university's proposals to cut up to 285 staff across a number of areas, including the Lincoln International Business School and the history Clayton said the university was "saying that they need to do this for financial reasons yet, at the same time, is hiring people and opening up new areas".He said the university was "pushing to have larger and larger class sizes", which the university denied. The university previously said the 285 figure was a "worst case scenario" and the UK higher education sector was "undergoing significant change".In a statement, it said it had "reduced costs" to "protect average class sizes" and was aiming "to mitigate the need for compulsory redundancies"."The changes we are making now respond to growing areas of student demand and the changing needs of our communities," it said."This includes the development of our healthcare provision which will deliver a highly skilled NHS workforce in our region." Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.

Approved new Wirksworth homes now set to be rejected by council
Approved new Wirksworth homes now set to be rejected by council

BBC News

time32 minutes ago

  • BBC News

Approved new Wirksworth homes now set to be rejected by council

Previously approved new homes in Derbyshire are now set to be rejected due to the developer not signing a legal agreement over infrastructure and affordabe Homes will not agree to build 17 affordable homes and pay £63,000 in improvements to nearby health facilities, parks and allotments as part of a 57-home development surrounding Jacksons Ley in Middleton, near Dales District councillors approved plans in November 2023 with officials to seal the required infrastructure payments and affordable homes via a legal officials now say the process has stalled due to an "unwillingness of all the parties to sign the legal agreement". Having previously urged councillors to approve the plans, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) said officials were now advising them to change their minds and reject the scheme at a meeting on Tuesday. The plans, which had seen 13 objections from residents, along with opposition from Middleton Parish Council, had required £51,300 for improvements at nearby medical centres, £8,327 for parks and £3,368 for officers wrote: "Collectively the planning obligations which were being sought helped to mitigate the impact of the 57 dwellings."Without the legal agreement no affordable homes will be provided and the financial contributions towards health care, parks and gardens and allotments would be lost."This makes the development unacceptable in planning terms and contrary to the development plan."In the absence of a completed legal agreement, the only course of action is to refuse the application."LDRS said the proposed homes would encircle the new-build Jacksons Ley development, which was only approved at appeal. 'Poor design' During the November 2023 planning meeting, Darren Abbott, on behalf of Woodall Homes, said the firm aimed to replicate its successful schemes in Darley Dale, Matlock and said the plot "straddles" the settlement boundary and part of the site was allocated for 45 homes, representing a "logical and sustainable development".Mr Abbott said the firm had reduced the number of homes planned on-site from 75 to 57 due to the concerns of consultees and residents, saying the scheme would "create an attractive gateway into the village".He said the site would cater for first-time buyers, "downsizers" and people with mobility requirements – particularly through the inclusion of seven councillor Peter Slack said: "It is squashing houses and gardens in a small area. It is not a way people should be living."They should have a reasonable garden. Cars are going to be on pavements, it is all squashed in. It is a very, very poor design altogether."

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store