Up next in 10
Downing Street is in talks with Labour MPs about changing the government's welfare policies after facing growing backlash from backbenchers, Number 10 has confirmed.
Following a U-turn on winter fuel payments, this could be the second major retreat from the government on policy. James O'Brien reflects on Labour's self-inflicted 'catastrophes' and whether this could be the end for Keir Starmer.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer is facing a major rebellion of more than 120 Labour MPs who oppose his government's welfare reforms.
While Sir Keir has insisted these are "progressive" as the current system is "broken", a Downing Street source has said the government is considering rowing back to appease the rebels.
A Downing Street source said: "Delivering fundamental change is not easy, and we all want to get it right, so of course we're talking to colleagues about the bill and the changes it will bring.
"We want to start delivering this together on Tuesday.
"The broken welfare system is failing the most vulnerable and holding too many people back.
"It's fair and responsible to fix it. There is broad consensus across the party on this."
The Prime Minister is still been expected to still push ahead with a vote on the bill despite nearly 130 MPs planning to vote down the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.
Under its proposals, ministers will limit eligibility for the personal independence payment (Pip), the main disability payment in England, and limit the sickness-related element of universal credit (UC).
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0:00
Let's start with a text
0:02
Everyone's a critic. This is from Michael. Not you too, he writes
0:05
That's you too, as in me too. Not as in Bono and The Edge and the rest of them
0:09
Not you too. The drumbeat of criticism over U-turns, which are actually signs of collegiate and listening policymaking
0:17
is designed to destabilise this young government. The right-wing press still can't stand the fact they lost
0:24
As someone brilliant once said, there's no point in having a mind if you can't change it
0:28
Who can spot the U2 link with that line? Michael is very kindly and slightly sarcastically referring to me
0:35
but it was actually Edward de Bono, who was a philosopher before he joined U2
0:40
It was Edward de Bono who actually made that observation first. That's a bit niche, that, isn't it
0:44
If you've got to explain a joke, it probably isn't working. I hope Michael's right, OK
0:52
I hope Michael's right. I hope that I have fallen victim to chatter and noise
0:59
And I can begin today's first phone-in by listing all the things that are stacked against Keir Starmer
1:06
Here's a really weird thing that I've noticed. And, hey, I could be wrong, so by all means
1:10
bung me a text 03456060973 for WhatsApp, 84850 for texts, if you can find one
1:17
But I haven't been able to find a single compelling defense of the welfare bill i know the rationale behind it is that
1:29
there is a necessity to save money and also that there is a failure in the system to help people
1:36
who want to work but currently can't because of the odds that are stacked against them
1:41
to be addressed so people can end up languishing against their wishes on
1:46
benefits, disability and sickness benefits. I understand all of that, but I haven't seen
1:51
a single compelling defence of the detail of this bill. We only really scratched the surface of it
2:01
yesterday, but what became immediately clear is the vulnerability of people with fluctuating
2:06
conditions. The near impossibility, but I don't believe impossibility, but the near impossibility
2:12
No, the enormous difficulty of framing a system, a working system, a system of work
2:19
which can accommodate people who don't know until they get up in the morning, and often, not even then, whether they're going to be capable of working that day
2:27
or how many hours they're going to be able to do that day. So a fluctuating condition, which will include many, many, many people listening to this programme
2:37
and far beyond people who are contacting their MPs to tell them that they're terrified
2:43
And listen, you can send me texts. I'm in a surprisingly wonderful mood today
2:47
So you can send me all the nasty texts you like about scroungers and freeloaders
2:51
and how we've got to get rid of them and none of them deserve it and you know someone who went to school with someone
2:55
whose mum was married to someone who was a right old scrounger and all of that malarkey
3:00
But that doesn't actually change the simple reality that an awful lot of the most vulnerable people in the country
3:06
believe that they're about to be punched in the face by a government that they thought would be on their side
3:13
And if I were to make that list of things that are stacked against Kit Starmart
3:17
I would include the fact that he doesn't really have any cheerleaders in the media
3:23
You might think I am, but that is a terrible reflection of... In the same way that, what's his chops in the Daily Mail
3:28
Richard Littlejohn described me as hard left last week, which I imagine has caused an enormous intake of breath
3:35
among people who are actually hard left, but it's all relative, isn't it
3:39
If you think someone who isn sticking the boot into Keir Starmer every single day for reasons that they probably can explain to you is a cheerleader then it only because of what everybody else is doing all the time
3:51
So one of the things stacked against Keir Starmer is the absolute absence, really, of support for his government from a tribal or a partisan position in the media
4:03
One of the reasons I like him, and this is damning him with faint praise, is because of who he isn't
4:07
He isn't Liz Truss. He isn't Boris Johnson. He isn't David Cameron. He isn't Jeremy Corbyn
4:13
He isn't any of the people who were either incapable of running a party
4:17
or incapable of running a country. But that's not a particularly glowing endorsement, is it
4:23
Who's your favourite? I'm just glad it's not any of that. But he keeps the terrible people out of power
4:29
He has kept the terrible people out of power. Probably a slightly unfair ysis of Rishi Sunak that
4:34
but we'll leave that, as we said yesterday, for the history teachers. history writers and history teachers of the future
4:41
But I can't find a single cogent and compelling defence, so I'm just going to check my inbox actually
4:48
to see if you've sent me any, of the bill in its current form
4:54
And the fact that over 120 Labour MPs are minded to reject it
5:00
is pretty huge, politically speaking. it is not a leadership ending moment um but it is a deeply damaging prospect of defeat
5:13
or another surrender another u-turn another reverse whatever it may be and
5:21
if no one apart from this let me find you something that these are the only people that um
5:28
that think that they're in support of the bill. And I can't imagine that they're people
5:33
who are ever going to vote for the Labour Party. But here's Nicky writing, your privilege is clouding your judgment here
5:39
The number of people who don't want to work is far more significant than you allow for
5:44
So there is a perception that this is aimed at scroungers. No one is claiming that it's aimed at scroungers
5:52
So there's the second big thing that's stacked against him, is that the nature of coverage
5:58
the nature of political coverage and the ownership in many ways of our national media
6:03
has skewed the proposal entirely because someone like nicky comes away thinking this is all about
6:10
getting rid of the scroungers so somehow whip cracking people into work or leaving them to
6:16
starve if they refuse yes there's so many scouts and that is a widespread perception it's been
6:21
probably the first lesson i learned presenting this show was was the ease with which people
6:27
can be persuaded that everybody on any benefit is a scrounger. Do you remember when everyone would wang on endlessly
6:34
about flat-screen televisions? People were still wanging on endlessly about flat-screen televisions
6:39
Long after it became impossible to buy a television in this country, there wasn't flat-screen
6:43
I had a sort of road-to-damascus moment at the tip of all places. You know the pile in the corner of all the electronic goods
6:50
I remember every single television is a flat-screen television. So we've now reached the point in human history
6:56
where the only flat-screen televisions that you're throwing out are flat-screen televisions
7:04
because it's impossible to buy one that isn't. But still they wanged on
7:11
So the perception there is that it's designed to hit scroungers, and the reality of the Labour rebellion
7:16
is that it's going to hit people who are the opposite of scroungers. It's going to hit people who are among the most vulnerable
7:21
It going to hurt people the people that we spoke to yesterday We are however skint If this was a household then we would be on our uppers you know If this was a household we be living on muesli
7:37
The scale of the debt, the servicing of the debt is off the charts. And it is a little
7:42
bit simplistic to suggest that if you need to raise or save money, then the way to do
7:46
it is to go after the people who've got the most, not the people who've got the least. Listen, I have an inner undergraduate that's very near the surface some mornings, and it's quite near the surface today
7:57
This madness, this mad marriage to the idea of not having any tax rises
8:03
while simultaneously reducing welfare among disabled and poorly people is extraordinary. But it is where we are
8:12
So, somewhere between those two observations lies the truth. there is there is as far
8:21
I've still got a tickly throat if you were listening yesterday it's better than it was but until I start
8:25
I mean I know what you're thinking why don't you do shorter monologues and then your throat will probably
8:29
recover quicker you've got a point there you don't have to cheer quite so enthusiastically
8:33
at the prospect so it's impossible to find a really compelling defence of this bill
8:42
but at the same time it's impossible to find pretty much anybody
8:48
who is going to take a bullet for Keir Starmer. It's the number of MPs that have signed up to oppose it
8:58
that worries me the most. That convinces me the most that he has really, really messed up
9:07
And that is, in case you're wondering where this phone-in is going to go, it's too early to contemplate a leadership change this is why michael's crossed with me
9:16
even for talking about it even for talking about it and i agree but it is going incredibly badly
9:24
i don't buy the idea i would do with one or two but if you've got two of the biggest things they've
9:29
done the winter fuel and the welfare you can use the word collegiate until you're blue in the face
9:37
You can tell me how uplifting and heartening it is to have leaders that actually listen from now till Christmas
9:44
But these are clangors of epic proportions that have been dropped upon the feet of the people who introduced them
9:53
These are huge missteps and mistakes. This is poor judgment. And I want to know why you think it's happening
10:03
I want to know what is going wrong. The Ming Vars that was so successfully carried across the ice rink hasn't been dropped, it's been delivered
10:11
The Ming Vars arrives on its plinth the minute Keir Starmer gets into power, gets into Downing Street
10:17
And because of that factor one, the massed ranks of the UK media being so obviously stacked against him
10:24
we don't know much about the good stuff. Most obviously for me, probably the workers' rights in the beginning of a renationalisation programme on the railways
10:32
but we do know that two of the biggest issues two of the biggest things that they've done
10:39
the winter fuel allowance and the um welfare bill are both well one has already been abandoned and
10:49
the other one i think is well it's either going to be abandoned or he's going to get spanked in
10:52
the house of commons on tuesday so what is going wrong and sometimes can i tell you a secret if i
10:59
I think I may have told you this before, but the vaguer the question I ask you, sometimes the harder it is to get good answers, the harder it is to get interesting answers
11:08
So I a little bit allergic to vague questions but sometimes they the only questions that work because you stepping so far back from the detail in order to take in the entire vista the entire landscape of
11:21
modern british politics how badly is it going and polling today has farage's outfit as the largest
11:28
party if there were to be a general election tomorrow you can't rule out that possibility
11:32
um i'm afraid if we've learned anything over the last 10 years we've learned that people do not
11:37
learn from history. They do not learn from the past. So, you know, the idea that someone that
11:41
was pro-Brexit, pro-Boris Johnson, pro-Liz Truss, let's have another go. Let's smash our head against
11:46
the brick wall for a fourth, fifth, sixth time in the hope that this time the wall will break as opposed to our heads. That is evidence that one year in, and it's only a year, things are going
11:57
really badly for this government, according to both party management and public opinion
12:03
have a crack at defending it for me please i don't think you will that's why it's not the
12:10
phone in today i all lbc presenters can can throw open their switchboard at the top of the show and
12:16
be absolutely inundated with people who are terrified of the impacts of the welfare bill
12:20
it's important and it's interesting but it's a bit easy frankly and and and you know um it's less
12:27
easy to to step back from the detail as i say and try and work out why they're getting it all so
12:32
wrong if indeed you think they are so so there it is what why is it going so badly oh three four
12:39
five six oh six oh nine seven three um i can i ask both of those questions at the time how badly
12:45
is it going oh three four five six oh six oh nine seven three and why is it going so but i think
12:50
it's going really bad there you go i'm a caller now hello james first time caller love the show
12:55
uh i think it's going really badly i can't believe that they have managed to alienate so many of
13:00
their traditional voters but that you could chalk up as teething trouble they're also now alienating
13:05
their own mps that these are the people who had to sell slices of their soul on the doorsteps of
13:11
this country in order to defend the winter fuel bill and then he pulled the rug from under them
13:14
and admitted that all the people criticizing it were right all along so they got rid of it
13:18
and now i'm being inundated by um a callers telling me that the welfare bill is is terrifying to them
13:25
and is some of the statistics show going to push children into poverty something the labour party
13:30
exists to eradicate, something the Labour Party exists to get rid of. I'm getting a few
13:36
texts, more than usual, I'm not going to put you in Idiot's Corner from people who know
13:40
someone who's got a blue badge that they don't deserve. That's not going to be affected by the welfare bill
13:44
If your neighbour's got a fraudulent disability badge, then it's fraudulent. If they put it
13:50
off someone down the pub, they're not in receipt of well, I don't know, maybe that is one for Idiot's
13:54
Corner. But why is it? Why do you think things are going so badly for Keir Starmer, specifically? Not the Labour government
14:06
not the Labour Party, but for Keir Starmer specifically. Can you join Michael in arguing
14:11
that he is simply, once again, the victim of a hideously biased news landscape? I reject that
14:17
ysis. Some of these mistakes are avoidable. All of these mistakes are self-inflicted. So what
14:23
is going wrong? Hit the numbers now. You will get through, because it's a vague question
14:29
So you've got a better chance of getting through on this than if I ask you to ring in and explain to me
14:33
exactly what you know about Iran's nuclear capabilities. 0345 6060973. Do you agree with me that things are going very badly
14:43
If not, why not? And if you do agree with me, why
14:48
What can you put your finger on first as reasons why these self-inflicted catastrophes
14:54
seem to be becoming a feature rather than a glitch
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