Starmer Attacks Ministers for Welfare ‘Pocket Money’ Analogy He Came Up With – Guido Fawkes

Starmer Attacks Ministers for Welfare ‘Pocket Money’ Analogy He Came Up With

Starmer faced a grilling from MPs at the Liaison Committee meeting today, taking the opportunity to distance himself from the ‘pocket money’ analogy on cutting welfare made by Darren Jones and Rachel Reeves. Last week Reeves claimed she didn’t make the same comments as Jones. Guido Verify fact-checked that one…

Starmer told MPs:

“Occasionally people don’t get it quite right, they usually apologise and they’re quite right too. Language matters. The two values that have driven me in everything as a lawyer and as a politician are dignity and respect. You’re right and there’s always the need to remind people about language.”

Starmer must have forgotten it was he who used the pocket money analogy in the first place at a Cabinet meeting ahead of the Spring Statement, as The Times first reported. Starmer also hit out at the OBR publicly for the first time for not pricing in behavioural changes in the government’s welfare reforms, saying, “the OBR have scored nothing against any change here. I personally struggle with that way of looking at it.“ Starmer did say he was looking at a bonfire of the quangos…