Minister Torched By Broadcasters Over Labour’s Latest U-Turn

Broadcasters were exasperated by minister Stephen Kinnock’s explanations for the government’s latest U-turn on local elections this morning.

Labour announced on Monday that “in light of new legal advice” it would no longer be delaying polling day for 30 local authorities.

The government had planned to postpone some votes while reorganising local government structures, insisting this would prevent “zombie” councils.

Critics claimed it was a political move designed to stop Labour losing in the local elections.

However, a legal challenge from Reform UK pushed the government to drop its plans and agreed to shell out for the claimant’s legal fees.

The reverse-ferret means Labour has made more than a dozen U-turns since getting into power less than two years ago.

On BBC Radio 4′s Today programme, host Nick Robinson pondered whether Labour are “blaming the lawyers” as he tore into Kinnock over this latest disaster.

Robinson said: “How on earth is it in the best interest of the British taxpayer to pay for Nigel Farage’s legal bills, because you did something that was going to be judged illegal in court?”

“I’m definitely not pretending that the change in the legal position is ideal,” Kinnock replied. “We hold our hands up and recognise that we had a piece of legal advice and then things have changed.”

“So are politicians blaming the lawyers?” Robinson asked.

“No, not at all. We had a process that we went through and then that changed,” the care minister said.

The presenter hit back: “Doesn’t it insult our listeners’ intelligence to pretend this is anything other than what it was – an attempt by Labour ministers to postpone inconvenient elections that you looked set to lose because the opinion polls are against you?”

“No it was a consultation with local authorities who said they were really going to struggle to make this happen,” the minister said. “That’s why we’ve made £63 million available to actually facilitate that and enable those changes to take place.”

Kinnock sparked similar frustration on Sky News when he tried to say it’s a mixture of parties would have been impacted by the delay to the local elections.

But presenter Kamali Melbourne corrected him: “The majority are Labour.”

He added: “Sorry, Mr Kinnock, with all due respect we know the argument. I’m asking you why you changed your mind at the last minute yesterday?

“What was different between the legal advice you got then versus previously? Because you must have got legal advice before.”

“I’m a minister in the Department of Health and Social Care. I’m not a minister in the ministry of Housing and Local Government,” Kinnock replied, as Melbourne sighed loudly.

Kinnock continued: “So I haven’t seen the advice itself you’d need to talk to one of my ministerial colleagues in MHCLG on that.”

“It seems perfectly reasonable that you got legal advice, you got new legal advice, you changed your mind,” Melbourne said. “But when it is the 15th time you have changed your mind on something, it starts to seem a bit unreasonable, it seems like you don’t quite know what you’re doing as you’re going forward, leading this country.”

And on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, presenter Richard Madeley took a wider approach about Starmer’s authority.

He said: “How confident are you this morning in your party leader? In the prime minister? He nearly went down for the third time last week, it was very, very close.”

He pointed out that Starmer had suggested to BBC Radio 2′s Jeremy Vine that he would not do any more U-turns hours before the announcement came in.

Kinnock simply insisted that changing leaders “every five minutes” is not good for the country and it’s “terrible” for the economy and investment.