There is heightened suspicion in Labour circles regarding the loyalty of Ed Miliband to the Starmer government amid a series of internal briefings aimed at further destabilising Reeves and No10. One Cabinet minister told the Times last night:
“Why did Keir and Rachel allow the country to believe for so long that we would break our manifesto by putting up income tax by 2p when they would have known that wasn’t true? At no point were the cabinet told about the reality of the OBR forecasts. Had we been told, we might have been in a position to advise against setting hares running on income tax and giving the public the impression we are casual about our manifesto commitments. The handling of this budget has been a disaster from start to finish.”
One Cabinet minister told HuffPost “no comment” after being asked if Reeves was honest with her top political colleagues about the forecasts. Classy…
A Downing Street source tells Guido: “We are all pretty sure it’s Ed.” Co-conspirators will remember senior Labour figures fingering Miliband for inflammatory briefings in the late Summer and after a No10 attempt to remove him as Energy Secretary…
Miliband – a Lucy Powell backer – is seen within Labour special adviser circles as a key orchestrator of the ‘soft left’ in the PLP who think the time has come to put strong pressure on Starmer. Many speculate that Ed is ‘on manoeuvres’ and potentially keen to be the next Chancellor under a new PM…
Guido hears there is no massive internal worry about either the repeated battering from political journalists or any probes from the FCA. There is no current suggestion that Laurie Magnus can or will go for an investigation. Why are the political editors particularly annoyed? Because those WhatsApps they got from SpAds turned out to be deceptions…
Instead it is more political damage attached to Starmer and Reeves. Approaching haymaking time for any and all of Starmer’s political rivals…
