{"id":404806,"date":"2025-09-07T08:40:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T08:40:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/404806\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T08:40:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T08:40:13","slug":"sunday-with-laura-kuenssberg-defence-secretary-says-starmer-going-up-a-gear-with-cabinet-reshuffle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/404806\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: Defence secretary says Starmer &#8216;going up a gear&#8217; with cabinet reshuffle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Starmer resets after Rayner row, but Labour turmoil is a gift for Reformpublished at 08:54 British Summer Time<\/p>\n<p>08:54 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-8kvzjk-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/815986ae-eacf-4b3e-8756-65c5e22de395.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/><strong>Laura Kuenssberg<\/strong><br \/>Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg<\/p>\n<p>      <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"A treated image showing Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner, with a separate image of Laura on the right.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/e7705fac-b98b-49d3-aee4-e56773d65002.png.webp.webp\"  width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" class=\"ssrcss-11yxrdo-Image edrdn950\"\/>Image source, Leon Neal\/ Reuters<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In the end, Angela Rayner&#8217;s decision to go was clear cut.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The official report into her behaviour said she&#8217;d tried to do the right thing, but not tried hard enough. So the rules had been broken.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Her camp reckoned she had no option. No 10 agreed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">There is frustration that the manner of her exit from government gave her critics what they wanted. But she knew she had no choice, and was devastated by her own mistake.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It&#8217;s acutely and specifically painful for Labour because Rayner had personally styled herself as something of a sleaze-buster.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">She portrayed herself as a loud and proud champion of ordinary people looking at the worst Westminster behaviour in disgust.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For Labour in general, it undermines again, their claim to be different to those who went before, to return government to the &#8220;service of the people&#8221;, as Starmer said so many times \u2013 to be competent, with clean heels.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Twelve months on, Rayner is the fifth minister who has quit after their actions caused embarrassment for the government. Those clean heels look a bit scruffy now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The mess is, of course, a gift for Nigel Farage. At his party&#8217;s conference in Birmingham on Friday Rayner&#8217;s exit didn&#8217;t just shove him on stage a few hours early for his speech to try to grab a space in the news cycle, it gave more ammunition to his fundamental argument.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Reform&#8217;s pitch rests on a claim that the two big parties are as bad as each other, and preside over a system that is bust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starmer resets after Rayner row, but Labour turmoil is a gift for Reformpublished at 08:54 British Summer Time&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[748,393,4884,12,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-404806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"tag-scotland","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115162121837482661","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}