Ain’t no party like a Labour party. Shadow cabinet ministers gathered in a Westminster basement last night for the New Statesman’s summer drinks. But there was a little bit of tension in the air. Before the soirée, there had been a torrid meeting of the parliamentary Labour party in which a number of MPs railed against Sir Keir Starmer backing the Government’s two-child benefit cap. He once called it “punitive” and promised to scrap it if he made it to No 10.
His allies on the Right were out in force last night, among them shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting. Peter Mandelson, the Blair-era Svengali, even made an outing. Meanwhile there were rumours of resignations over the U-turn, which seems to have misfired badly. These came to nothing.
