Shadow Cabinet Office minister Alex Burghart says it ‘beggars belief’ there were not more exchanges between Mandelson and the PM
Nick Thomas-Symonds, the Cabinet Office minister, has defended Pat McFadden over his comment, revealed in the Mandelson files, about Labour MPs always asking “who can we tax in order to pay benefits to others”.
In an interview with Times Radio, Thomas-Symonds said that McFadden was a “diligent, committed minister” and his views on social security and welfare “are very well known and consistent”.
Pat’s view has always been that it is not about benefits, that is not where the debate should be. The debate should be about opportunity, and indeed that is what he has been working on.
It depends which part of the budget we’re talking about, because if we’re talking about pensions, then I’m very proud that it’s this government that is putting those increases in the state pension, the amount it’s going up.
On the bills that I would call economic and social failure, where we want to give people opportunity. I think that is obviously a different part of the bill.
Yes. Of course.
The point is, though, the motivation for changing that is not somehow salami-slicing financial budgets. The motivation for changing that is because we want to give people opportunity, and that’s exactly what we’re doing.
Murrell, the party’s former chief executive, was brought to the high court in Edinburgh in a white prison van.
He sat in the back wearing a dark suit with no tie.
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