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A DAY hardly passed without a famous Keir Starmer U-turn in 2023.
They were so frequent that it was actually pretty challenging to think of a policy commitment the Labour head honcho didn’t manage to ditch.
Labour Party flip flops ranged from scrapping the two-child benefit cap and abolishing tuition fees to ending Universal Credit.
And it didn’t take long for another one to potentially come in 2024.
The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Labour are likely to scale back a pledge to ban former ministers from lobbying jobs for five years.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner vowed just six months ago to fine former ministers or dock their pensions if they breached rules in an effort to crack down on lobbying.
Starmer pledged a “crackdown on cronyism” in a speech today but was noticeably quiet about the report above.
While it is unclear how much of the pledge would be watered down, the initial proposals would have stopped ministers from taking lobbying, advisory or portfolio-related jobs for at least five years after they leave government.
“Like a bag of cold sick’
In other news, it also didn’t take long for a wee political boxing match. First, Starmer took a pop at the SNP in his New Year's speech – grouping the party in with the Tories and accusing them both of fuelling the politics of “populism” and “nationalism” as a “distraction”.
Responding, SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn slammed Starmer for comparing the views of "50% of Scots to the sort of populism promoted by Donald Trump".
He added that the comments would go down like a "bag of cold sick".
