𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Sir Keir Starmer is “human” and has been expressing “the challenges that he is facing in the job”, a minister has said, after the Prime Minister said over the weekend he had been focused on international affairs rather than the growing welfare rebellion in recent weeks.

His comments to the Sunday Times came after another interview on Friday in which he said he “deeply regrets” claiming the UK risked becoming an “island of strangers” in an immigration speech, as he reeled from an alleged arson attack on his family home.

Asked about Sir Keir’s comments, former Labour Home Secretary Baroness Jacqui Smith told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “What you’ve just described Nick is a Prime Minister who is human and who expresses the challenges that he is facing in the job.

“But who has also focused on these welfare reforms in a way that will both achieve the necessary big change to welfare so that it actually serves people who need it, and on the details of how we can reassure people about how those changes will go about.”