Yvette Cooper was grilled by Naga Munchetty on a difficult first year for Labour in a BBC Breakfast interview today. The presenter put it to the Home Secretary that Sir Keir Starmer’s party is not in a “good place” at the moment.
It comes after a series of U-turns including on welfare and the announcement of a new left-wing party by Jeremy Corbyn, Munchetty said: “One year’s done, observers have seen three U-turns in the last few weeks and now you’ve had Zarah Sultana saying she wants to form a new party with the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. It doesn’t feel like the Labour Party is in a good place.”
Ms Cooper replied: “Well we are one year on and I think it was one year ago yesterday Keir Starmer stood on the steps of Downing Street and said change won’t happen at the flick of a switch and it will take a while.
“But I also think back and the things my constituents and people across the country were raising at that time.
“The state of the NHS, it felt like it was about to collapse, the lack of police on our streets and living standards across the country.
“If you look back on those 12 months of course there are things that have been up and down but also we’ve got a 10-year plan for our NHS, four million additional appointments provided this year and waiting lists coming down.
“On policing we’ve got 3,000 additional neighbourhood police on the streets including a big focus on town centres this summer.
“And then wage growth and interest rates coming down, business investment going up and three trade deals to support our economy.
“And also crucially perhaps for living standards for families for whom it matters most, the introduction of free school meals for another half a million children.
“So there are a lot of things we’ve done, of course, there is a huge amount to do, of course, a lot of the work has been done trying to put building blocks in place.
“Not everything goes right in government but I think we still see huge progress on the things that really matter to working people across the country.”
Ms Cooper declined to give the Labour Government a mark out of 10 when asked by Munchetty.
It comes after the Prime Minister was forced into a humiliating reversal on welfare cuts earlier this week before Chancellor Rachel Reeves cried in the Commons during PMQs.
Meanwhile, left-wing MP Zarah Sultana last night announced that she was setting up a new party with former Labour leader Mr Corbyn.