Jon Sopel tore into a Cabinet minister over Labour’s latest U-turn on local elections in a Question Time clash. The journalist and podcast host prompted applause from the audience as he criticised the Government’s “political ineptitude” amid repeated reversals despite Sir Keir Starmer’s huge majority.
The moment came as the BBC programme debated whether U-turns are a good thing or a sign of weakness. Turning to Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander, Mr Sopel said: “It just seems to me that you’ve got a massive majority and yet when it was personal independence payments it was political ineptitude that you just could not get that through the House of Commons and you had to back down on it when you’ve got a majority that most other Governments in history would have dreamt of having.
“Yet you’ve had to climbdown again and again, this week over the elections when you got legal advice that was suddenly bad for you.
“Why didn’t you take the legal advice in the first place then you wouldn’t have had the embarrassment of having to do that and then back down?”
Ms Alexander relied: “When it comes to the decision on local elections we did get updated legal advice.
“And if it was a choice between a messy, expensive process through the courts or taking the decision now to give clarity to those 30 or so councils who had come to use because they’re going through local government reorganisation and who said there’s a lot of time and expense of organising elections this year…”
Pressed by host Fiona Bruce on why the Government did not get that legal advice in the first place, the Labour politician added: “As a Government minister some of the time advice is updated and you can either choose to ignore it or you can choose to act on it.”
Ballots for 30 councils in England had been postponed as part of Labour’s reorganisation of local government.
But they were reinstated on Monday amid a legal challenge from Nigel Farage‘s Reform UK.