08 February 2024 , 18:27
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A Tory Cabinet minister has been confronted on air over her party’s repeated U-turns.
Chief Secretary to the Treasury Laura Trott went on BBC Radio 4 to gloat about Keir Starmer’s change to his green investment plan. But she faced a devastating grilling from presenter Evan Davies who highlighted how Rishi Sunak has reversed on his own policies.
Ms Trott had claimed that the Labour’s policy reversal “has been just a total mess, the likes of which I don't think we've seen for a number of years”. In an extraordinary 60-second take down, Mr Davies gave a long list of some of the ways the Tories have changed their minds.
“We could talk about some of the U-turns that your own government has made,” he said. “Your manifesto said no rise in national Insurance and there was a rise in national insurance that was reversed. You said there would be a health and social care levy, that was planned the same time in fact, the same month as the Green Prosperity Plan. That's been abandoned.
“There was going to be social care reform that's gone, HS2 that's gone. The electric car mandate 2030, now 2035. Immigration reform that was introduced by your government. It's been reformed by your government. One of the reforms to pare back the immigration reform that's been partially restored. So that's not that's been a U-turn on a U-turn.
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“We've had smaller ones like railway station ticket halls. They were going to go they're not. Fines for missing GP appointments. They were going to be imposed. They're not. There was going to be a bonfire of EU law. There was a reversal on that. I mean, basically, isn't that what good politics is about is changing your mind?”
Ms Trott replied: “So I contest a couple of those.” “But you can't contest the bulk of them,” Mr Davies interrupted. “They are U-turns, clear U-turns made by this government.”
The Cabinet minister add: “So we have had to make some difficult decisions because of Covid. We had to borrow £400billion to help support people through Covid and then £100billion to support the energy plan. So we've had to make some difficult decisions and I completely accept that.”
The interview came less that 24 hours after Ms Trott appeared to invent comments by Brianna Ghey's mum during an interview on Sky News in a desperate bid to defend Mr Sunak.