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‘What Is Wrong With Labour?’ Trevor Phillips Scorches Minister Over Glaring Issue Within Party

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Sky News’ Trevor Phillips asked a senior minister what is “wrong” with Labour as he tore into the party’s lack of female leaders.

Labour is currently in turmoil as speculation of a coup mounts.

Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham is campaigning as the party’s candidate in the Makerfield by-election.

If he wins and becomes an MP, he is expected to challenge Keir Starmer’s leadership, sparking a contest which ex-health secretary Wes Streeting has already vowed to join.

Senior female party figures, like former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, are yet to say if they would partake in any leadership race.

Interviewing work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden on Sky News, Phillips said: “There’s a shadow contest going on. The Labour Party’s not going to have a female leader. It’s bizarre.

“This is not something you could say of any self-democratic party, most of the centre-right parties in Europe [have had a female leader] – the Tories have had four!

“Genuinely, what is about the Labour Party that makes it, as far as I can see, incapable of having a serious female contender for leadership?”

McFadden said that was a “good and serious point”, though he rejected claims there was any contest coming on right now as no one has formally challenged the prime minister.

But he added: “If there is a contest, then why should it just be with the people who so far have been mentioned?”

Phillips said: “What’s wrong with the Labour Party?”

“The Labour Party’s not perfect, like any other organisation,” McFadden replied. “There are wonderful women politicians in the Labour Party, many of them are capable of leadership, and if we ever are in a position of a contest, why wouldn’t they put themselves forward?”

Phillips’ question comes after Jess Phillips told the Hay festival this week that her party is sexist for having no permanent female leaders in its history.

The MP for Birmingham Yardley, who resigned as the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls earlier this month, said: “Like all institutions [Labour] is a bit sexist”.

She added that “every institution that every single person in this room works for is led by the patriarchy”.

However, she disputed the idea that just having a woman in power would improve the UK.

“I have to say, the idea that a woman leads and it makes it better for women is not one that I’ve recognised in this country,” she said.

“My mortgage went up by a thousand pounds a month, cheers Liz [Truss]. I shouted at her, every time I saw her, the amount that she now owed me. She has not paid me back.”

Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

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Sky News Presenter Says Keir Starmer Is ‘Not Waving, But Drowning’ In Savage Takedown

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Keir Starmer is “not waving, but drowning” as he struggles to fight off attempts to kick him out of Downing Street, a Sky News presenter has declared.

Trevor Phillips said “the vultures are circling” around the prime minister in the wake of Labour’s latest election catastrophe.

The party is on course to lose around 1,500 councillors in England following a surge in support for Reform UK and the Green Party.

Labour also lost power in the Welsh Senedd for the first time ever, and was defeated once again by the SNP at Holyrood.

In response, Starmer insisted he “won’t walk away” from his job, and even suggested that he will be PM for another eight years.

On Saturday, the prime minister shocked Westminster by handing jobs to Labour grandees Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman.

Meanwhile, Labour backbencher Catherine West said she will trigger a leadership election unless the cabinet ousts him.

On Sky News this morning, Phillips said: “The smart money says the prime minister won’t be winkled out of Downing Street, but the vultures are circling.”

In a powerful monologue, Phillips added: “On May 7 the British people spoke, and they were brutal. They gave Nigel Farage a fighting force of nearly 1,500 councillors. They boosted [Green Party leader] Zack Polanski’s ranks by getting on for another 500.

“They put leaders in Edinburgh and Cardiff who ultimately want to break up the UK.

“What they said to Sir Keir Starmer was unambiguous: we think your government is a massive letdown, we really can’t see the point of your party and what’s more we really don’t like you very much either.

“The Labour Party is in chaos, with a backbencher threatening to trigger a leadership contest, and several of Starmer’s cabinet members jostling to replace him.

“The prime minister is going to respond tomorrow in what we are promised is a major speech. To rescue his leadership he’ll need something a bit more persuasive than his initial response on Friday morning, which amounted to ‘yes I made mistakes, the biggest of which is not to tell people frequently enough and loudly enough that everything I’ve done is right’.

“It’s quite hard to imagine voters in Barnsley or Hartlepool or Thurrock, where Labour were swept away by Reform, turning to their friends and crying ’if only I’d known they’d bring back Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman, I’d definitely have voted for Keir instead of Nigel.

“The prime minister is signalling frantically that he plans to keep going. He talked about being set for a 10 year run. But for all the stirring words and the bravado, this weekend he seems to me, and to many others, to be a man who is not waving, but drowning.”

Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.

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Trevor Phillips Rips Into Labour’s Response To Trump’s Venezuela Action

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Sky presenter Trevor Phillips has torn into Labour’s lacklustre response to Donald Trump’s military action in Venezuela.

The US seized Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and indicted him on narco-terrorism conspiracy on Saturday.

Trump has declared that the States will “run” Venezuela until there can be a safe transition of power – and insisted the US will be “very strongly involved” in the country’s oil industry.

Keir Starmer has already refused to describe Trump’s moves as a breach of international law, insisting the government “sheds no tears” for the end of Maduro’s autocracy.

But concerns about what this means for the world order remain.

On Sky News, Phillips told chief secretary to the prime minister Darren Jones that Trump’s decision to seize Venezuela sounds rather like “colonialism”.

He added: “Are we now in favour of colonialism?”

“We’re not in favour of colonialism,” Jones replied, adding: “We’re not entirely clear yet what president Trump meant by those comments yesterday.”

Phillips said: “The president’s been pretty clear: he said we are going to run Venezuela. We will decide when we can stop running Venezuela and pass on power in a ‘judicious’ way. It’s pretty clear.

“We must have a view on that, surely.”

Jones said the UK does not know the “details” of what is happening yet, adding: “It would be wrong for government ministers to try to make assumptions or to comment on hypotheticals about the future.”

He continued: “We should understand what is happening before we comment, that’s what the public would expect a grown-up professional government to do.”

Phillips said: “I don’t think so. I think the public would expect a grown up government to be consistent.”

He claimed that if it had been any country other than the US – like Russia – the government would have condemned it.

“Is it OK for allies to march in and snatch someone every time they think they’ve done something naughty?” The presenter asked.

Jones said: “The UK respects international law and the rules-based order. We are an advocate for it, we conduct ourselves on that basis, and we expect other countries to do so as well. There’s no question about that.

“What happened in Venezula has happened. We now need to move as quickly as possible.”

Jones also insisted that the UK has not been involved with the US’s attacks on Venezuela at all, but that Britain does support a peaceful transition of power.

Asked about whether it was a breach of international law, Jones said: “It’s for the Americans to set out the legal basis for their operation, not Nato, not ours in any way, I don’t think the Americans have done that yet, but I’m sure they will do in due course.”

Phillips pointed out that the government made a judgement that Putins’ invasion of Ukraine was unlawful, but Jones replied: “It’s not for me or any opposition politician to make a judgement on that.”

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Nigel Farage Dubbed ‘Snake Oil Salesman’ Over Reform UK’s New Welfare Promises

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Nigel Farage has been dubbed a “snake oil salesman” by Angela Rayner as he reportedly wants to fully reinstate the winter fuel payments and scrap the two-child benefit cap.

According to The Telegraph, the right-wing Reform UK leader will try to win over left-leaning voters in the upcoming days by attacking Labour’s deeply unpopular crackdown on the welfare state.

The government took the winter fuel allowance of up to £300 away from 10 million pensioners in its Budget last year.

Labour also kept the Tory policy of refusing to increase the amount of benefits families receive once they have more than two children.

The party chairman Zia Yusuf claimed Reform would pay to reverse these policies by cutting the foreign aid budget, closing asylum hotels and ending net zero subsidies.

Responding to these promises – expected to be unveiled in a press conference next week – one broadcaster even went so far as to describe Farage as a new working class champion because of the policies.

On his show Sky News’ Sunday with Trevor Phillips, the presenter said: “In Downing Street this morning, they’re waking up to a challenge from the left.

“The working class has found a new champion, who wants more welfare spending, more nationalisation, and more trade union power.

“His name? Nigel Farage. And he’s seven points ahead in the polls.”

However, deputy prime minister Rayner was quick to call Farage out on his promises.

She told the BBC: “To give winter fuel payments to people who have millions in the bank is probably not a good idea.”

“Nigel Farage says a lot of things,” she continued. “But the reality on my employment rights bill […] Nigel Farage and his small band of MPs didn’t vote for it.

“So when it comes to actually walking the walk, their record is they didn’t vote for measures that didn’t help working people in this country.”

On LBC, Rayner also said: “He can say he’s going to give jam tomorrow, but with all things Nigel Farage – snake oil salesman – it’s not real.

“He’s not said where the money is coming from and therefore I wouldn’t believe a word he says on it.

“If there was any government that was going to do something on this and eradicate child poverty, it’s the Labour government and we’re determined to do that through our task force, and looking at child poverty in the round.”

The Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch also attacked Farage’s claims this morning.

“Nigel Farage is someone who is going to say whatever he can to get into power,” she told Sky News.

“I am taking the hard road, I am not going to do that. We spent years chasing polls, telling people what they wanted to hear and not delivering.

“He is doing that now, making promises and then they’ll get into government and can’t deliver it.”

Phillips asked her: “Are you envisioning that Farage could get into power?”

“Well, I hope not, because it would be very bad for this country,” Badenoch said.

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Wes Streeting Says NHS Is ‘Addicted To Overspending’ As He Confirms Job Cuts

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Wes Streeting has said the NHS is “addicted to overspending” as he launched an attack on health bosses.

He said those in charge of the healthcare system assume “someone will come along to bail them out” when they blow their budgets.

His comments come as he suggested hundreds more government quangos could be axed following the abolition of NHS England.

Appearing on Sky News this morning, Streeting was asked by presenter Trevor Phillips: “Is it right that Jim Mackey, the head of NHS England, has written to local health boards demanding that they produce plans for a 50% reduction in their spending?”

Confirming the move, Streeting said there would be a “particular focus on management costs” to achieve that target.

He said: “Myself and Jim are confronting a financial planning round for the year ahead where systems returned financial plans to us that would have involved an overspend between £5 and £6 billion before the new financial year has even begun.

“I’m afraid this speaks to the culture that I identified before the general election where the NHS is addicted to overspending, is addicted to running up routine deficits, with the assumption that someone will come along to bail them out, in a way that, by the way, local councils would never be able to do.”

Phillips replied: “Are you saying that the apparatus of the NHS was basically wasting public money?”

Streeting said: “I think there’s definitely examples of waste and duplication and we’re going to go hard at it.

“Even if the public finances weren’t tight – and they are – I don’t think even in the good times it’s acceptable that taxpayers’ money is wasted, because the money you’re wasting could be spent on other public priorities or could be put back in the pockets of taxpayers.”

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\"The NHS is addicted to overspending\"

Health Secretary Wes Streeting confirms some integrated care boards have been asked to find 50% savings to stop \"waste and inefficiency\". pic.twitter.com/cbfQseG35k

— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 16, 2025

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“The NHS is addicted to overspending”

Health Secretary Wes Streeting confirms some integrated care boards have been asked to find 50% savings to stop “waste and inefficiency”. pic.twitter.com/cbfQseG35k

— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 16, 2025

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Streeting said he was committed to “slashing bloated bureaucracy”, suggesting many more health quangos could be axed.

“The abolition of NHS England – the world’s largest quango – is the beginning, not the end,” he said.

On the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, the health secretary admitted the effeiciency drive will see “significant” numbers of NHS workers lose their jobs.

He said: “I’m going after the bureaucracy, not the people who work in it.

“Of course, I can’t sugar coat the fact that there will be a significant number of job losses and we will want to make sure we are treating people fairly, supporting them properly through that process. And I’m not criticising them, but I’ve got to make sure the system is well set up.”

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