It was, according to one Labour MP, a “barnstormer” of a speech.
Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and the most powerful man in the country you’ve probably never heard of, was addressing the Parliamentary Labour Party in Committee Room 14 last Monday.
Not noted for his rousing oratory, the slightly-built, taciturn Glaswegian had decided that it was necessary to reassure those colleagues beginning to worry that being in government is not all that it was cracked up to be.
“Stability is underpriced in politics,” McFadden told them. “Having a stable government with a big majority has sent a powerful signal around the world.
“Don’t believe for a moment any notion of equivalence between recent headlines and the billions lost in Covid fraud, VIP lanes, lockdown parties in No.10 and the degradation of standards under the Tories.”
He then went on to list the things the Labour government has done in its first three months in office, before telling them that the upcoming Budget will have investment at its heart.
“That’s how we modernise the country, make people better off and generate wealth for public services,” McFadden said.
“Compare that to the Tory leadership election, where they are doubling down on arguments that had seen them lose, preaching to the choir not the public, with nothing to say about the economy, living standards, public services or the future.”
One newly-elected MP in attendance told HuffPost UK that McFadden had clearly wanted to “put some steel in our spines”.
However, he said there was no disguising the hidden message in the Cabinet Office minister’s address to his troops.
“He was telling us that things are going to get worse before they get better,” the MP said. “It felt a bit like we were being pushed off the top of a ski slope, which is fine until you take off and realise there’s nothing between you and the ground.”
Rachel Reeves will stand up at the Despatch Box on October 30 and explain how she plans to raise £40 billion by putting up taxes and slashing the welfare bill.
That would be a tough enough sell at the best of times, but polling by Savanta, seen by HuffPost UK, shows that the popularity of Keir Starmer and his top team is now in “freefall”.
The prime minister himself has seen his personal approval ratings plummet from plus 10 immediately after Labour’s landslide election victory to minus 17 today.
The last time he was that unpopular was back in 2021, in the wake of the disastrous Hartlepool by-election, which Labour lost to the Tories.
Reeves, meanwhile, is now the most unpopular member of the cabinet, with an approval rating of minus 19 (compared to plus 4 on July 5).
The poll also makes grim reading for deputy PM Angela Rayner (approval rating minus 15), David Lammy (minus 13), Yvette Cooper (minus 11) and Wes Streeting (minus 10).
Chris Hopkins, Savanta’s political research director, said: “The prime minister and his senior cabinet minister’s favourability ratings are in freefall, according to our research.
“Starmer’s popularity among the public hasn’t been this low in a Savanta poll since May 2021 – the nadir of his leadership, which he has since shared that he considered resigning at the time.
“This should be particularly concerning to Starmer and his colleagues, ahead of what already feels like a premiership-defining Budget from Rachel Reeves.
“She will do so with the lowest favourability ratings since Savanta began tracking this with the public. This is a real drop for the chancellor, who used to be one of the most popular members of the cabinet.”
The findings will do little to improve the mood among an already-fractious cabinet.
Rayner, transport secretary Louise Haigh and justice secretary Shabana Mahmood have all written to the PM complaining about the huge cuts to their departmental budgets being sought by the chancellor.
That in turn has sparked its own backlash, with one cabinet minister telling HuffPost UK that his colleagues were “defending the severe Tory legacy”.
Another senior government figure said: “There’s no problem with people lobbying for money. It’s their job to do that.
“But if they are too public about it, it will backfire on them because if they don’t get more money they will look weak.”
A separate poll by the More in Common think-tank did provide a glimmer of hope for the prime minister and his chancellor, however.
It showed that around one-third of voters are not opposed to Reeves’ apparent plan to increase the employers’ rate of National Insurance.
Tory claims that this would break a Labour manifesto commitment also appear to have fallen on deaf ears, with only 34% of the public agreeing.
Luke Tryl, More in Common’s UK director, told HuffPost UK: “With only a third of voters saying they’d oppose a rise in employers’ National Insurance, for now at least it seems like raising the tax would be some low-hanging fruit for Labour as they seek to put together a Budget that balances the books without a return to austerity.”
But unless Reeves produces the mother of all rabbits out of her hat, there is unlikely to be much for the public to cheer on October 30.
The decision to remove the winter fuel allowance from millions of pensioners, taken shortly after the election, remains a running sore among voters.
One MP said: “It’s not costing us support, but it is costing us the loyalty of voters, and that’s even more dangerous.”
Pat McFadden may have to produce a few more barnstormers in the coming years to soothe Labour’s increasingly worried MPs.
