‘They didn’t think we’d have the guts’: How Labour rebels forced the government’s welfare U-turn

A culture of arrogance made Keir Starmer's climbdown inevitable, according to some of his own MPs

The Conservative shadow cabinet minister looked more cheerful than at any point in the 12 months since the general election. How did they get into such a mess?" they asked. What are they going to do?"

The answer was revealed a couple of days later when Keir Starmer and his ministers made a series of emergency concessions on their flagship welfare programme, to prevent the otherwise far-greater ignominy of the programme being voted down in the House of Commons.