Why Starmer is choosing fiscal discipline, above all else

It’s been more than two days since Keir Starmer told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that Labour would keep the two-child benefit cap, yet the party seems no closer to finding resolution on the issue. The pushback within the party has been intense, with plenty of people (including, reportedly, members of the shadow cabinet) asking how the opposition leader can keep a benefits cap that he once railed against.

But Starmer isn’t budging. Speaking on a conference stage with former prime minister Tony Blair this evening, Starmer insisted this wasn’t an issue of changing hearts, but rather a changing set of circumstances. Speaking about spending commitments more generally, Starmer noted that:

We keep saying collectively as a party we’ve got to take tough decisions. And in the abstract everyone says, that’s right, Keir… And then we get a tough decision— we’ve been in one of those the last few days – (and) they say, ‘we don’t like that, can we not just make that one?’ … but we have to take the tough decisions.