Top Labour MP says Keir Starmer should learn from one ex-Prime Minister

Former Cabinet minister Louise Haigh has called on Keir Starmer to learn lessons from a surprising ex-PM following Labour's election drubbing last week. Ms Haigh, who served as Transport Secretary, said Sir Keir should take lessons from Tory Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher in order to avert an "existential crisis".

Speaking to GB News, the Labour MP says the Government is not "taking the fight" to Reform. Ms Haigh told the channel: "Margaret Thatcher drew her strength from that conflict and from defining her enemies, whether it be the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) or the Soviet Union. Obviously, I would completely disagree with the battle that she took with the NUM, but that meant that people knew exactly who she was and what she was for, and not everything in politics [is] about conflict. Nobody wants to see everyone rowing all the time.

"But I do think drawing those dividing lines and showing that taking on bad bosses that don't pay the minimum wage, taking on bad bosses that aren't delivering the employment rights that we are expanding at the moment.

"That will define why we're doing the things that we're doing, and it will make people hear them that much clearer."

She insisted she remains a "loyal foot soldier" and support of Sir Keir Starmer's, and does not "take any joy in speaking out like this".

But she added: "I genuinely believe those results on Thursday need to be the canary down the mine for the Labour Party, and I was genuinely alarmed by their response."

"That's why I felt I had the need to speak out, because I think unless we issue a course correction now, we are in danger of our own existential crisis over the coming months, years, and certainly in the next election."

The Sheffield MP served for a brief time as Transport Secretary in Sir Keir's first government, before resigning after it emerged she had pleaded guilty to a criminal offence in 2013.

Since the local elections, Ms Haigh has become increasingly vocal about the failings of Sir Keir and his wider No. 10 operation, criticising the culture of briefings from the PM's advisors.

She accused Downing Street insiders of sexist briefings against female ministers, adding she is "really fed up" with the attacks.

It was reported this weekend that Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson are facing the sack.

She told Newsnight: "I'm just really fed up of opening the papers and reading briefings against my female former colleagues."

"And I was really angry over the weekend to see the response to the electoral defeat that we had suffered at the hands of Reform to be that we should sack two female, northern Cabinet ministers and two of our best communicators with those voters that we need to communicate with most.

"I think that does reveal that there are people working in No 10 who are more interested in those kinds of politics than they are in running the country."