Keir Starmer says Reform UK doesn’t want to solve small boats problem because they need ‘politics of grievance’ – UK politics live

Prime minister says Reform has ‘no reason to exist if problems are solved’ as he says he wants asylum hotels emptied by working through people’s cases

And while we are talking about Blair-era Labour aides, Peter Hyman, who wrote speeches for Tony Blair and later worked for Keir Starmer in the run-up to the general election, has launched a new Substack blog. It is called Changing the Story, which tells you quite a lot about what he thinks is going wrong with No 10. Here is an extract from his first post.

Starmer is an ‘opportunity’ prime minister forced to become a ‘security’ one. And that’s why the government’s narrative is seen by some to be elusive.

Let me explain.

I remember well Tim Allan’s leaving drinks at Number 10 in the earlyish Blair era. In his fulsome farewell speech Tony Blair noted only half jokingly “Tim’s even more right wing than me..”

The same Tim Allan who as head of Portland had a contract to polish Vladimir Putin’s reputation?