Jon Sopel tears into Labour in brutal Question Time attack | Politics | News

Jon Sopel ripped the Cabinet minister over Labour’s latest local election U-turn in the Question Time clash. The journalist and podcast host drew applause from the audience as he criticized the Government’s “political incompetence” in the face of repeated rollbacks despite Sir Keir Starmer’s overwhelming majority.

The moment came as the BBC program debated whether U-turns were a good thing or a sign of weakness. Turning to Transport Minister Heidi Alexander, Mr Sopel said: “It seems to me that you have a huge majority, but when it comes to personal independence payments, it was political incompetence that you couldn’t get that through the House of Commons and had to backtrack on that when you had the majority that most other governments in history have only dreamed of.

“Yet you had to go down again and again this week during the election when you suddenly received legal advice that was bad for you.

“Why didn’t you seek legal advice in the first place so you wouldn’t have to go through the embarrassment of having to do it, and then back out?”

Ms Alexander said: “We have received up-to-date legal advice when it comes to the local election decision.

“And if it were a choice between a complex, expensive process through the courts and making the decision now to provide clarity to the 30 or so councils who have come to use it as they go through local government restructuring and say there is too much time and expense to organize elections this year….”

Pressed by host Fiona Bruce about why the government hasn’t taken this legal advice, the Labor politician added: “As a government minister, advice is updated sometimes and you can either choose to ignore it or you can choose to act on it.”

Votes for 30 councils in England were postponed as part of the Labor Party’s reorganization of local government.

But they were reinstated on Monday following a legal challenge from Nigel Farage’s Reform UK.