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Full list: Labour U-turns to date

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It was just 18 months ago that Keir Starmer took office, pledging to ‘stop the endless Conservative chaos’. How times change. Far from a politics that ‘treads more lightly on your lives’, it seems that every week now there is a fresh U-turn as the government totters like a punch-drunk boxer, stumbling from one crisis to the next. Mr S has done the honours and dutifully prepared a round-up of all the major policy switches that Labour has done since coming to office:

  1. The grooming gangs inquiry in June 2025
  2. Winter fuel payment cuts in June 2025
  3. Welfare cuts in June 2025
  4. Two-child benefit cap in November 2025
  5. Inheritance tax on farmers in December 2025
  6. Business rates for pubs in January 2026
  7. Digital ID in January 2026

And these are the pre-election promises that Starmer has broken too:

  1. Debt definition in October 2024
  2. Waspi Women in December 2024
  3. Transgender rights in April 2025
  4. Effective income tax hike in November 2025
  5. Employment Rights Bill concessions in December 2025
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Steerpike

Steerpike is The Spectator's gossip columnist, serving up the latest tittle tattle from Westminster and beyond. Email tips to steerpike@spectator.co.uk or message @MrSteerpike

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