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P&O’s owner will attend the government’s international investment summit on Monday despite claims that a row over calls to boycott the ferry firm had thrown a £1billion investment into jeopardy.
Dubai-based DP World was reported to have pulled out of the summit and put plans to announce a major investment in the UK under review after Transport Secretary Louise Haigh’s scathing criticism of P&O as ‘cowboy operators’.
The Department of Business and Trade confirmed on Saturday that DP World will attend the summit after the prime minister said that Ms Haigh’s call for a boycott was ‘not the view of the government’.
In an ITV interview this week the Transport Secretary said: ‘I’ve been boycotting P&O Ferries for two-and-a-half years, and I encourage consumers to do the same.’
The operator was criticised by politicians from both main parties in March 2022 when it suddenly sacked 800 British seafarers and replaced them with cheaper, mainly overseas, staff, saying it was necessary to stave off bankruptcy.
Recent comments threatened to undermine the government’s high-profile summit as Keir Starmer marked 100 days in office, after Sky News reported that DP World’s announcement of a planned major investment worth some £1bn was under review.
Louise Haigh, the Transport Secretary, made scathing remarks about P&O (Pictured Oct 8)
File. P&O owner DP World said it would attend the investment summit after all
Sir Keir Starmer has been criticised by his New Labour forebears, who have suggested he has arrived in government without a plan
Labour MP Liam Byrne, chairman of the House of Commons’ Business and Trade Committee, sought to play down the row, saying Ms Haigh was ‘absolutely right’ to criticise P&O’s past behaviour, but that new legislation would regulate how the firm can treat its staff.
On Wednesday, Ms Rayner and Ms Haigh introduced legislation to prevent similar actions, with the Transport Secretary describing P&O Ferries as ‘cowboy operators’ and Ms Rayner saying the incident had been ‘an outrageous example of manipulation by an employer’.
But it comes at a sensitive time, with a high-profile investment summit on Monday anticipated as an opportunity to champion the firms who have already committed billions of pounds to the UK and attempt to woo others who are considering new deals.
‘The message, I think, that is going to go from the summit is really clear that if you want to come and do business here, you can’t behave in the way that P&O has in the past.
‘And I think the Prime Minister was expressing that confidence in the way in which DP World is going to run their shop,’ Mr Byrne said.
While attracting and keeping investment remains a major challenge for Britain, the new Labour government will hope to shake allegations of coming in without a plan – as the PM wrestles with a series of scandals that threaten to undermine his first 100 days in Number 10.
One official from the Blair era suggested the new inhabitants of Downing Street had come in without a plan for what they wanted to do with their time in charge.
Insiders from the Blair era have suggested Sir Keir and his team are blind to the public’s view of the early scandals to beset the government, including the donations scandal (pictured: Tony Blair and his wife Cherie shortly after winning the 1997 election)
Labour has weathered a series of scandals since coming into government three months ago – including controversial donations provided by Lord Alli (pictured)
Sir Keir succumbed to pressure and agreed to pay back £6,000 of donations including a clothes rental deal provided for his wife Victoria (pictured)
‘It’s a little bit unforgivable to come in without a plan of some sort. I mean, that is the point of being in government. You have to actually want to do something,’ the official told the New Yorker.
The American magazine has profiled Sir Keir’s first 100 days in a withering article entitled ‘Keir Starmer’s Bafflingly Bad Start as the UK’s Prime Minister’ – a time dominated by accusations of cronyism and scandal.
Sir Keir told the BBC’s Newscast podcast earlier today that his first 100 days have been beset by ‘choppy days’ and ‘bumps and side-winds’ – a diplomatic take on an almost innumerable number of scandals.
Sir Keir has been criticised for accepting thousands of pounds of donations of glasses, clothes and even the use of an £18million flat – the latter, he said, so his son could study for his GCSEs away from Number 10.
But he finally coughed up £6,000 for Taylor Swift tickets and a clothing rental deal for his wife Victoria amid intense political pressure – while Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves agreed to stop accepting clothes from powerful donors.
And the Home Office has been forced to rebuke reports Yvette Cooper personally intervened to ensure Taylor Swift was given a full police escort to her Wembley shows after the star’s mother – also her manager – insisted on it, on pain of the shows being cancelled.
There was also fury as Lord Alli, a Blair-era House of Lords appointee, was given a temporary pass to Number 10 despite having no official Government role, while other Labour-connected figures were fast-tracked into public jobs.
The official speaking to the New Yorker despaired of the stance taken in the early days of the donations scandal – that ministers had ‘abided by the rules’, regardless of how it looked to the public.
He said: ‘They say we have abided by the rules, so what’s wrong with it? They don’t think about how this actually looks, and that’s the politics of it. If you’re missing that bit, it makes it a whole lot worse.’
Labour has been blasted for choosing to scrap the universal winter fuel payment – to date one of its most significant political moves in government
Tony Blair’s former spin doctor Alistair Campbell (pictured) says the government’s ‘conversation’ with the British public has been ‘largely missing’ since Labour came into power
Sir Keir’s government may be ‘drifting’, according to one civil servant who worked under Tony Blair
Sue Gray resigned as chief of staff after it was revealed that she was being paid more than her boss, the Prime Minister
In light of the donations scandal, the rules on declarations of gifts are to be tightened up so that ministers declare hospitality and gifts linked to their government jobs as part of the MPs’ register of interests.
The separation between ministerial and MP gifts was created under the David Cameron Conservative government.
There are suggestions from some observers in the Blair era that Sir Keir and his team are simply lost and overwhelmed – that after spending years in opposition calling for change, they are hobbled by an inability to hatch a concrete plan.
And this is all aside from the actual political decisions taken by the government to date: most notably scrapping the universal winter fuel payment for pensioners.
It could be seen as rich, quite literally, from a man who accepted thousands of pounds in free clothes.
Among those observing with knowingness is Alastair Campbell, the legendary spin doctor who served as inspiration for the foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It and film spin-off In The Loop.
After Partygate report author Sue Gray resigned – some say, reluctantly – from her role as the prime minister’s chief of staff after it was revealed she earned more than him, Mr Campbell appeared to suggest the government had been lacking pep.
He told the BBC: ‘Government is harder than opposition. And government is not just about the technocratic delivery of policy and change.
‘It’s about the relentless, endless, never-ending conversation that you’re having with the country about what you are trying to do for the country. And I think it’s fair to say that that bit has been largely missing.’
John McTernan, Tony Blair’s former political secretary, says the Government is ‘drifting’.
Among the donations Sir Keir paid back were £3,398 of six Taylor Swift tickets for her Wembley shows (pictured: the Shake It Off singer performing in London in August)
Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves (pictured, left and right) also agreed to no longer accept donations of clothing
Almost half of Labour voters are now experiencing buyer’s remorse, according to a new poll rating the first 100 days of Sir Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner’s government
The brutal new poll carried out by YouGov reveals 47 per cent of Labour Voters say they feel disappointed in the government’s first 100 days
He told Times Radio earlier this month: ‘The Government has completely lost grip, I think, a grip on their operations, a grip on the media grid and they don’t dominate communications.
‘That has been because they have lacked a political narrative and the political drive and the momentum that drove them through the election to a great victory.
‘That seemed to run out after the sitting weeks ended in July and we got into the recess of August. It just went from the country demanding change to a Government delivering drift.’
Sir Keir remains resolute that he can turn things around, telling Newscast: ‘There are always going to be choppy days, choppy moments, I’ve been through this before, you get these days and weeks when things are choppy.
‘There’s no getting around that, that is in the nature of government, you’re under there’s huge scrutiny.’
And his biographer Tom Baldwin compared the situation to tentatively tiptoeing through a minefield, adding: ‘When he recognizes there is a problem, he’s quite ruthless.’
With Sue Gray gone and rules on donations tightened, there is talk of the government effectively seeking a ‘reset’ and starting over.
But a new YouGov poll suggests almost half of Labour voters are feeling buyer’s remorse, expressing ‘disappointment’ at the government’s performance to date.
Sir Keir has given himself an unenviable task of starting all over again, but from a less popular position than the one he found himself in 100 days ago.
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