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Boris Johnson has hailed his team as a “People’s Cabinet” at No 10 — as Jeremy Corbyn faced a mutiny of Labour MPs calling for a “complete clear-out” of him and his key lieutenants from Labour HQ.
A day of destiny for both parties began with the Prime Minister calling senior ministers to No 10 to discuss Thursday’s Queen’s Speech and to pose for a formal portrait around the Cabinet table.
He told ministers they must “work harder” to keep the trust of new Tory voters, saying as they banged the table in support: “People have a high level of expectation and we must deliver for them.”
Mr Johnson quipped, “you ain’t seen nothing yet, folks” and told the Cabinet: “The voters of this country have changed this Government and our party for the better and we must repay their trust now by working flat out to change our country for the better.”
He added: “We should have absolutely no embarrassment about saying we are a People’s Government. This is a People’s Cabinet and we are going to be working to deliver on the priorities of the British peoples. That’s what they want us to do.
“It was a seismic election but we need to repay their trust and work 24 hours a day.”
Elsewhere in Westminster, angry Labour backbenchers were grouping ahead of tonight’s first meeting of the shrunken parliamentary Labour party to demand that Mr Corbyn sack powerful aides he appointed to key positions — and then quit himself as leader.
Wes Streeting, MP for Ilford North, told the Evening Standard: “Over coming weeks many Labour staff who slogged their guts out will be facing redundancy, while the architects of Labour’s disaster are sitting in HQ on very high salaries.”
Those facing calls to go at the PLP include the £110,000-a-year general secretary Jennie Formby, a former union official who was appointed by Mr Corbyn after he created a vacancy by recommending a peerage to the previous incumbent.
She wrote to staff on Friday warning them of job losses on the way.
Other key targets were communications chief Seumas Milne, who was paid £104,044 last year, and head of digital campaigning Karie Murphy, who earned £92,563.
Both were moved from the leader’s office staff on to the party payroll when Ms Formby took over at HQ, meaning they will not automatically leave when Mr Corbyn goes in March.
All three were key figures driving the Labour leader’s strategy, policies and election pitch.
Mr Streeting said: “It is not just Jeremy Corbyn who should be facing the music but those around him who led the party to its worst defeat since 1935.”
MPs have claimed there were numerous examples of incompetence or political favouritism. The list includes giving London constituencies more staff than the North East, where key seats were lost.
Activists attending a call centre in the West Midlands, where there were vulnerable marginals, were infuriated when ordered to drum up voters in safer seats in London.
Mr Streeting said there had been “incompetence at the heart of the Labour Party”.
He said: “We had resources misdirected to seats where we had no chance of winning, while defending seats that were given minimal help until too late.
“I have heard of one seat in Sunderland where our Freepost election addresses arrived at voters’ homes the day after polling day.
“We had ‘Corbynista Victory Ale’ arranged for election night at Labour HQ while key seats were scrambling to raise cash.
“The list goes on and on. And yet the architects of Labour’s defeat are sitting in HQ on very high salaries.”
Barking MP Dame Margaret Hodge said Ms Formby and the other key lieutenants had to go. “They control the machinery of the party and they have lost the confidence of MPs and members,” she said.
Some have stopped calling for Mr Corbyn to leave office immediately since he agreed to start a leadership contest in January.
Rebecca Long-Bailey has overtaken Sir Keir Starmer as favourite to win, with her flatmate Angela Rayner tipped to run for deputy.
The GMB and Unite unions are said to be throwing their weight behind Ms Long-Bailey.
However, Neil Coyle, MP for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, said it would be “an affront” to voters if Mr Corbyn stayed in his post any longer and called for an interim leader.
He said weekly Prime Minister’s Questions should be used to test Labour leadership contenders.
He added that he will use the meeting of the PLP to call for a special leadership hustings for party members in seats where Labour lost.
“Anybody who thinks they can make the case to the whole country must start by showing they can make a case in those seats that we held previously,” he said.
Asked what reception Mr Corbyn will get at the PLP tonight, Labour MP Chris Bryant told Kay Burley on Sky News: “I think some people are very, very angry and I understand why.”
He added: “Of course Jeremy will have to show that there were major strategic errors.”
Jenny Chapman, who lost her Darlington seat to the Conservatives at the election, said it was “patronising” to think that traditional Labour voters wanted the “next leader has to have ovaries, or a northern accent”.
She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme she was backing shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer
The Prime Minister chaired both a political and a normal Cabinet meeting for the first time since winning a majority of 80.
It came after a limited reshuffle last night, which included Simon Hart being named Welsh Secretary and Nicky Morgan staying on as Culture Secretary. She stood down as an MP but is taking a peerage to sit in the Lords.
