As he rose to his feet in the Commons in September 2024, the incoming Labour MP Josh Simons echoed Keir Starmer’s promise to deliver.
“Unless working people like those I am so proud to represent feel change and unless we in this chamber demonstrate humility and honesty and act with integrity and with respect, they have no reason to believe in democracy,” he said.
Seventeen months on, Starmer is engulfed in a scandal that threatens to undermine those principles and could yet prove terminal for his premiership, having prompted the resignation of two key No 10 figures.
Simons, a Cabinet Office minister, is a staunch ally of the prime minister and his now-departed chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.
View image in fullscreen A woman walks past a shop with a campaign leaflet for local MP Josh Simons in
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