Darren Jones says Keir Starmer showed leadership by acting decisively after his deputy resigned
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Keir Starmer’s government is not in chaos, the prime minister’s new chief secretary, Darren Jones, has said following an emergency reshuffle triggered by Angela Rayner’s resignation as deputy prime minister.
The cabinet reshuffle, which had been planned for later in the autumn, was brought forward by Starmer in an attempt to assert control after Rayner was forced to step down from all three of her roles, having been found to have breached the ministerial code over her tax arrangements.
Asked whether the public should see the flurry of ministerial changes as instability, just a week into the new parliamentary session and barely days after Starmer announced he had started “phase two” of his premiership, Jones told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the reshuffle was actually a show of leadership.
