Government delays Pip changes in last-minute concession ahead of key welfare vote

Chris Mason
Political editor

One massive U-turn wasn’t enough to stave off potential
defeat for the government.

So – extraordinarily – in the last hour or so,
another U-turn from ministers. And here’s why: brutal mathematics.

Downing
Street might command a massive majority, but today, this last week, it hasn’t
commanded the House of Commons.

I’m told late this afternoon they were
confronted with numbers which suggested defeat was very realistic.

Yet another
backtracking lever would have to be yanked. Now Sir Keir Starmer’s welfare reforms
appear threadbare; shorn of their central pillars of just a week ago.

His Work
and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall, humiliated again – her words just hours ago
later fed into the shredder. A penny for her thoughts right now.

In this, the
week of this government’s first anniversary, its biggest humiliation – a
certain chapter heading in its story, whatever happens in the coming years.