{"id":13921,"date":"2024-10-12T03:17:44","date_gmt":"2024-10-12T03:17:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/starmer-rebukes-minister-over-po-ferries-boycott-call\/"},"modified":"2024-10-12T03:17:44","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T03:17:44","slug":"starmer-rebukes-minister-over-po-ferries-boycott-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/starmer-rebukes-minister-over-po-ferries-boycott-call\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer rebukes minister over P&O Ferries \u2018boycott\u2019 call"},"content":{"rendered":"


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For the first time since becoming Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has publicly rebuked one of his cabinet ministers – after remarks that appeared to put off a company attending an important investment summit on Monday.<\/p>\n

Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said that she had boycotted P&O Ferries in recent years and would encourage other people to do so.<\/p>\n

The firm sacked hundreds of workers in one go in 2022 and replaced them with lower paid agency staff.<\/p>\n

But P&O Ferries\u2019 parent company, DP World, has now suggested it will not attend the government\u2019s flagship gathering for potential future investors and may postpone an investment announcement because of what the transport secretary said<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI think we’ll resolve that,\u201d Starmer told the BBC\u2019s Newscast podcast.<\/p>\n

When I asked if Haigh had been wrong to describe the company as cowboys and suggest a boycott, he said: \u201cWell, look, that’s not the view of the government.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a view Haigh has set out before, but words mean more when you are a secretary of state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Responding to the incident, Conservative shadow business secretary, Kevin Hollinrake, said that on the eve of the investment event it was “body blow for the government”. <\/p>\n

“[It] shows that Labour cabinet ministers have never been in business, don\u2019t understand business and don\u2019t know how to talk to business. They just haven\u2019t got a clue.” he said. <\/p>\n

Senior figures I have spoken to in government are incensed at the suggestion from a senior minister of a boycott \u2013 at just the point they are trying to claim they lead a \u201cpro-business\u201d administration.<\/p>\n

I understand conversations between the government and the company are ongoing to try to tempt them to turn up on Monday.<\/p>\n

Starmer added that he believed the investment summit was evidence of a growing confidence from companies in the UK\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Heathrow Airport’s had to sort of expand the VIP area, the sheer number of people coming in for our summit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But the prime minister could have done without a public row with one of those invited and with one of his cabinet ministers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For the first time since becoming Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has publicly rebuked one of his cabinet ministers – after remarks that appeared to put off a company attending an important investment summit on Monday. Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said that she had boycotted P&O Ferries in recent years and would encourage other people […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[2267,936,120,1830,6043,961],"class_list":["post-13921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uk","tag-boycott","tag-call","tag-ferries","tag-minister","tag-rebukes","tag-starmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13923,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13921\/revisions\/13923"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}