No 10's message to jittery Labour MPs: Toughen up

Money might be tight for Rachel Reeves, but she is trying to stretch Number 11’s hospitality budget.

The chancellor is holding a series of drinks receptions for Labour MPs, an opportunity for casual chit-chat and get a quick selfie in Downing Street.

Oh, and while you’re here, don’t even think about rebelling on spending cuts. Or there will be no more wine and nibbles for you.

On the face of it the chancellor, and her boss Keir Starmer, have nothing to worry about.

They are sitting on a majority of around 150. There is a long time until an election. The official opposition hasn't even chosen its new leader yet.

And yet there is real nervousness at the top of the Labour government about how to keep all these new MPs in line.

In part, because so many of them are new, and after spending months (or years) being rude about the Tory government, aren’t used to being bombarded with criticism about their government’s choices.

Is that flurry of inbox activity something to worry about, or not? They have no way to judge.

For Tories in the last Parliament, it was Barnard Castle: for many, the scale of complaints about Dominic Cummings’ eye test during Covid lockdown dwarfed every other issue.

Before that it was government plans to privatise forests. Or to recognise animal sentience.

For Labour MPs, the issue of Israel and Gaza dominated in the last year of the parliament. Go further back and it was gay marriage. Before that, foxhunting. Before that Iraq. Lib Dems of a certain vintage are still trying to get through all the tuition fees complaints backlog.

For new MPs, they have no yardstick.

Elected on 4 July, packed off to their own constituencies on 30 July, all those nice constituents who said they were going to vote for them now seem jolly cross. But who are they?

Are they the usual suspects, who will complain about everything? Political opponents cross about the election result? Noisy campaign groups orchestrating blanket bombing of inboxes? Or are these genuine concerns of an affected constituent who will need a considered response?

As Anne-Marie Trevelyan, the former Conservative cabinet minister, pointed out on my BBC 5 Live show this week: “Nobody ever writes to say they agree with your position.”

So new MPs, particularly Labour MPs, are feeling under siege. They spent the summer, laptop perched in coffee shops waiting to collect office keys, besieged by an ever rising inbox unread tally.

Some are already buckling, telling Number 10 that they cannot support the cut winter fuel payments cut. Something must be done.

Not all new Labour MPs are equal. Some of those in longstanding target seats have been through perhaps two years of intense preparation and coaching (which apparently included trust exercises and lying on the floor screaming under the instruction of a drama teacher).

The Labour machine tried to prepare them. But then there are dozens of people who put their name down in no-hope seats because someone had to be a Labour candidate, but just on the understanding that they wouldn’t win. And then they did.

The message from Number 10? Toughen up. There’s more misery to come.

When I saw Keir Starmer this week on a school visit, I put it to him that the sums at stake - around £1bn - could be saved by removing winter fuel payments for all but the poorest pensioners - barely touch the sides of the £22bn the Treasury is trying to find.

From the PM’s perspective, I suggested, these Labour MPs need to calm down and embrace for more of this, don't they?

“They do and there's tough decisions to come,” Sir Keir told me, before rehearsing the need to “grip the issue” and “fix the foundations”.

It’s also worth remembering that on 4 July there were 411 Labour MPs elected but there are only 404 currently sitting in the Commons.

Seven were suspended for six months for rebelling to back calls to scrap the two-child limit on benefits. Next week there will be a vote on winter fuel payments.

And Sir Keir had a blunt message to anyone thinking of rebelling on that, or any other issues central to the government’s economic plan.

“Look, I'm really tough on this," he said.

"Obviously we did take action last time round. We were elected on a mandate of change. We were elected to take tough decisions and bring about the change this country needs over five years. We will not be able to do that if we don't do the tough stuff now. It's not easy. And I understand why it feels difficult, but it's got to be done.”

Yet for many new MPs that will be a hard message to swallow. Even with a glass of Number 11’s best plonk to wash it down.

Matt Chorley presents a political show live from Westminster weekdays from 1400 on BBC Radio 5 Live.