Keir Starmer expressed his full confidence on Saturday in the transport secretary, Louise Haigh, after an explosive cabinet row cast fresh doubt over his Downing Street operation and threatened to overshadow a key international investment summit in London.
Hebblethwaite told MPs the ferry business was not viable without the changes, adding: “I would make this decision again, I’m afraid.”Keir Starmer is said to have expressed his confidence in transport secretary Louise Haigh over the P&O Ferries row.With DP World’s attendance at the investment summit in doubt, Starmer was asked on Friday if Haigh had been wrong to describe the company as a “cowboy operator” and to encourage a boycott.
Both Haigh and Rayner were said by insiders to be “hopping mad” that No 10 had not protected them, given that it had sanctioned the same kind of highly critical language towards P&O. The Dubai-based company owns the port of Southampton as well as London Gateway and was involved in the creation of some of the first of Rishi Sunak’s controversial freeports.