07/02/2025 16:03
The Guardian
The work and pensions secretary said those who think they were unable to work probably could with the right support. This live blog is closedLord Hermer, the attorney general, must be getting used to bad publicity, but there is an article in the Times today that ought to worry him more than others.A long-standing friend and barrister colleague of Keir Starmer (Hermer was Starmer’s junior in countless cases), Hermer was a surprise choice for attorney general. Emily Thornberry thought she was lined up for the job. But Starmer appointed Hermer, who became the first person to be appointed attorney general in more than 100 years who was not already an MP or peer.On Chagos, the popular critique is simple. Hermer, an actual lefty lawyer who would wear that pejorative as a badge of honour, is putting international law — already an ephemeral and often disregarded thing even before the return of Donald Trump — before domestic politics …One puts the case against the attorney-general like this: “Richard seems to be under the impression that the government needs objective legal advice.” Another senior figure now butting heads with Hermer adds: “He genuinely doesn’t realise that he is our lawyer.” Trying to govern for voters who would otherwise be drawn to the radical right is proving much harder with Hermer laying down the law: pushing back, warning that this or that initiative can’t go ahead for fear of judicial reviews ministers would happily fight to prove a political point.This week I asked a minister who knows Starmer well whether he might one day move Hermer if the politics of the moment demanded it. They answered yes, without hesitation. If my co-author and I have learnt anything about the PM from studying his leadership in often microscopic detail, it is that he is capable of moving hard and fast when political reality changes …The legal architecture he and his radical contemporaries helped to build — Starmer at Doughty Street, Hermer at Matrix Chambers — is beginning to look distinctly old-fashioned. If it no longer serves his government, is this shapeshifting prime minister really prepared to lash himself to the mast of a sinking ship? Continue reading...
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