Keir Starmer has insisted he is a ‘hard-enough bastard’ to lead the country – despite capitulating to his own MPs over benefit cuts.
In a bizarre aside, the Prime Minister pushed back against suggestions that recent U-turns have wrecked his political authority.
Asked whether he was tough enough to drive through change following a series of reverses, he told the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast that he was ‘proud’ of his record in government.
‘We need to reflect on where things have not gone according to plan, and the Welfare Bill was one of them,’ he said. ‘But we also need to emphasise the very many good things we have done.’
The Arsenal fan denied that he had ‘lost the [Labour] dressing room’.
And when podcast host Nick Robinson revealed that a former football team-mate had described Sir Keir as a ‘hard bastard’, the PM responded: ‘I’m a hard-enough bastard to find out who said that so I can have a discussion with them.’
His comments echoed Ed Miliband’s much-mocked bravado in 2015 when he responded to questions about his suitability for power by declaring: ‘Hell, yes, I’m tough enough.’
Downing Street declined to comment further on Sir Keir’s words yesterday, but insisted the PM was not a ‘pushover’ despite caving in to pressure to make huge U-turns on welfare cuts, the winter fuel payment and grooming gangs in recent weeks.
In an interview with the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast, Sir Keir Starmer pushed back on the idea that his recent series of U-turns were a sign that he ‘had lost the dressing room’ when it came to his control of Labour MPs
When host Nick Robinson revealed that a former football team-mate had described Sir Keir as a ‘hard bastard’, the PM responded: ‘I’m a hard-enough bastard to find out who said that so I can have a discussion with them’ Pictured: Sir Keir checking-in on an injured player during one of his regular games of five-a-side
Prime minister Keir Starmer (left) and chancellor Rachel Reeves (right) embrace during a visit to the Sir Ludwig Guttmann Health and Wellbeing Centre in east London on July 3, 2025
Sir Keir did acknowledge an array of blunders, saying caving into Labour rebels on welfare was a ‘tough day’ and that he regretted a speech warning that uncontrolled immigration could turn Britain into an ‘island of strangers’.
The PM tried to make a virtue out of U-turns on issues such as the national inquiry into grooming gangs, arguing it was ‘common sense’ to ‘look again’ when doubts were raised.
‘I’m not one of these ideological thinkers, where ideology dictates what I do,’ said.
‘I’m a pragmatist. You can badge these things as U-turns – it’s common sense to me. If someone says to me, “here’s some more information and I really think it’s the right thing to do”, I’m the kind of person that says, “well, in which case, let’s do it”.’
In a message to Labour MPs, Sir Keir said the Government needed to ‘emphasise the many good things we have done’.
‘We’re only just starting. This in a sense is the toughest year, so we’re only just beginning,’
he said, adding that he did not ‘pretend’ that the Labour revolt this week which forced him to neuter his benefit curbs was not a ‘tough day’.
‘I take responsibility,’ he said. ‘We didn’t get the process right.’
But he insisted the Government had ‘done some fantastic things’ and ‘driven through so much change’.
The PM said that included bringing down waiting lists in the NHS, as well as ‘loads of improvements in schools and stuff that we can do for children’.
Sir Keir went on: ‘Whether that’s rolling out school uniform projects, whether it’s school meals, breakfast clubs, you name it – and also [bringing in] a huge amount of investment into the country.
‘And of course we’ve been busy getting three trade deals.’
When our political leaders try to ‘talk tough’
‘Am I tough enough? Hell, yes, I’m tough enough.’
Ed Miliband, March 2015, on whether he was tough enough to be PM.
Former Labour leader Ed Miliband is widely thought to have torpedoed his chances of winning the election after struggling to eat a bacon sandwich
‘You worked so hard, you didn’t feel you’d drunk ten pints by four o’clock, you used to sweat so much.’
William Hague, August 2000, boasting he drank 14 pints a day as a teenage delivery worker.
Ex Tory leader William Hague once claimed he drank 14 pints a day while working as a teenage drlivery worker
‘I am a fighter, not a quitter.’
Liz Truss, October 22, the day before she resigned as Prime Minister.
Liz Truss making a speech outside 10 Downing Street, London before travelling to Buckingham Palace for an audience with King Charles III to formally resign as PM in October 2022
‘I have to confess, when me and my friend, sort of, used to run through the fields of wheat – the farmers weren’t too pleased about that.’
Theresa May, June 2017, on the naughtiest thing she had done.
Theresa May came in for widespread mockery after she claimed the naughiest thing she’d ever done was run through a field of wheat
