Transport Secretary departs after it emerged she pleaded guilty to incorrectly telling police that a work mobile phone was stolen in 2013
Here is how, in the letter announcing her departure, Louise Haigh sets out the events, before she was an MP, that have led to her becoming the first minister to leave Keir Starmer’s government. She wrote:
As you know, in 2013 I was mugged in London. As a 24-year-old woman, the experience was terrifying. In the immediate aftermath, I reported the incident to the police. I gave the police a list of my possessions that I believed had been stolen, including my work phone. Some time later, I discovered that the handset in question was still in my house. I should have immediately informed my employer and not doing so straight away was a mistake.
Long-serving frontbencher Haigh – who was seen by many as one of the few remaining standard-bearers of the “soft left” – is the first Cabinet casualty of the new government. Playbook hears Haigh was on a train back from an announcement in Leeds with patchy phone signal last night while firefighting the fallout. At that point her allies said she believed she’d be staying in the post, having “fully disclosed” the “traumatic” incident to Starmer before he appointed her to the shadow cabinet in 2020.
