‘F***ing furious!’ Labour civil war as top minister slams Keir Starmer’s ‘humiliation'

Ian Murray openly criticised the Prime Minister (Image: Getty)

A senior Labour minister has publicly lashed out at Keir Starmer, condemning the Prime Minister’s handling of a botched September reshuffle. Ian Murray, who served as Scottish Secretary until a few months ago, was dismissed from the role by Sir Keir without any explanation.

However just 24 hours later he brought back into government, at a more junior level, following backlash from Labour MPs furious at Mr Murray’s sacking. The Edinburgh South MP has now taken the unusual step of publicly condemning the Prime Minister over the farce, adding that Sir Keir’s behaviour left his wife “f***ing furious”. He said: “For me, the hardest part was the complete lack of any sort of recognition for doing a half decent job. That’s the hardest bit.

Starmer sacked Mr Murray then brought him back 24 hours later (Image: Getty)

“The second hardest bit is having no explanation of why I was sacked, and as we sit here today I still don’t have that despite me asking on a number of occasions.

“The third bit is that I didn’t think I deserved the public humiliation of it all. I genuinely don’t know why it happened and that feels like an unfair gap.”

Mr Murray added: “It’s fair to say that Mariam [his wife] was absolutely f***ing furious. She was most angry about the fact that the prime minister didn’t have an explanation.”

Mr Murray is now serving as a senior minister in both the culture department and the department for science and technology.

He revealed he took five hours to consider the Prime Minister’s offer of a return to government, but questioned the bizarre dual job proposal.

Speaking to Holyrood magazine, he said: “My big questions about coming back into government were, why was it not offered to me at the time – and it wasn’t – why has the decision now been made and why?

Wes Streeting has also criticised the PM in recent days (Image: Getty)

“If I’m not good enough for the Scotland Office, why am I now number two in two major UK departments?”

It’s the second public criticism of a Prime Minister by a serving minister in recent days, following an overt attack by Health Secretary Wes Streeting.

In signs of the PM’s crumbling authority, Mr Streeting attacked Keir Starmer’s leadership as “technocratic” and said he was “frustrated” by the government.

Speaking to the New Statesman last week, the top cabinet minister insisted that while Labour has done “a huge amount” since gaining power last year, "that’s not reflected in the polls, and I don’t think it’s even reflected in our storytelling. I think we sell ourselves short.”