Benefits U-turn Labour insiders decry 'staggering failure of political management'

The Conservative shadow cabinet minister looked more cheerful than at any point in the 12 months since the general election: "What's going on? How did they get into such a mess? What are they going to do?"

- Jessica Elgot Peter Walker Pippa Crerar

The answer, a couple of days later, involved Keir Starmer and his ministers making a series of emergency concessions on their big welfare reform programme, to prevent the otherwise far-greater and seemingly inevitable ignominy of the bill being voted down in the Commons.

U-turns of various sorts are an inevitability in government; the main distinction is how elegantly you can perform them. And this week's eventual cave-in to backbench Labour pressure, formally announced in a Downing Street statement after midnight on Thursday, was very messy indeed.

To return to the shadow minister's gleeful query - how did it end up like this? Inevitably, the narrative will depend on who you ask. But a common thread, even among some in No 10, is the idea of a government worryingly disconnected from its own MPs.

From the moment in March that Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, first set out consultative proposals to overhaul welfare payments, it was evident that a large number of backbenchers had worries about elements of the plan; notably, the green paper set out a significant tightening of the eligibility for personal independence payment (Pip), which helps those with long-term illness or disability, a concern shared by numerous charities.

But armed with a 150-plus Commons majority and what felt to some MPs like an almost messianic insistence on its mission of turning around an increasingly unaffordable social security system, Downing Street ploughed on.

"This has happened because of an arrogance from the top," one veteran Labour MP said. "On the day of the green paper, the whips were drinking on the terrace [the outside of the Strangers' Bar in parliament] saying they thought a maximum of 10 people would actually rebel. They were laughing at us.

"I think they didn't think anyone would have the guts from the new intake. But they have been doing their own organising."