Laura Kuenssberg picked apart one of Sir Keir’s most often repeated claims since winning power (Image: GETTY; BBC)

The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg ruthlessly dismantled one of Labour’s key claims in their blame game of the last Tory government.

Since Labour won the election in July, the party of Government has repeatedly warned of difficult decisions ahead, blaming the Tories for reckless economic plans.

Laura Kuenssberg picked apart one of Sir Keir’s most often repeated claims since winning power (Image: GETTY; BBC)

Chancellor Rachel Reeves has said that “worst economic inheritance since World War Two,” adding that the Government has had to deal with a £22 billion black hole left by the Conservatives.

However, Ms Kuennsberg quickly pushed back on this in an analysis on the BBC website, where she pointed out that £9 billion of that much-quoted black hole figure was due to the public sector pay rises above-inflation which Labour granted.

In July, Ms Reeves agreed to give British public sector workers such as teachers and doctors inflation-busting pay rises worth £9.4 billion in a bid to avoid disruptive industrial action.

Starmer claims the Government has to deal with a £22 billion black hole left by the Conservatives (Image: Getty)

At the time, Ms Reeves blamed the previous Conservative administration for covering up the scale of the black hole in the public finances. The Chancellor added that the Government will have to cut public spending in other areas.

The BBC host wrote: “From the moment any government takes charge, their decisions matter.

“Part of the ‘£22 billion black hole’ that Labour loves to mention is £9 billion public sector pay rises – above inflation – that it has decided to grant.”

She went on to note that Labour insiders claim that the £22bn figure is hitting home in voter focus groups.

The scathing rebuke from Ms Kuennsberg comes ahead of her sit-down interview with Sir Keir Starmer in No 10 which will air tomorrow morning. It will be his first major interview from Downing Street.

She summed the Labour’s blame-game tactic on X, posting: “The new govt’s been busy playing the blame game, so when does the buck pass to them?”

Ms Kuennsberg highlighted the doom-and-gloom approach of the Labour’s first two months in power, saying they have focused on “the dire state of the economy, the dreadful state of our prisons” with a review of the NHS also on the way.

One senior government source told the BBC: “I’m prepared for people to get sick of hearing about the inheritance from the Tories.”

The BBC political host suggested that the tone of Sir Keir’s government will shift in early 2025, when the government hopes to deliver on its manifesto promises.

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Nigel Farage blasts Labour’s plan to stop the boats and reveals exactly why it won’t work

Nigel Farage has warned Labour’s plan will fail (Image: Getty)

And still they come. Already this year, 22,000 have crossed the English Channel on small dinghies – 8,000 of them since Keir Starmer came to power.

As ever, 90% of them are young males without any documentation or proof of their identity.

This Government’s promise to smash the gangs organising these crossings will never, in my opinion, work.

The truth is, they don’t have any realistic plan at all.

For decades, we’ve promised that we’d smash the drug gangs that inhabit all the towns and cities in our country.

More than 22,000 migrants have crossed the Channel this year (Image: Getty)

But of course, we can’t smash the drug gangs any more than we can smash the gangs operating out of Dunkirk and Calais for one very simple reason – money.

If a gang smuggling migrants across the English Channel can make up to €2 million a week, it doesn’t matter how severe the penalties are.

There will always be someone to fill the place of those who have been arrested.

There are five contenders left in the race to become the next Conservative leader.

Only Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, has dared to talk about leaving the ECHR.

The irony that the German Government is now considering using accommodation in Rwanda, built and paid for by Express readers’ money, is particularly galling.

Rwanda was actually never going to work, because if you remember, when the jet was on the runway about to take off with the first batch of migrants, an unnamed judge from the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg intervened and the plane couldn’t go.

But at least we can give the Conservatives a modicum of praise because they had a plan. It might not have worked, but it was something.

In the case of Labour, the promise for a new Border control boss with extended powers has not yet resulted in anybody being appointed.

It gives the impression the Labour government doesn’t care about illegal immigration and simply hopes that the problem will go away. Well, it won’t.

And in fact, it is only set to get worse.

We may not like the insults that come from French ministers, but to some extent, Gerald Darmanin has a point when he says it’s Britain’s fault because of the generosity of our benefits system, and that is why people choose to leave France.

I think it is safe to predict that even more migrants will come than have come over the course of the last four years unless we have a radical change of policy.

In 2020, I repeatedly went out into the English Channel and filmed the small dinghies crossing.

I said at the time that you may as well put a sign on the white cliffs of Dover that says, ‘Everyone Welcome’.

I predicted that huge numbers of people would come.

I even dared to say it would be the equivalent of an invasion.

Well, it has.

I promise you that no plan to deal with this problem will ever work while we are part of a European Court of Human Rights, whose powers have extended massively over the course of the last few years.

That is the truth. But in addition, there’s one other key factor in dealing with this problem, and it’s called political will.

Tony Abbott, who was the Prime Minister of Australia in 2012, simply towed the boats back to where they came from.

He was met with condemnation from the United Nations, the European Union, the British Government, and everybody else.

But guess what? The plan worked. I don’t see the political will in this country to do anything like this.

We’re told, for example, that we can’t send people back to Afghanistan because it’s not a safe country.

Yet last week, the German government did send a plane load of illegal immigrants back to Afghanistan.

Until we have politicians in this country who actually have the courage to stand up and do what a vast majority of the British population wants, we will never deal with this problem.