Transport secretary Louise Haigh quits over ‘phone theft false report’ - Heidi Alexander named successor

Louise Haigh has become the first person to resign from Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet.

Haigh announced she was standing down on Friday after it was revealed by Sky News and The Times she had a conviction for making a false statement to the police that her work mobile phone was among her possessions stolen during a London mugging in 2013.

She pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation while a parliamentary candidate in 2014, before being elected MP for Sheffield Heeley the following year.

The London’s Standard’s chief political correspondent Rachael Burford reports on the circumstances of the case.

Following Haigh’s resignation, Heidi Alexander, MP for Swindon South, was named the new transport secretary, after previously work as Sadiq Khan’s deputy transport mayor from 2018 to 2021.

Our transport editor Ross Lydall explains Alexander’s work in the capital, and what will she find in her DfT in-tray.

In part two, we’re joined by actor Kit Young, on his role in Shakespeare’s All’s Well That End’s Well at London’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, learning a fictional language and getting his Bafta award through airport security.

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