Why did Sir Keir Starmer drop Emily Thornberry? Because she is gaffe-prone, a flag snob, and he wanted to appoint an old lawyer pal to the role, one assumes. Since Richard Hermer has recently defended Shamima Begum and Gerry Adams and has strong views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one imagines our new Attorney General will provide many Telegraph scoops in weeks to come.
Nonetheless, Starmer’s decision to unceremoniously dump a fellow Shadow Cabinet long-marcher – and erstwhile leadership rival, no less – shows an open ruthlessness. Despite unenthusiastic endorsement from the electorate, our new Prime Minister will never be more powerful than he is now. If allies need disappointing, deadwood clearing, or scores settling he can go ahead and do so.
Most of the appointments were unsurprising. Rachel Reeves is our new Chancellor, David Lammy Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper Home Secretary, and Angela Rayner Deputy Prime Minister. Reeves and Rayner are in the strongest positions – Reeves now has the might of the Treasury behind her, whilst Rayner has her authority from Labour members as Deputy Leader. She is unsackable.
Lammy is the appointment that has so far generated the most scepticism, largely for his lack of foreign policy experience, undiplomatic language, and historical illiteracy. Douglas Alexander, David Miliband, and Peter Mandelson have all been talked of as replacements. Lammy has the gig since sacking him would have looked poor form for diversity reasons. How long will he last?
A similar question can be asked of Yvette Cooper. Labour were not averse to playing musical chairs with the Home Office when last in office. With Reform now breathing down their necks in dozens of constituencies, reducing migration, controlling borders, and getting more bobbies on the beat is essential. When progress inevitably stalls, will Starmer reach for the reshuffle handle?
Plenty of ministers have similarly daunting in-trays. Wes Streeting has already declared the NHS broken. He now can see – with Alan Milburn in tow – if he can fix it. Negotiations with the junior doctors have already begun. Similarly, Shabana Mahmood inherits a broken justice system, alongside a new junior minister with eye-catching views on the prison population. Is he talking cobblers?
If automatically releasing prisoners less than halfway through their sentences to deal with our prison population crisis will dominate the headlines for the first weeks of Starmer’s government, Ed Miliband’s plans to decarbonise the grid by 2030 which will attract more attention going forwards. The ambition is practically and fiscally impossible. Eventually it – and Miliband – will be dropped.
Alongside Cooper and Lammy, Miliband is one of a few veterans of the previous Labour government to have returned from fourteen years in the wilderness. Pat McFadden is Starmer’s cross-governmental enforcer as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. John Healey is the new Defence Secretary, jetted off to Kiev and Washington already. Hilary Benn has the Northern Ireland brief.
Similarly, below the Cabinet level, Chris Bryant, Stephen Timms, and Alexander have all been appointed to ministerial roles. Timms – a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury – enters the Department for Work and Pensions having run its select committee. Diana Johnson, Cooper’s successor as the chair of the home affairs committee, is now a junior minister under her predecessor.
It would be wrong to say that this is a restoration of the pre-2010 regime, since plenty of ministers, and most of the Cabinet, have never been in government before. But executive experience and knowledge of policy briefs are at a premium. Alongside Hermer and Timpson comes Patrick Vallance as the science minister – straight from the Tony Blair Institute, the centrist Tower of Babel.
All of this is the stuff of centre-left commentators’ wet dreams, as they nod vigorously along to assertions that the grown-ups are now back in charge. In fairness, if Starmer does make good on the suggestion that he will ditch the preference for reshuffling early and often, we could get some long-awaited ministerial continuity. This would be a good thing for the quality of government.
Yet even with Reeves’s tickling of YIMBY bellies this morning, Starmer’s new ministers will soon discover that Britain will not automatically be improved just by having Labour in power. If they do fail to improve on voter priorities – like living standards, immigration, and waiting lists – they could become very unpopular very quickly. The calls for a reshuffle will soon grow louder.
For the time being, this is a government aiming to match its big talk of Service, Competency, and Delivery with action. The problem will be matching those ambitions to actions. I keep an eyebrow raised, Spock-style.