What does Starmer’s Labour reshuffle signify?
Among the flurry of news app notifications (and please do download the shiny new City PM version if you haven’t) denoting various shadow cabinet ministers being promoted, demoted or sacked yesterday, you’d be forgiven for feeling somewhat lost in the weeds.
But Sir Keir Starmer’s reshuffle, coming on the same day former Partygate invigilator Sue Gray joined him as Labour’s chief of staff, tells us a fair bit about how he’d plan to govern.
Firstly, Angela Rayner. The self-styled ‘John Prescott in a skirt’, Rayner’s vape-loving, rave-going persona either delights voters, or sets their teeth on edge.
But either way, thanks to her independent mandate as deputy leader, elected by the party’s membership, she’s going nowhere.
Her apparent promotion – to shadow levelling up secretary and an official addition of shadow deputy prime minister – gives her scope to carve out her own role and dive into the detail of a broad policy area, while pitting against a worthy opponent in Tory big beast Michael Gove.
But Rayner’s move can also be read as a shift away from Starmer’s inner circle, focusing her attention elsewhere while retaining key union links via her efforts on the future of work brief.
More broadly, the central reshuffle takeaway is the resurgence of New Labour-ite players, such as Liz Kendall to shadow work and pensions, into top cabinet roles.
Pat McFadden, Blair’s former political secretary, being given a key machinery of government enforcer gig at the shadow cabinet office, as well as taking the national campaigns role, is perhaps the biggest name, bringing his No10 experience to a somewhat greener frontbench.
One surprise was Darren Jones – long thought of as a star of the business and trade select committee, taking top bosses to task. Instead of a switch to a new shadow DSIT role, he’ll be replacing McFadden as chief Treasury secretary, in a sign of the LoTO’s confidence in him.
The fate of some on the so-called ‘soft-left’ wing, like former shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy, harshly demoted to shadow international development, or Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, who left the front bench entirely, demonstrated Starmer’s sense of grip on the party he’s made his own over the last three years.
Sensing this, campaigners at Momentum branded the shake-up “a narrow band of Blairites unwilling to offer decisive change”.
It’s a charge often levelled at Starmer’s Labour. Political strategists cite the ‘Ming vase’ idea that electability is a fragile bubble, easily crushed by bold or divisive policy proposals.
But his decisions yesterday indicate a level of clear decisiveness and direction many have been crying out for.
Shoring up his own power base, appointing allies and preparing his election shadow cabinet, if not a full jump into ‘government-in-waiting’ status, Starmer is certainly doing more than gingerly dipping a toe.
And coming as latest Redfield and Wilton polling finds Labour has held on to its 16-point lead over the Tories, with Starmer 17 points ahead of Sunak, that won’t go down badly at all.