Starmer’s Resignation Sparked a Chaotic Week for Labour’s Big Dogs

On Monday, the Bad News Lectern was bolted down in front of Downing Street for the sixth time in ten years (welcome to the UK: we’re Italy, without the cuisine). Andy Burnham was sworn in as an MP, and immediately knuckled down the task of shitposting. MPs are jostling for jobs with the incoming PM so hard that one minister (Mike Tapp, more on him later), might have talked himself out of the one he’s got. 

And poor Keir Starmer, languishing in the dog days of his premiership, must simply kill time until the van comes to take him to the big farm where he can run around as much as he likes.

So here we are, in the orderly transition of power. The big news from Andy Burnham’s camp is that he’s picked James Purnell (and not, as rumour had it, Josh Simons) for the chief of staff job. Purnell and Burnham go way back, playing football together in the days of Britpop and Blairism. 

This is a chief of staff who’ll have a near-telepathic understanding of his boss, and has experience both in government and leading large organisations. But this is politics: a chief of staff is a strategic partner to any prime minister, and has the opportunity to shape how they govern.

In New Labour, Purnell was a welfare hawk, proposing reforms to the benefits system that even David Cameron balked at. In recent years, he headed up a firm which advised the likes of BP, Amazon, Apple and Thames Water on policy and regulation. It’s tricky to see how that squares with Burnham’s stated intention to bring utilities under public control. 

Perhaps it’s the case that, between themselves, James Purnell and Andy Burnham do not see the chief of staff role as being in the mold of Morgan McSweeney (i.e. Purnell has little intention of setting the prime minister’s political agenda). But maybe, just maybe, a fox has been given a job in the henhouse C-suite.

It’s no secret that Burnham would have preferred a longer lead-time going into Downing Street – if nobody runs against him for the Labour leadership, he’ll be prime minister by mid-July. That gives him just three weeks to prepare for government, fresh from fighting the Makerfield by-election. 

Perhaps Keir Starmer just didn’t fancy sitting as a lame duck all the way into the autumn. Or maybe, a little stung by his ousting from high office, he’s disinclined to set Burnham up for success in government. The meeting between the two men earlier this week was said to be “frosty” (a miracle in this heat, amirite?).

It’s not all staring blankly at the wall and wondering where it all went wrong for the prime minister. Starmer is reportedly finalising the defence investment plan (as you may remember, the catalyst for John Healey and Al Carns’ resignations from government) ahead of the Nato summit in early-July. Burnham, meanwhile, is said to want to review it rather than waving it through. 

Burnham has indicated that he’s open to cutting welfare in order to spend more money on defence, and his team are saying that he’ll rustle up more cash for the armed forces than this administration was able to. The DIP represents Starmer’s last punt at shaping the agenda of the next prime minister. 

But he’s not alone. Al Carns has popped up setting five tests for Andy Burnham (reading between the lines – agree to significant uplifts in defence spending, or I’ll run against you). The ennobled representatives of British capital are all over the telly, promising a bond market freakout if Andy Burnham appoints Ed Miliband as chancellor. The Labour left – or, what remains of it – has published “A Manifesto to Save Labour” (no big surprises in there, but worth a read). And MPs galore are flashing ankle at the King of the North, hoping for a gig in his court.

Enter Mike Tapp. When he’s not serving as the Minister for Proper Breakfasts, the MP for Dover and Deal resides in the Home Office tackling the immigration brief. Tapp penned an op-ed for The Times (oh, are there jobs up for grabs under the new PM? I hadn’t noticed), in which he revealed that the Home Office had drawn up a proposal to make migrant care workers exempt from incoming immigration reforms. This article had, apparently, been written without sign-off from his boss Shabana Mahmood – who’s now apparently asked Keir Starmer to give him the sack. 

At the time of writing, Tapp has neither been fired, nor has he resigned (you could say that he’s… yet to Tapp out). Keir Starmer, despite sorting the movers and forwarding address himself, is reluctant to sack Tapp – perceived as a Starmerite ultra – at the behest of Mahmood, who has backed Andy Burnham. 

Bitchy briefings cluttered the airwaves last night, with Starmerite sources claiming that the home secretary and her operation “are totally out of control, and think rules only apply to others, not themselves”. Ouch. Conscious uncoupling, this is not.