Skip to main content

Posts

Rachel Reeves will depart No 11 with her reputation in tatters

  History will not be kind to the Chancellor, if anyone will even remember her Daily Telegraph 22/06/26 It could be Wes Streeting, Yvette Cooper , Pat McFadden, or even, if no one has bothered to check the reaction of the bond markets, Ed Miliband. As Andy Burnham contemplates his new cabinet, assuming he becomes prime minister by the end of the summer, there are plenty of candidates for chancellor. One name has been firmly ruled out, however. The incumbent, Rachel Reeves. And it is not hard to understand why. In reality, the first woman at No 11 doomed herself with a catastrophic first Budget. Once that started to unravel, it was impossible for her to recover – and she will depart with a reputation in ruins. Rewind a couple of years, and it all looked very different. With a large Labour majority, Reeves sold herself as a great reforming Chancellor: a brilliant economist, with the enthusiastic support of business and the City, she was ready to implement a bold plan to turn Britain ...
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts

Burnham wants three months to prepare for No 10

  Starmer and his potential successor favour a delay over the summer to allow orderly handover Daily Telegraph 21/06/26 Andy Burnham is expected to become prime minister by September after he topples Sir Keir Starmer this week. Allies of Sir Keir expect him to resign as soon as Monday morning after a weekend holed up at Chequers with his family. However, the Prime Minister and Mr Burnham are said to favour a delay over the summer to allow an orderly handover of the keys to No 10. Mr Burnham will arrive in Westminster on Monday to be sworn in as Makerfield’s new MP and will hold meetings with his team about his next steps . Allies told The Telegraph that the former Mayor of Manchester wants a transition of at least a month, and even until early September, to prepare policies and build a team for running the country. It could allow Sir Keir to remain in place for crucial meetings with Nato and the EU next month. Potential legacies in European defence co-operation and economic align...
Post a Comment
Read more

Starmer is ready to resign, say allies

Allies of Sir Keir Starmer believe he is preparing to step down after facing an evaporation of support over the weekend. Daily Telegraph 20/06/26 link A senior government figure told The Telegraph the embattled Prime Minister was realising that the “game is up” and his thoughts were turning to how he could “shore up his legacy”. They said there had been “quite a bit of movement” among Cabinet ministers since Andy Burnham’s Makerfield by-election victory, leading Sir Keir to reconsider his previous commitment to soldiering on. One Labour MP, who is usually considered to be a loyalist to the Prime Minister, said he believed Sir Keir would announce his departure date as soon as Monday given that his support among MPs was now down to only a handful of “friends and family”. “There’s no one left. Literally people whose relatives work in No 10 or people who are long term personal friends of Keir’s are pretty much the only ones left,” they said, adding that trying to stand in the way of Mr ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cabinet ministers tell Starmer: Stand aside for Burnham

  Set out timetable for your departure, MPs urge Prime Minister after rival’s by-election win Daily Telegraph 19/06/26 Cabinet ministers have told Sir Keir Starmer he must stand aside for Andy Burnham . The Manchester mayor’s decisive by-election win in Makerfield, where he secured more than half of the vote, has led to a fresh rebellion among Sir Keir’s top team. In his victory speech, Mr Burnham all but called for the Prime Minister to go, declaring it was Labour’s “last chance to change” . He said: “We are going to take that opportunity, and we are going to lay out a new path for Britain.” Heidi Alexander, the Transport Secretary, is understood to have spoken to Sir Keir on Friday afternoon and told him he must now set out a timeline for his departure ahead of a “transfer of power” to Mr Burnham without a leadership contest. Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, Yvette Cooper, the Foreign Secretary, and Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary , have previously told Sir Keir to consid...
Post a Comment
Read more