Burnham's bloodbath of the Starmerites

**Jon** (0:02)
This is a Global Production.

**Lewis** (0:04)
The bloodbath of the Starmerites. We have a new cabinet for Andy Burnham. What does it tell us about where he's going?

**Jon** (0:10)
If you were disloyal to the Prime Minister, the then Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, you are going to be rewarded. John Healey, congratulations, your Chancellor of the Exchequer. Wes Streeting, you're now the Defense Secretary. Ed Miliband, well done, you're now the Foreign Secretary.

**Lewis** (0:24)
If you think your political career is over, then what do you do?

**SPEAKER_3** (0:29)
Life's hard out there, isn't it, at the moment? You heard me talk about the doorstep in Makerfield.
We need to every day think, well, what can we do? Just to take that little bit of pressure off people's shoulders, just to give them that little extra sense that help is coming. We need to be a cost of living government, and getting that cost of living down, looking at all possible ways of doing that.

**Lewis** (0:59)
Andy Burnham was chosen by the Labour Party to communicate what Labour was about. In his first 24 hours, he has been clear, this is a government with the cost of living and dealing with the cost of living at its core. He has a new cabinet made in his own image, but the cost of that has been that nearly every ally of Keir Starmer's has been shown the door.

**Jon** (1:25)
After that purge, life seems hard out there for those ex-cabinet ministers, and they're making themselves heard. Are they about to become a thorn in Andy Burnham's side? Welcome to The News Agents.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:43)
The News Agents.

**Jon** (1:44)
It's Jon.

**Lewis** (1:45)
It's Lewis, and we now have a new cabinet as we were saying there, a cabinet which in so many ways, both ideologically, regionally, is clearly, as I said, made in the image of Andy Burnham as we might expect. There was a lot of talk about the end of tribalism and factionalism from Andy Burnham. I think there are a lot of people who have been dispatched from the cabinet, as we might discuss, who might feel that the opening salvos of Burnham's government have not necessarily shown that, have come by our kind of approach that he said he would have. But anyway, the big headlines are John Healey, rather unexpectedly for most people, actually ends up being chancellor. It was neither Ed Miliband nor Shabana Mahmood. Ed Miliband becomes the foreign secretary, Shabana Mahmood stays as the home secretary. Wes Streeting, again, perhaps a bit unexpected. It had been briefed at the weekend, but I think when he sat in the chair you were sitting in now, John, when he was in here in his brief period of rest, his little couple of weeks off between government jobs, I doubt if I'd said to him there, do you expect to become defense secretary? I'm not necessarily sure. He thought that would be the top of the list. But nonetheless, there he is.
Yvette Cooper moves from being the foreign secretary to the health secretary. And there are other appointments as well. But broadly speaking, what we can say is that this is a cabinet which has moved in a leftward direction towards the so-called soft left of the Labour Party. Most of, not all, but most of Keir Starmer's closest allies have been dispatched, removed from the cabinet.
And it is a cabinet which again, regionally as well, very much a cabinet of the north of England. Only two MPs from London, which when you consider that Labour have about 50 MPs in the capital, quite remarkable, from the northwest, from Yorkshire. In every sense, we can say that Andy Burnham has remade this government and he has done so firmly, despite all of that talk of, as I say, a more pluralist approach, he has done so in a manner which he thinks reflects him.

**Jon** (3:42)
Lewis, you make the vital point that the people that were closest to Keir Starmer have gone. What that has done is create turbulence and waves with those supporters of Starmer, say.
What's happened is that if you were disloyal to the Prime Minister, the then Prime Minister Keir Starmer, you are going to be rewarded.
John Healey, you delivered the coup de grace that brought down Keir Starmer. Congratulations, you're Chancellor of the Exchequer. Where's Streeting? You walked out of the cabinet too and said that Keir Starmer had to have a leadership contest. Congratulations, you're now the Defense Secretary. Ed Miliband, you said it was unsustainable for Keir Starmer to carry on. Well done, you're now the Foreign Secretary. So there is a feeling that within the government, that if you have been disloyal, you get a promotion and if you were loyal to the serving Prime Minister, you're out on your ear.