Keir Starmer savaged over Labour reshuffle

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Sir Keir Starmer has been attacked over the timing of the Labour leader’s cabinet reshuffle. Sir Keir launched a cleanout of his top team just as the Labour Party’s deputy leader Angela Rayner was due to give a speech attacking the Conservative Party over “sleaze” amid the Westminster scandal over MPs holding lucrative second jobs. The move left political pundits like UK in a Changing Europe’s Anand Menon questing the Labour leader’s management skills. 

Mr Menon told LBC: “Just the timing to do this in such a way as to cut across a speech by your deputy leader on the issue on which you’re actually getting some cut-through against the government, which is sleaze just struck me as appallingly bad management I have to say.

He added: “Even if it was deliberate, it was a personal slight to your deputy leader rather than something that was thinking about the future of the Labour Party as a whole.

“Because it strikes me that actually, there is an attack line that is working now on sleaze that Labour are using.

“And the headlines of the Angela Rayner speech could have been Labour are putting forward proposals to tidy up sleaze in politics rather than headlines, we’ve got ‘Starmer undercuts Angela Rayner.'”

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Earlier it appeared the reshuffle would be overshadowed as tensions resurfaced between Sir Keir and his deputy, Angela Rayner.

Ms Rayner appeared to be blindsided when news of the reshuffle broke, as she was delivering a keynote speech on Labour’s plans for reforming standards in public life.

She said in response to reporters’ questions: “I don’t know the details of the reshuffle or the timing of it.

“I’ve been here concentrating on my role now, but six months ago I said again, we need some consistency in how we’re approaching things as an opposition.”

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A spokesman for Ms Rayner later said the leader and his deputy had spoken between her morning round of media interviews and her speech at the Institute for Government (IfG)

Sir Keir said: “With this reshuffle we are a smaller, more focused shadow cabinet that mirrors the shape of the Government we are shadowing.

“We must hold the Conservative Government to account on behalf of the public and demonstrate that we are the right choice to form the next government.”

As a result of the reshuffle veteran MP Yvette Cooper returned to Labour’s frontbench, becoming shadow home secretary.

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Sir Keir also handed big promotions to two of Labour’s rising stars, Bridget Phillipson and Wes Streeting, who take on the roles of shadow education secretary and shadow health secretary.

Jonathan Ashworth, who has had the health brief through the pandemic, is moved to shadow work and pensions secretary.

In other moves, Lisa Nandy will face off against Michael Gove as shadow secretary for levelling up and communities.

She will be replaced as shadow foreign secretary by David Lammy.

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