
Rachel Reeves vowing to dig, baby, dig forced her cabinet comrade Green Ed Miliband to insist he won’t quit over Heathrow expansion plans. This in turn triggered a veteran fixer to recall how Miliband owed his, admittedly ill-fated, Labour leadership to once backing a third runway. As secretary of state for energy and climate change in Gordon Brown’s government, Miliband initially argued against concreting over another stretch of west London. Irn-Broon’s old spinner Charlie Whelan, by then wheeling and dealing for the Unite union, was dispatched by the PM to persuade Mili to become a builder not a blocker. Miliband U-turned and Unite subsequently threw its weight behind him to narrowly beat elder brother David to the Labour leadership. Then Green Ed swiftly jettisoned expansion. The Energy Security and Net Zero Secretary’s in-out-in Heathrow hokey-cokey continues a merry dance.
Shrinking faster than Tory majorities at the election, downsized MP Alec Shelbrooke shedding five and a half stone with weight-loss jabs hasn’t earned a free pass from Lindsay Hoyle. The Commons Speaker, fresh from ordering a brew during a cameo appearance on Emmerdale, scolded the notorious heckler after another noisy outburst. Svelte Shelbrooke, boomed Hoyle, still had a big voice.
Whips are Westminster’s bruisers, enforcing discipline and the will of party leaders. So government deputy chief whip Mark Tami’s suffered a leg-pulling after appearing with his left hand and lower arm heavily encased. No, the former engineering union officer told more than one tormentor, he didn’t injure the limb tightening thumbscrews on a rebellious colleague. Tami fell over and broke a finger. Still, a thick plaster cast could be a handy weapon.
Old wounds were reopened by a Labour peer railing against the uselessness of Keir Starmer’s No 10 operation. Take the case of the Downing Street pass for the PM’s dresser and donor, Waheed Alli (who gave Starmer and his wife clothing), he snarled. How long was it held? No 10 said it was “temporary” when the row erupted – only a single day to organise a bash. Why wasn’t that stressed? One explanation was that Alli, a multimillionaire as well as peer, wished to appear more important than he was.
The other Milibrother, David, continues to organise his annual South Shields lecture a dozen years on from quitting the Tyneside seat and parliament. This year’s guest was Gavin & Stacey writer and star James “Smithy” Corden. Rumours that Miliband fancies a return to front-line British politics draped in ermine don’t go away. Perhaps because he’s never issued a categorical denial.
Kevin Maguire is the associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
[See also: The cost of net zero in the town that steel built]
This article appears in the 29 Jan 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Class War