As Andy Burnham appointed his new cabinet late into the night on 20 July, the “holding pen” for cabinet ministers inside No 10 grew crowded. Those who had been appointed were waiting for their propriety and ethics checks and the King’s formal approval, while those who had not yet been seen by the Prime Minister waited their turn. As they sat there, with the world’s media waiting outside, one of the cabinet’s renowned gossips urged colleagues to share their new roles. “What have you got?! Go on, tell me!” Some divulged. Others said nothing.
Reshuffles are a tricky business, creating “one ungrateful person and a hundred enemies”, as the saying goes. Burnham’s was no exception. While there were plenty of winners, there are many disappointed people around the cabinet table, and many more heartbroken and furious outside it. Even a usually loyal Burnham insider calls the sackings “savage”, referring to the dismissal of Darren Jones (former chief secretary to the prime minister), Bridget Phillipson’s demotion, and the sheer extent of the clearout. “It was a revenge mission,” one departing aide reflects.
This is despite the efforts of Burnham and his allies to avoid that impression. Learning from Keir Starmer’s mistakes, the Prime Minister spoke to every departing cabinet minister and minister of state, and intends to speak with every other departing junior minister by the end of the week. Anneliese Midgley, the chief whip, has had hundreds of phone calls in recent weeks, discussing with colleagues what jobs they might like or where their skills could best be used. “A huge amount of emotional energy went into talking to everyone,” one insider says. Yet for Labour’s disappointed, those calls have rung hollow. They feel they haven’t been given a good explanation for why they’ve been sacked, demoted or passed over.
“I’m struggling with it. I’ve done nothing wrong,” says one victim of the cull. “So many people who lost their jobs are good people who have done nothing other than work their arses off for the party and the prime minister. That loyalty has been totally misread.” By contrast, another senior figure observes, “disloyalty has been massively rewarded”, and not just among MPs who plotted for Burnham to be made leader. For those who see themselves as Labour loyalists, it stings that many of the leaders of last summer’s welfare rebellion, including Midgley and Louise Haigh, now run the government. “They are asking for loyalty now. But when the hard things come, how is that going to be meaningful?” one frustrated Labour MP asks. The Burnham team would counter that the welfare debacle was the product of a system under Starmer in which MPs weren’t listened to and rebels felt they had no option. “One of the lessons that Andy’s taken from that time is we do need to listen to colleagues and involve them in engagement,” an insider says.
For now, Labour’s newly sacked, disappointed and demoted are heading to the beach, to the mountains, or hiding away with their families to take stock of a bruising year. One former cabinet minister has been spotted propping up the bar in a French auberge, enjoying the pastis and coming to terms with life outside government. Those inside the Burnham administration hope that colleagues will take the summer to recover from the huge change and come to terms with it.
But the Prime Minister’s team knows the real test will come in the autumn, when welfare and immigration reforms and a tricky Budget await. “We know there are going to be some big things coming in the autumn, and that’s why we need to change the approach,” one insider says. It has been underlined to cabinet ministers, their ministers and their most junior bag-carriers that they have a responsibility to engage meaningfully with colleagues, modelled on how Phillipson engaged with Labour MPs ahead of announcing the Send reforms.
“I honestly don’t know what I’ll do,” one of Labour’s newly dispossessed says. “This has been very painful but I want our Labour government to succeed.” The saving grace for Burnham, they say, is that many of the disappointed are temperamentally unlikely to cause trouble for a new leader. “We’re in this position because we were loyal to a Labour leader,” one says. “We’re not natural rebels. We won’t do what they did to Keir.” But others are plotting from their sun loungers how to make their presence felt from the backbenches.
Jones has already fired a warning shot that the losers from Burnham’s reshuffle could become difficult fiscal hawks on the backbenches. Months ahead of the autumn Budget, it isn’t clear how Burnham and his new Chancellor, John Healey, will be able to continue the feel-good tone set by their first days in office. The war in Iran is rapidly shrinking Healey’s fiscal headroom, piling pressure on him to raise taxes or cut spending, just as the list of policy pledges he will have to find cash for is growing. “Money is where it will all fall apart,” one government insider worries.
There may be bad blood inside Labour after the Burnham coup, but in the country “it’s the first time Labour has been ahead in the polls in a mad 18 months”, one No 10 insider points out. They feel it has all been worth it. Now their hope is that even Labour’s bloodied will fall in behind the Prime Minister come September. Nigel Farage may be at a lower ebb and Burnham enjoying an early bounce, but the new Labour leadership is clear: this is existential. “No one’s doubting how bruised people are,” one insider says. “But it’s the last-chance saloon for the Labour Party. People know how high the stakes are.”
[Further reading: Labour’s lead may not last]
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This article appears in the 29 Jul 2026 issue of the New Statesman, The new terror
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Subscribe here to commentJeez, what a bunch of whiny babies. They were involved in the most unpopular Labour government in living memory. They spurned the opportunities of a massive majority, trimmed and compromised when faced with the slightest opposition from those with wealth and power, and fell in behind an incompetent and lying prime minister. What on earth do they expect? A medal?
The quotation attributed to Sir Winston Churchill as advice to a newly-elected MP: “The opposition occupies the benches in front of you, but the enemy sits behind you” was never more true.
Andy Burnham and his close colleagues are in a honeymoon period right now. They are promising everything to everyone everywhere. but as the government insider quoted above says, money is where it will all fall apart. There will need to be compromises, but the people who lose out will be angry that the axe fell on them. The febrile atmosphere will continue: people will wonder why they don’t feel any better yet when there will inevitably be a lead-time and the funds will be from a multi-year budget. The danger is that all this excitement will lead to an equal and opposite reaction as the honeymoon feelings subside. The backlash could be devastating. I don’t want the Labour Government to fail in its various missions, but I am currently wrestling with the resentment I feel against the PLP members who have been secretly plotting this coup for the last year. No wonder they were unwilling to get out there to promote the achievements of the Starmer team. They were as keen to see him defenestrated as were the press and the opposition.
Politicians expect people to deal with the rough and the smooth in their daily lives, but seem unable to do it Themselves and the wonder why politicians are so unpopular.