Illustrations by Tracy Worrall

17 min read7 min

It was not just that Sir Keir Starmer was fundamentally unsuited to the role of prime minister, say many senior people behind the scenes in Labour, but that his No 10 did not function properly – and indeed that the centre of government had not been working for some time.

The new Prime Minister thus began his tenure with major machinery of government changes, creating ‘the Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’ to assert authority over the Cabinet Office. This was a much-needed reform in the eyes of many including the Institute for Government, though the think tank is concerned it did not go far enough given that the Cabinet Office “lives on, in a hollowed-out form”.

Under Burnham, the top task now for the Cabinet Office is said to be answering the question: how can it be set up so that it has a clear purpose and delivers on the Prime Minister’s priorities? To this end, First Secretary of State Louise Haigh is “reconfiguring” the Cabinet Office and has established task forces on the cost of living; stronger public control of essentials; and communities and place. All three cross-cutting priorities are vitally important to Burnham and the reforms are being sold as a “gamechanger”.

Alongside empowering No 10 in Downing Street, Burnham has – to much fanfare – set up an outpost in Manchester, ‘No 10 North’, which has symbolic value but will also need to deliver clear results for his devolution agenda. A No 10 source says the arrangement has worked better than expected, with Burnham making it clear that No 10 North “can’t be a gimmick” and must genuinely change how the country is run. He has been working there at least one day a week, as promised, and takes every opportunity to emphasise the priority he places on No 10 North, driving through his agenda on putting power in the hands of communities. “He doesn’t want it to be an office where officials and spads are doing what’s always been done before. He wants it to be transformational and different,” says a source.

The fear that No 10 North could duplicate the work of Downing Street has not been borne out, say insiders, because North has a new and different remit, focused on devolution and acting as a front door for local leaders around the country. Whether tensions arise in future between No 10 North and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) remains to be seen. For now, No 10 sources stress that their Manchester branch is helping to navigate relationships, taking away the burden of linking up local authorities with the Treasury for example, and that No 10 North makes it easier for MHCLG to focus on its own work.

Over the summer, No 10’s ranks have swelled. One impressed Starmer-era official says the appointments represent “a step change in the calibre and experience of the new people”, though adds: “They need to show some of the retained the door.” The reaction to the hires from within Labour has been overwhelmingly positive. “They’re rewarding experience and skill within specific areas,” says an insider. “These are people with really strong reputations in the fields they’re now leading.”

No 10

James Purnell – chief of staff

A close friend of Burnham, this 56-year-old former Blairite minister was chosen by the new Prime Minister to head his Downing Street operation. James Purnell is probably best-known for quitting the Cabinet in 2009 as part of a failed bid to overthrow Gordon Brown as PM (an effort in which Burnham refused to partake).

Purnell has experience of working in No 10, having worked as a spad there from 1997 to 2001.

He was then picked as a parliamentary candidate and became the Labour MP for Stalybridge and Hyde in 2001 – the same intake as Burnham. He went on to be culture and later work and pensions secretary.

As a privately educated southerner, who graduated from Oxford with a first-class PPE degree before serving as an Islington councillor, on paper Purnell may not be the clearest embodiment of Burnham’s agenda. But the two men have a shared history as spads under Tony Blair, flatmates, football teammates (the amateur ‘Demon Eyes’ team in the 90s) and occupants of the same parliamentary office as MPs.

Head North, the part-memoir, part-manifesto Burnham co-wrote with Steve Rotheram, includes an acknowledgement to Purnell – “for believing in me and seeing things others didn’t”. Burnham also recalls how his friend, “one of the clearest political thinkers I have ever met”, was instrumental in persuading him to stand for Parliament the first time.

A former Institute For Public Policy Research (IPPR) think tank chair and director of the BBC, where one of his roles was to argue for the corporation’s continued existence, Purnell is regarded as a strategist with managerial experience who also has the benefit of understanding government from both the perspective of a spad and a secretary of state.

Those more sceptical of his appointment, which include figures on the Labour left, express concern over his more recent work as chief executive of lobbying firm Flint Global. Its clients have included Thames Water, BP, Apple and Amazon. Burnham’s team has said Purnell will have no ongoing financial interest in the company and future conflicts of interest would be managed appropriately.

Critics have also pointed to his closeness to Starmer’s short-lived comms director Tim Allan as evidence the new chief of staff does not represent a clear enough break from the last leadership. Allan attended Guildford Grammar alongside Purnell (as well as Liz Lloyd, now a peer and minister) and was best man at his wedding.

Purnell’s own politics have been described as “Blue meets New”: Blairism combined with the Blue Labour tradition that emphasises communitarianism and civic duty.

Alison Phillips – deputy chief of staff

As transition director during Burnham’s leadership campaign (the PM’s allies insist there was one even if nobody noticed it), Alison Phillips, 56, then took up that same role in No 10 and was picked to be Purnell’s deputy too.

Essex-born Phillips was always a journalist, climbing the ranks from local newspapers to national tabloids, until she stepped down as editor-in-chief of the Daily Mirror in 2024. She soon replaced ex-MP Jonathan Ashworth as chief executive of the Labour Together think tank, which was rebranded as ThinkLabour under her leadership. She steered the organisation through the scandal that revealed Phillips’ predecessor Josh Simons had commissioned PR firm Apco to compile a dossier investigating journalists who had reported on the group’s undeclared donations. It led to Simons resigning as a minister before later quitting as an MP altogether to allow Burnham to stand for Parliament.

When confirming Phillips’ appointment to No 10, a source suggested the way she navigated Labour Together through the tumultuous period and turned it around was seen as a key selling point, saying: “She has led large and complex organisations, delivering results and overseeing cultural change.”

She has been commended already for engaging well with stakeholders and being unflappable amid the sometimes-chaotic start to the new government. The calm demeanour shared by Phillips and Hayden Munro (see next page) is thought to balance out Burnham’s own bouncy energy.

The highly regarded Emma Norris of the Institute for Government took a temporary spad role helping Phillips with the transition and is thought likely to be kept on. Parna Taylor, who was an aide to Purnell back when he was an MP, is also working with Phillips; she is director of leadership and talent, looking at spad appointments across government.

Politics

Matthew McGregor – director of political strategy

In what was taken as an encouraging sign by the left of Burnham’s camp, the chief executive of political activism organisation 38 Degrees was picked to head up political strategy. The not-for-profit, which he led for five years, runs campaigns such as demanding the government “get Palantir out of our NHS” and bring Thames Water into public ownership.

Matthew McGregor, 47, is also a former director of campaigns and communications for Hope Not Hate. The anti-fascism advocacy group is lauded by the left for its work infiltrating and exposing far-right activities, while being criticised by those on the right who argue that its output is itself divisive. (Phillips was also briefly a director, appointed in 2025.)

On entering Downing Street, McGregor has stepped down from his trustee roles at IPPR think tank and human rights charity Reprieve. The Conservatives criticised the latter on the basis Reprieve has opposed citizenship-stripping from people such as Shamima Begum.

McGregor is well-liked in Labour circles. One Labour source outside of Burnham’s team welcomed the hire, taking it as “a signal that things will change”.

The new head of political strategy has worked on elections in Britain and overseas, including Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign.

“I think he will help Labour’s chances at the next election,” the same source adds. “He is analytical but in a very human way. Lots of international political knowledge, not just UK and US. He has strong values and ethics without ever being pious. They drive him. He is kind and decent and very hard-working. And funny.”

Hayden Munro – political director

After co-ordinating the Burnham leadership campaign, Hayden Munro, 37, was given the big No 10 job of political director. Like Purnell, he comes directly from a lobbying firm – Arden Strategies, owned by former MP and Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy.

Before moving to London two years ago, the Kiwi strategist worked as campaign director for New Zealand Labour PM Jacinda Ardern in the 2020 effort that saw her win a landslide victory.

Munro has quickly gained a reputation among Burnham allies for being “strategic, calm and tight-lipped”, as one source put it. A key weakness is that he does not have the depth of knowledge about the UK party usually expected of a political director, which means the team underneath him will need to be able to fill that knowledge gap.

The House hears he has been making diligent efforts to gen up quickly by talking to well-versed Labour insiders, however. He has also made a positive early impression on the unions.

Luke Sullivan – spad to the PM and chief of staff to the chief whip

It was a surprise to many when Starmer’s political director in opposition, Luke Sullivan, was not brought into his government and in 2024 he headed to the private sector instead, working in public affairs at Headland. He has now been brought back into the fold by Burnham, performing a dual role that stretches across both No 10’s political team and the whips’ office, working under new chief whip Anneliese Midgley. Previously a spad to chief whip Nick Brown under Gordon Brown, Sullivan is popular and seen as experienced.

Danny Coyne has joined Burnham’s No 10 as Munro’s deputy in the political team, leading on work related to the Parliamentary Labour Party. A former political adviser to Louise Haigh, he moved to advise Sue (now Baroness) Gray as Starmer’s chief of staff and subsequently spadded for John Healey and Angela Rayner in government.

Harjeet Sahota has become a No 10 spad, after working in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport in spad and chief of staff jobs, following a job managing stakeholders for Starmer in opposition. And Kate Robson, previously of MHCLG under Angela Rayner and Steve Reed, has secured a No 10 job liaising with mayors, taking over from Starmer’s director of local government and devolution Pete Robbins.

Cerys Way – director of trade union engagement

Claire Stewart, who came from Unison and was close to its previous general secretary Christina McAnea, left as No 10’s trade union whisperer earlier this year. Under Burnham, the post has been filled by Cerys Way. She hails from the small Labour-affiliated train drivers’ union Aslef, where she was political adviser, and previously worked as a GMB regional political officer.

Aslef was sorry to lose Way, who has made the jump to government despite having a job for life at the union if she had wanted to stay. She is widely known as an effective operator and is praised by a former colleague as “non-factional” in her dealings with all unions. A different union source reports that she is active in LGBTQ politics, “loathes misogynists” and plays in a rock band.

The unions are hopeful that Way’s appointment signals a major shift in approach from No 10 towards them, after Starmer’s hands-off style. “The vibe has been entirely different since Andy came in,” says a cheerful union official. “We’re not going to get everything we want, but we now have someone in No 10 who will listen to us and might even pick up the phone every so often.” They are delighted with the reset instigated by Munro.

Policy

Graeme Cooke – head of No 10 policy unit

A holdover from Starmer’s No 10, Graeme Cooke has been promoted from policy adviser to leading the policy unit. He is another IPPR alumnus, a former senior staffer at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and two London councils, and a close friend of Purnell, having advised him back when he was work and pensions secretary. The pair are regarded as intellectual allies.

Cooke is popular with the Blue Labour crowd, and he and Purnell acknowledged Maurice Glasman’s influence on their thinking in a 2010 paper for Demos think tank. Their joint introduction, which invoked RH Tawney, Amartya Sen and father of community organising Saul Alinsky, argued for ‘reciprocism’, including contribution-based welfare. It specifically backed an elected Upper Chamber, public funding for political parties and self-governance in areas such as schools.

Harvey Redgrave, another Blue Labour-linked adviser, has stepped down as head of the policy unit under Starmer to take up a spad role focused on state reform, security, migration and crime.

Nathan Yeowell is the former director of Progressive Britain and founder of the Future Governance Forum, the think tank that recommended machinery of government changes worked on by Purnell and taken up by Burnham. He is working across No 10 North and South, though currently based in Wales, where he is a Labour councillor.

Isabel Abbs, who was a No 10 health spad under Starmer, has been lost to Yvette Cooper’s team where she will work alongside Damian McBride.

The policy team has a fair amount of continuity for now, with Burnham hires slower to get going here. Jonathan Powell has remained in post as national security adviser and Henna Shah has stayed as foreign policy spad assisting him.

Comms

Sarah Brown – director of communications

Moving from City Hall, where for five years she has been directing comms and strategy for Sadiq Khan, Sarah Brown has been hired to lead Burnham’s comms in No 10. Her role has been changed from the equivalent under Starmer: it is now integrated, which means social, digital, press, news, media and strategic comms have all been pulled together under one person, with senior staff leading on each area under Brown.

Before joining Khan, initially in 2016 as deputy mayoral comms director, she was a Labour Party press officer. Brown is responsive and well-liked by colleagues and journalists alike.

Grace Pritchard – director of news and the PM’s spokesperson

Previously a junior spad in Ed Miliband’s Desnz, Grace Pritchard left such a positive impression when she was seconded to work on Burnham’s by-election campaign that she has made a quick rise to become one of the most senior comms people in No 10. She started her career as a journalist before working at anti-Brexit group Best for Britain and then the Labour Party, followed by Yvette Cooper’s office.

Downing Street press secretary John Stevens, formerly of the Mirror and Mail, and head of broadcast Calum Masters have been held over from Starmer’s No 10. Abby Tomlinson of ‘Milifandom’ fame, who has spent recent years working for the party and then No 10, is also in Brown’s team; she has been promoted to deputy director of digital and head of content.

At the time of writing, No 10 is in the process of hiring a head of strategic comms to work under Brown and a briefing spad, and there is no news yet on whether they will be getting in a chief speechwriter (Burnham has mostly been writing his own).

Over in the business team, Varun Chandra has stayed as chief business adviser to the Prime Minister, despite one source describing him as the “least Andy person you’ll meet”.

Elsewhere, Anna Wright has been hired to manage events and visits, looking at how to use Burnham’s time outside of the office and the politics of those engagements. And former Home Office official Joy Johnston, who was Starmer’s spad for faith, communities and civil society, is now director of the Prime Minister’s partnerships unit.

No 10 North

Caroline Simpson – deputy chief of staff

Leaving her role as chief executive of Greater Manchester Combined Authority to head up No 10 North is Caroline Simpson, a career civil servant in local government and Burnham’s “right-hand woman”.

Simpson, 54, has the tricky task of making a success of the No 10 North project. Its work must be co-ordinated with No 10 South, Whitehall departments and mayoral authorities to avoid duplication and function cohesively, all in the pursuit of devolving power in Britain.

A staffer described Simpson to the Times as “smiley and personable and a competent bureaucrat”, though added that “some wonder if she’s good at standing up to [Burnham]”, while Manchester property developer Tim Heatley called her a “tough negotiator”.

Kate Groucutt, the former deputy leader of St Helens council who was active on Burnham’s Makerfield campaign, has secured a No 10 role linking up North and South. She is the wife of Conor McGinn, the ex-MP charged with sexual assault earlier this year who has pleaded not guilty and awaits trial.

Burnham’s longtime friend and mayoral chief of staff Kevin Lee is, naturally, a spad in No 10 North. Tom Whitney, who advised Burnham and Steve Rotheram before going to the Department for Transport, is working as a spad between North and South. JP Spencer, previously leading on devolution at ThinkLabour and subsequently The Productivity Institute at the University of Manchester, also has a spad role across the policy unit and No 10 North.

First Secretary of State, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and minister for the Cabinet Office Louise Haigh also has a role overseeing No 10’s work. She has quickly put her own team together. 

Alicia Kennedy – chief of staff to Louise Haigh

Veteran Labour staffer Alicia Kennedy, a former deputy general secretary and adviser to Ed Miliband, established her status as a renowned ‘fixer’ during her time serving Tom Watson as chief of staff. In 2013 she became Baroness Kennedy and was non-affiliated for a period while working as director of Generation Rent UK. Her husband Roy Kennedy is Labour chief whip in the Lords.

Kennedy and Haigh are “not natural political allies”, one Labour insider notes. But a source close to Haigh insists they work together very well, both being stalwarts of the labour movement, and says Kennedy’s wealth of experience makes her appointment a savvy one. Certainly, the hire of such a well-connected figure has been taken as a sign that the de facto deputy PM is intent on being ultra-effective in government – and ruthless. The dynamic between Haigh and deputy leader Lucy Powell is one to watch.

Returning to the Labour fold is Luke Francis, the former Lisa Nandy adviser and Sadiq Khan mayoral campaign aide who was by Burnham’s side throughout the Makerfield campaign and afterwards. After a stint at comms firms Concilio and Pagefield, he is Haigh’s comms spad.

Former Unite the Union and City Hall official Jenny Killin, who was also integral to the Makerfield by-election, is returning to Haigh’s team, having worked for her at DfT. Other Haigh spads include Maria Herron, who was with Nick Thomas-Symonds at the Cabinet Office, and Neil Foster, the GMB officer who joined Rachel Reeves in the Treasury, and Nick Williams, the former infrastructure spad who left Starmer’s No 10 following a spat with Morgan McSweeney. 

The autumn political season has well and truly begun, with Andy Burnham facing his first parliamentary tests and the Reform UK conference having just happened. I’ll come to Reform’s travails in a moment, but let’s first have a word about Andy Burnham.

No one could accuse the prime minister of ducking questions when he came to Parliament to make a statement on the future direction of the government. He answered 126 questions from MPs over three hours. He certainly deserved his gravy on his chips after that. Having said that, did any of us emerge any the wiser about his policy direction? I don’t think so. There were lots of people/MP pleasing moments, but scant little about actual meaningful policy.

The next day he faced Kemi Badenoch again for PMQs. It’s interesting how divided opinion was about his performance. He didn’t do badly, but frankly the whole thing was quite boring, as evidenced by the lack of cheering from the Labour benches. Having told us he wanted to do politics differently, he did the exact opposite with repeated jibes towards the Conservatives, and particularly the new shadow chancellor, Andrew Griffith. Apparently, as the No 3 minister in the Treasury under Liz Truss, the mini budget was entirely his creation! I mean, who knew?! Kemi Badenoch treated him quite gently on his first outing, which was wise. He shouldn’t count on that happening for too long though.

My prediction that the Conservatives would overtake Reform in the polls by Christmas has come true a few months early. Reform have been having a wretched time, largely due to financial issues or scandals. Their conference was almost wrecked by the Channel Four News expose. Convincing answers were largely absent from the interviews given by their senior spokespeople. I rarely think this sort of issue resonates with voters but coming on top of the £5 million donation issue, it’s difficult to think of any other explanation for the decline in Reform’s polling from 30 per cent to 20-22 per cent.

I expected Reform to announce further members of their so-called Shadow Cabinet during their conference, but they didn’t. It’s ridiculous that they don’t have a Health or Defence spokesperson.

As a spectacle, the Reform conference was unrivalled. Brilliant staging, a huge venue, with more than 8,000 delegates attending. Businesses were well represented. The media were there in full force. It had the potential to be a brilliantly successful event. However, the organisation was shambolic. Ever session started massively late and overran. There were only two security people letting people in the hall. If you can’t organise the logistics of a conference, people could be forgiven for wondering how they could run a government.

Sadly for them, all their policy announcements were overshadowed by the donor scandal and Zia Yusuf’s borderline racist comments about the Somali born leader of Camden Council, who may be the Labour candidate in the Holborn & St Pancras by-election.

The Conservatives start the autumn season in good heart, despite their opinion poll ratings, which are still stuck in the 20-22 per cent range. Still, this time last year it was 16-18 per cent, so it’s progress of sorts. The difference is that Kemi Badenoch’s position is now unassailable and that was demonstrated this week by a fairly brutal reshuffle of her front bench, in which two of the top three positions got new appointees. Mel Stride took his removal as well as he could. Harriet Cross and Rebecca Paul are two new additions to the Shadow Cabinet who, I think, will make quite an impact.

The Greens are in a strange position. Zack Polanski announced he wants to fight the by-election for the Greens, but his selection is by no means cut and dried. If he failed to win the selection, that would be a huge blow for him and weaken his leadership. I believe if he gets the nomination, he could well be the constituency’s next MP.

The week after next, the LibDems meet for their annual conference. It’s a very important one for them, as there are many in their party – and their parliamentary party – who are growing increasingly impatient with their lack of breakthrough. Apart from their views on PR, Brexit and sewerage, voters don’t really know anything more about their national policies. That needs to change if the whispers against Ed Davey’s leadership are not to increase in volume.

There is also increasing chatter about Andy Burnham doing a screeching u-turn and calling an early election in October or November. The logic is that Reform are languishing, the Tories show few signs of a big revival, and the Greens are also seemingly in reverse gear. It will never get better for Burnham than this, so the reasoning goes. Labour MPs would be furious, as many of them would lose their seats, although it’s more than likely Burnham, on current polling, would get a majority, albeit reduced, and with it, a five year mandate. He, of course, was in Gordon Brown’s cabinet, when he faced a similar dilemma in September 2007. And we all know what happened when he wimped out of calling an election after only three months as prime minister. My prediction is that Burnham probably should call an election, but won’t. And by the start of 2027 he may well already live to regret it.

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