2020 Labour Leadership Election

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Keir Starmer, Leader of the Opposition
Angela Rayner, Deputy Leader and Chair of the Labour Party
Anneliese Dodds, Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer
Lisa Nandy, Shadow Foreign Secretary
Nick Thomas-Symonds, Shadow Home Secretary
Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
David Lammy, Shadow Justice Secretary
John Healey, Shadow Defence Secretary
Ed Miliband, Shadow Business, Energy and Industrial Secretary
Emily Thornberry, Shadow International Trade Secretary
Jonathan Reynolds, Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary
Jonathan Ashworth, Shadow Secretary of State for Health and Social Care
Rebecca Long-Bailey, Shadow Education Secretary
Jo Stevens, Shadow Digital, Culture, Media and Sport
Bridget Philipson, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury
Luke Pollard, Shadow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary
Steve Reed, Shadow Communities and Local Government Secretary
Thangam Debbonaire, Shadow Housing Secretary
Jim McMahon, Shadow Transport Secretary
Preet Kaur Gill, Shadow International Development Secretary
Louise Haigh, Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary (interim)
Ian Murray, Shadow Scotland Secretary
Nia Griffith, Shadow Wales Secretary
Marsha de Cordova, Shadow Women and Equalities Secretary
Andy McDonald, Shadow Employment Rights and Protections Secretary
Rosena Allin-Khan, Shadow Minister for Mental Health
Cat Smith, Shadow Minister for Young People and Voter Engagement
Lord Falconer, Shadow Attorney General
Valerie Vaz, Shadow Leader of the House
Nick Brown, Opposition Chief Whip
Baroness Smith, Shadow Leader of the Lords
Lord McAvoy, Lords’ Opposition Chief Whip

[MaxQue]

That was not my point, I know that Nandy is from a privileged background, I am just saying that Nandy would represents working class communities/connect to working class voters much better than Starmer who represents a socially liberal, 2nd referendum remain constituencies and Long-Bailey who represents a continuation of Corbynism which cared more about being ideologically pure, talking about #Palestine, protest movements and being #anti-imprealist then advocating for revitalisation of towns and worker's rights.

I get what your saying, but Brexit isn't going to be as relevant of an issue in 2024 (this virus has made sure of that) and Starmer has indicated his priority is the unifying of the party. He's hardly going to be pursuing an FBPE agenda. And outside of Brexit are Nandy and Starmer really all that different?

I personally preferred Nandy but will happily support Starmer now he's the leader

Yes, Starmer doesn't want to send the army to Scotland.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Interestingly Johnathan Reynolds, despite certainly not being on the left, is a supporter of a Universal Basic Income; which could be interesting given his portfolio.

@MaxQue, Nandy was taken out of context with the Catalonia thing.

[Lord Halifax]

Ed Miliband, Shadow Business, Energy and Industrial Secretary

Comeback?

[Blair]

Interesting.

This is a reshuffle that has certainly skipped a generation among the less senior positions; from first glance there's at least 5-6 members of the 2017 intake alone (if you count the by-elections after '15)

Ed Miliband will be the biggest news; back in part of the department he use to run (climate is now part of Business) A very sensible move seeing as BEIS will be on the frontline over Covid & for his many faults Ed knows how to do Government & do media lines. A return was suggested under Corbyn & Ed is actually friends with Keir- having asked him to run in 2015.

The most interesting policy pick is Lammy at Justice; he's a vocal (if a newly converted) supporter of drug reforms- an area where Labour have been completely lacking for years & years. He's an ex-barrister & a big profile- but hasn't had a frontbench role since 2010. A very good brief if as expected he goes for London Mayor again

In terms of up & down Healey gets a much needed promotion to Defence; where the sole requirement is to bollock the Government and look responsible. He's an ex-minister from the Brown years & one of the most popular MPs in the PLP.

As promised Starmer supporters have been rewarded (of course it was a case that ambitious MPs saw Starmer as the best ticket in town) with only Cat Smith, Ashworth, Andy McDonald & Lou Haigh being the non-starmer aligned members.  

The survivors of the old Cabinet are Ashworth (would have gone if not for Covid), Healey, Long-Bailey, Pollard, Griffith, McDonald- with the exception of RLB none of them are corbynites & all would have been at top of my old ratings of the shadow cabinet.

The leadership candidates get a mixed bag: Thornberry gets a largely useless & ceremonial department at International Trade but it at least is linked to her old brief at FCO.

Long-Bailey at education is pretty safe; it's the easiest shadow cabinet job especially now it consists of telling the teachers unions that all their dreams will come true (I say this as someone who supports this 100%) & is up their with health as being an easy launch pad.

The Treasury related roles going to Dodds, Miliband, Reynolds and Phillipson is interesting; Dodds & Reynolds served in the old treasury team under John Mac (a team that was arguably more effective than Milibands!) yet both Reynolds & Phillipson are associated with the Labour Right- but the thinking part of it (rather than the loudmouth element which isn't on the frontbench) This is a team that I think will do well & I hope that they put some good junior ministers in there.

[EastAnglianLefty]

There's an awful lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from left Twitter at the moment but it's notable that a decent chunk of the left has survived, it's just that it's the part of the left that doesn't make a habit of starting factional shouting matches for no obvious benefit. This is perhaps instructive.

[Hnv1]

Milne is the the prime example of London elite. he went to Oxford and faked a Palestinian accent...his name is Seamus

Lmao I just read his wikipedia and it's hilarious:

he stood in a mock election in 1974 as a Maoist Party candidate,[13] and read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Balliol College, Oxford, and Economics at Birkbeck College, London University. While at Balliol, Milne was so committed to the Palestinian cause that he spoke with a Palestinian accent and called himself Shams, Arabic for sun.

Do you have any other source to his story? It sound like a fun read.

NS had a big piece on him after he rise to dominance with Corbyn circa 2016. They had all that funny info there

[Statilius the Epicurean]

There's an awful lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from left Twitter at the moment but it's notable that a decent chunk of the left has survived, it's just that it's the part of the left that doesn't make a habit of starting factional shouting matches for no obvious benefit. This is perhaps instructive.

I'm not sure what they expected. Yes, it would have been nice to see RLB at shadow chancellor or what have you, but this team is still probably to the left of the median PLP member. 

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Basically this is the sort of cabinet that Miliband would have chosen if he had got a real mandate.

[EastAnglianLefty]

There's an awful lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from left Twitter at the moment but it's notable that a decent chunk of the left has survived, it's just that it's the part of the left that doesn't make a habit of starting factional shouting matches for no obvious benefit. This is perhaps instructive.

I'm not sure what they expected. Yes, it would have been nice to see RLB at shadow chancellor or what have you, but this team is still probably to the left of the median PLP member. 

I think they mostly just wanted to whine, given that several of the complaints were quite obviously false (eg accusing Starmer of whitewashing, when he nearly doubled the number of BAME members of the Shadow Cabinet.)

[Statilius the Epicurean]

There's an awful lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from left Twitter at the moment but it's notable that a decent chunk of the left has survived, it's just that it's the part of the left that doesn't make a habit of starting factional shouting matches for no obvious benefit. This is perhaps instructive.

I'm not sure what they expected. Yes, it would have been nice to see RLB at shadow chancellor or what have you, but this team is still probably to the left of the median PLP member. 

I think they mostly just wanted to whine, given that several of the complaints were quite obviously false (eg accusing Starmer of whitewashing, when he nearly doubled the number of BAME members of the Shadow Cabinet.)

Yeah reminds me of the opportunistic factional attacks on Corbyn's first team as not having enough women. Sadly that's politics.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

When there's no shadow minister for sh**tstirring against your own party in the media brief

https://twitter.com/maitlis/status/1247172802744115200?s=19

[CumbrianLefty]

Interestingly Johnathan Reynolds, despite certainly not being on the left, is a supporter of a Universal Basic Income; which could be interesting given his portfolio.

@MaxQue, Nandy was taken out of context with the Catalonia thing.

It was still a silly thing to say and one of the things that put me off her.

But its genuinely not a terrible SC overall, at all. The sight of some prominent Corbynites on social media doing some stretching to dislike it (they were expecting a much bigger tilt to the right, no question) tells its own story really. Tho I am slightly surprised that Butler and Maskell went, shame about Brabin as well. And thought that McGovern might get something as an "olive branch" to the right - I've always thought her very talented and wasted on Progress basically.

And that quip about Starmer telling Reeves "Hi there Rachel, its Keir - I'm making you Shadow Chancellor.......of the Duchy of Lancaster!" is still making me smile some 24 hours on

[Statilius the Epicurean]

You're confusing origins with outlook. Coming from a working class background but aspiring to ingratiate oneself into the system (and being satisfied with the few measly tweaks possible by working 'from the inside'), as Keir did, is to adopt a fundamentally conservative outlook.

Have you read this interesting article on his background? I think it's unfair to describe Starmer's purpose in going into law as ingratiating oneself into the system.

Starmer had already decided to read law while he was still in the sixth-form. But the particular way he moved to the Bar was a more directly political choice. He applied for pupillage in the chambers headed by the former Liberal MP Emlyn Hooson because it had already attracted a group of more radical younger lawyers who were starting to reshape the legal system in ways that have endured.

“Keir’s purpose when he became a lawyer was not to make a fortune, or to build a glorious reputation,” says Millar. “Most of the work in those days was legal aid work. Some of it was pro bono. His purpose was the same as all of us in that generation who had been radicalised by Margaret Thatcher. We wanted to change the world, and we wanted to do it by using the law to entrench stronger human rights and civil liberties. That was absolutely true of Keir too.”

The radical Bar was not invented out of thin air in 1987. Radical barristers of the earlier 20th century like the Communist DN Pritt, Labour’s John Platts-Mills and Gerald Gardiner, and liberals like Louis Blom-Cooper and John Mortimer had a significant place in the firmament. But it remained a fairly isolated one. The generational movement that Starmer joined in the 1980s would go on to reshape a profession hitherto embodied by the character Mortimer created for TV, the claret-quaffing Rumpole of the Bailey. For many, this physically involved setting up new sets of London chambers outside the traditional inns of court. In 1990, Starmer was part of this exodus, joining Doughty Street Chambers, newly founded by Geoffrey Robertson and a gallery of other progressive barristerial luminaries like Ed Fitzgerald, Helena Kennedy and Ken Macdonald.

Starmer cut his teeth in things like public order cases involving the right to protest. He assisted some high-profile campaigners, including in the McLibel trial, and did a lot of unpaid pro bono work on Caribbean and East African death penalty cases in which colonial-era rights of appeal to the UK courts were still available. In the argument that was crystallising among radical barristers at the time, between those who were keen to entrench a code of human rights in the law and those who were suspicious of codes and preferred to wrest the advantage within the existing common law, Starmer was always firmly in the former camp—and he still is.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Worth remembering that we've still only had the Shadow Cabinet announced. A lot of the names people have been surprised not to see may still be slotted into junior ministerial roles, if they're willing to accept them (and I get the sense anybody turning down such an offer guarantees themselves a long stretch on the backbenches, given what the appointments thus far tell us.)

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

There's an awful lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from left Twitter at the moment but it's notable that a decent chunk of the left has survived, it's just that it's the part of the left that doesn't make a habit of starting factional shouting matches for no obvious benefit. This is perhaps instructive.

Let's be honest, the most vocal red rose twitter whiners wouldn't have been satisfied no matter even if Starmer had made Long-Baily his Chancellor, Burgon his Home Secretary, and Corbyn his Foreign Secretary. 

[Blair]

Interestingly Johnathan Reynolds, despite certainly not being on the left, is a supporter of a Universal Basic Income; which could be interesting given his portfolio.

@MaxQue, Nandy was taken out of context with the Catalonia thing.

It was still a silly thing to say and one of the things that put me off her.

But its genuinely not a terrible SC overall, at all. The sight of some prominent Corbynites on social media doing some stretching to dislike it (they were expecting a much bigger tilt to the right, no question) tells its own story really. Tho I am slightly surprised that Butler and Maskell went, shame about Brabin as well. And thought that McGovern might get something as an "olive branch" to the right - I've always thought her very talented and wasted on Progress basically.

And that quip about Starmer telling Reeves "Hi there Rachel, its Keir - I'm making you Shadow Chancellor.......of the Duchy of Lancaster!" is still making me smile some 24 hours on

Butler shot herself in the foot by not signing the BOD pledges; she also had a weak excuse for doing so by claiming that she wanted to wait for the EHRC report before Labour decide what changes we make- which of course ignored the fact that the EHRC changes tend to be binding.

She also ran a pretty awful leadership race in my view which distracted from the fact she was a pretty effective Equalities Shadow Minister who didn't cede any ground on LGBT+ rights.

Maskell was never that effective on the frontbench & falls into the category of someone you get rid of if you need to make room.

[brucejoel99]

Ed Miliband, Shadow Business, Energy and Industrial Secretary

Comeback?

We now have chaos & Ed Miliband, but correlation doesn't equal causation.

[brucejoel99]

Ed Miliband will be the biggest news; back in part of the department he use to run (climate is now part of Business) A very sensible move seeing as BEIS will be on the frontline over Covid & for his many faults Ed knows how to do Government & do media lines. A return was suggested under Corbyn & Ed is actually friends with Keir- having asked him to run in 2015.

To be an MP (since he was a member of the 2015 intake) or for Leader in the Corbyn/Burnham/Cooper/Kendall election?

[cp]

You're confusing origins with outlook. Coming from a working class background but aspiring to ingratiate oneself into the system (and being satisfied with the few measly tweaks possible by working 'from the inside'), as Keir did, is to adopt a fundamentally conservative outlook.

Have you read this interesting article on his background? I think it's unfair to describe Starmer's purpose in going into law as ingratiating oneself into the system.

Starmer had already decided to read law while he was still in the sixth-form. But the particular way he moved to the Bar was a more directly political choice. He applied for pupillage in the chambers headed by the former Liberal MP Emlyn Hooson because it had already attracted a group of more radical younger lawyers who were starting to reshape the legal system in ways that have endured.

“Keir’s purpose when he became a lawyer was not to make a fortune, or to build a glorious reputation,” says Millar. “Most of the work in those days was legal aid work. Some of it was pro bono. His purpose was the same as all of us in that generation who had been radicalised by Margaret Thatcher. We wanted to change the world, and we wanted to do it by using the law to entrench stronger human rights and civil liberties. That was absolutely true of Keir too.”

The radical Bar was not invented out of thin air in 1987. Radical barristers of the earlier 20th century like the Communist DN Pritt, Labour’s John Platts-Mills and Gerald Gardiner, and liberals like Louis Blom-Cooper and John Mortimer had a significant place in the firmament. But it remained a fairly isolated one. The generational movement that Starmer joined in the 1980s would go on to reshape a profession hitherto embodied by the character Mortimer created for TV, the claret-quaffing Rumpole of the Bailey. For many, this physically involved setting up new sets of London chambers outside the traditional inns of court. In 1990, Starmer was part of this exodus, joining Doughty Street Chambers, newly founded by Geoffrey Robertson and a gallery of other progressive barristerial luminaries like Ed Fitzgerald, Helena Kennedy and Ken Macdonald.

Starmer cut his teeth in things like public order cases involving the right to protest. He assisted some high-profile campaigners, including in the McLibel trial, and did a lot of unpaid pro bono work on Caribbean and East African death penalty cases in which colonial-era rights of appeal to the UK courts were still available. In the argument that was crystallising among radical barristers at the time, between those who were keen to entrench a code of human rights in the law and those who were suspicious of codes and preferred to wrest the advantage within the existing common law, Starmer was always firmly in the former camp—and he still is.

I hadn't seen that. Good article, though it does include this line which gets at what I was alluding to earlier:

“Keir has always subscribed to the view that you have to get into the system and not stand outside it” says Millar. “He would want to be on the inside, not out on the barricades.”

I see why Starmer and others who see themselves as 'radical' reformers would adopt this approach; it has its virtues. But I also think that that approach allows for far less fundamental change than its proponents realize.

Ed Miliband will be the biggest news; back in part of the department he use to run (climate is now part of Business) A very sensible move seeing as BEIS will be on the frontline over Covid & for his many faults Ed knows how to do Government & do media lines. A return was suggested under Corbyn & Ed is actually friends with Keir- having asked him to run in 2015.

To be an MP (since he was a member of the 2015 intake) or for Leader in the Corbyn/Burnham/Cooper/Kendall election?

Leader (!). It's mentioned in the Prospect article linked above.

[Blair]

Ed Miliband will be the biggest news; back in part of the department he use to run (climate is now part of Business) A very sensible move seeing as BEIS will be on the frontline over Covid & for his many faults Ed knows how to do Government & do media lines. A return was suggested under Corbyn & Ed is actually friends with Keir- having asked him to run in 2015.

To be an MP (since he was a member of the 2015 intake) or for Leader in the Corbyn/Burnham/Cooper/Kendall election?

I meant in the sense of running to be an MP; I haven't seen that Ed asked Starmer to run in 2015- but I haven't seen the prospect article or quote that says Ed wanted Keir to run for leader.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

So, plenty of familiar faces (RED ED IS BACK, BABY) but lots of new ones too, with the most obnoxious Corbyn orbiters sent into exile but not much in the way of blatant ideological/factional slant otherwise?

[brucejoel99]

So, plenty of familiar faces (RED ED IS BACK, BABY) but lots of new ones too, with the most obnoxious Corbyn orbiters sent into exile but not much in the way of blatant ideological/factional slant otherwise?

Yeah, I love how non-offensive this selection is. Seems like he's shunned anybody, left or right, who'd be anything other than serious & professional at all times (Jess Phillips & Clive Lewis, for example).

[DL]

Now that Boris Johnson is gravely ill in the ICU, we have to consider the possibility that Starmer will be up against someone other than BoJo in the next election...

[brucejoel99]

Now that Boris Johnson is gravely ill in the ICU, we have to consider the possibility that Starmer will be up against someone other than BoJo in the next election...

That's a bit grim, but regardless, that'd be a discussion for the UK thread, not this leadership election thread.