Ahead of another busy week of announcements, Andy Burnham today officially welcomed the hard left into his government’s parliamentary team. A new cohort of ministerial bag carriers – or PPSs – has been unveiled after much anticipation in the parliamentary Labour party (PLP). These posts were one of the last opportunities for Labour MPs to secure a plum job.
While the government already spans the so-called soft left, Blue Labour and even a few surviving Blairites, the PPS door has now been opened to loud and proud Corbynites. It marks the first time ever they have been allowed to serve in a British government.
While the government already spans the so-called soft left, Blue Labour and even a few surviving Blairites, the PPS door has now been opened to loud and proud Corbynites
Three members of the Corbyn-supporting Socialist Campaign Group caucus will serve as government PPSs: Olivia Blake and Mary Kelly Foy at the housing ministry, and Steve Witherden at the energy department.
Witherden enjoyed a spell in the headlines after a retired policeman accused him of stealing his proposal to send British ventilators to Ukraine – only for the machines to be offered to Cuba instead. Steve Eccleshall had asked the hard-left MP to help secure the release of 40 unused ventilators from a Welsh hospital. But a letter Witherden sent to the NHS trust three days later requested the machines be donated to Cuba. A post on the newly appointed PPS’s Instagram account shows him visiting the Venezuelan embassy in January to sign a book of condolences ‘for the well over 80 people killed in the US attack on Carcaras’.
Alongside revealing the fresh crop of government aides, Downing Street published a letter from chief whip Anneliese Midgley explaining how she intends to ‘strengthen and elevate’ the ‘vital’ PPS role, in keeping with Burnham’s pledge to turn the whips’ office into an HR department. Under Midgley’s plans, PPSs will be given ‘greater opportunities to undertake media and parliamentary activity, including on national policy’. They will also be expected to engage more closely with the backbenches, avoiding Sir Keir Starmer’s fatal error of behaving as though ministers were above their colleagues and had better things to do than listen to their complaints.
The PPS list, Midgley continued, was specifically curated to represent a ‘diverse and talented group’ with a ‘broad range of experience, expertise and perspectives’.
That ‘broad range’ has already sparked fury among some in the PLP. One Labour MP told The Spectator: ‘Putting Socialist Campaign Group members into PPS roles is madness. These are the very same people who at every turn sought to defend Jeremy Corbyn and prevent Labour speaking to the electorate rather than just a clique of hard left activists.’ Another said: ‘There’s increasing fury at the purge. Not aimed at Andy Burnham yet but at those he’s entrusted to build the team: Louise Haigh and Annaliese Midgeley.’ A third Labour MP told The Spectator: ‘Andy clearly values MPs who speak their mind, so I plan to do so more often.’
More openly criticising Burnham just a week into the job, former Labour minister Tulip Siddiq fumed: ‘It’s been extremely frustrating to see so many competent people unceremoniously sacked from government. This latest list showing sacked PPS’ makes me despair in particular because PPS-ing is not a glamorous job and so many of these MPs just got on with it, put in the hours and would have been an asset to any Labour government.’ Not to mention that the first black woman ever to be PPS to a Prime Minister was removed.’
If Burnham was hoping that his PPS list would be an exercise in peace, love and unity, it has clearly backfired.
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