MANCHESTER — The phone lines in Labour’s northern heartland are burning. Not about policy. About brothers.
About who gets what job. And about a prime-minister-in-waiting who, party women here say, is already stumbling.
Andy Burnham, the former Greater Manchester mayor who will succeed Keir Starmer in under three weeks, is trying to build a senior team. The problem: his top picks include two men with the same surname. Ed Miliband is tipped for Chancellor.
David Miliband, who quit UK politics after losing the 2010 leadership to his younger brother, is being floated for a shock return as Foreign Secretary. That would put two of the four great offices of state — Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Home Secretary, Prime Minister — in Miliband hands.
The Home Secretary post alone would go to a woman. Labour insiders say that is not tenable. Women Labour MPs are demanding half of ministers be female.
The optics of two Milibands in top jobs while only one woman holds a great office are already causing friction. Burnham was forced last night to distance himself from a much-mocked briefing that he would be Labour’s first woman premier. A senior figure had told the Spectator that he would be “a female PM in all but sex.” Labour MPs fumed.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch quipped that Labour “might have changed leader, but they still don’t know what a woman is.” Speaking to a meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party women last night, Burnham said: “I want to put on record that I never have and never will describe myself as the first.” For women in Labour’s northern strongholds, the brotherly psychodrama is familiar. It is the same dynamic that tore the party apart after the 2010 election.
Ed Miliband beat David in a bitter contest. David left for New York. Now he is being courted for a comeback.
And Burnham, who was a senior figure in the Ed Miliband era, is caught in the middle. Net Zero Secretary Ed Miliband has been heavily tipped to become Chancellor, despite alarm from business, unions, and party moderates.
The business lobby is nervous. Unions see him as too green. Moderates remember the 2015 defeat.
Yet Burnham appears to be pressing ahead. The shift is unmistakable. Labour’s brotherly psychodrama is back.
And Burnham, who built his reputation as a straight-talking mayor of Manchester, is now trying to contain damage on two fronts: the gender row and the Miliband problem. He failed on the first front last night.
The briefing that he would be a “female PM in all but sex” was widely mocked. Labour MPs here say it was tone-deaf. One senior woman MP told colleagues the comment made her “physically angry.” Burnham’s denial was swift, but the damage was done.
On the second front, the brotherly dynamic is proving harder to manage. David Miliband quit UK politics after losing the 2010 Labour leadership election to his younger brother Ed.
A return now would be on a scale not seen since Harold Wilson’s comeback. But it would also put two brothers in the top four jobs. And it would leave only one woman in a great office.
Labour insiders believe that scenario would not be tenable. Women MPs are already organising. They want half of ministers to be female.
They want a woman in a great office. They want Burnham to deliver.
Burnham is clearly trying to contain the damage. But the brotherly dynamic is proving harder to manage. And the gender row is not going away.
The former Greater Manchester mayor is now facing a test of his leadership before he has even taken office. The phone lines in Manchester are still burning.
And the answer is not clear.
