The morning after Labour’s historic by-election win in Selby, Sir Keir Starmer was giving TV interviews when he became briefly distracted by some loud chuckling from behind.
It was unintentional, but the interruption from Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, got a very terse reaction. A visibly annoyed senior Labour spin doctor ordered a junior staffer to go and “tell Wes to stop laughing”.
It was a small incident. But it offered a brief glimpse into the strict, uncompromising, mindset that currently exists at the top of the Labour Party.
Fears are growing that this “command and control” approach could quickly run into problems in government, as the party has other significant powerbrokers who may not take kindly to receiving diktats from the centre.
Sir Keir has already clashed with Sadiq Khan over the London Mayor’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) scheme, which was seen by some as losing Labour the Uxbridge by-election.
And on Friday, Labour Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, revealed that he rarely talked to Sir Keir.
Mr Burnham also said that the Ulez row had shown that Labour needed to adjust to “the reality of devolution”. “We [mayors] do our job better when it’s place first, rather than party first,” he told The News Agents podcast.
And asked about Sir Keir’s decision to stick to Tory spending limits, the Greater Manchester mayor called on his leader to “give people hope that change is coming”.
Mr Burnham and Mr Khan are not only the only Labour powers in the land. The party currently runs seven regional combined authorities with directly-elected Labour mayors.
Unlike Sir Keir, they already have a mandate from the general public, and feel that they are entitled to do what they think is in the best interest of their electorate.
“I don’t think the Leader of the Opposition knows what to do with metro mayors, they haven’t figured it out yet,” says one mayoral adviser. “I would say the relationship between Starmer and mayors has been non-existent. Their instinct is to command and control.
“Mayors don’t have the whip hanging over them, I think instinctively this administration feels uneasy about that because they are so focused on message discipline.”
Another Labour figure, in Greater Manchester, also believes the leadership will gravitate towards “command and control” if it wins power. “In terms of devolution, why would you hand over power that can be used against you?” they said. “All you do is strengthen your opponents.”
Labour is likely to have won even more regional mayoralties by the time the next government comes into power. So how will the party’s national leadership deal with these regional big beasts? Some feel there are signs in existing relationships.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that they hate Andy Burnham and brief against him,” said the mayoral adviser.
“They are furious with Sadiq Khan about free school meals [the mayor’s plan to give them to all London primary school children].”
Mr Burnham has previously called for Sir Keir’s aides to stop the “negative briefing” against him.
In Tyneside, current Mayor, Jamie Driscoll, resigned from Labour earlier this month after being blocked from standing as the party’s candidate for the new North East mayoralty which will replace his in 2024, in a move he believes was sanctioned by Sir Keir.
Labour HQ insisted Mr Driscoll simply hadn’t made the grade for their longlist, but his treatment drew criticism from the likes of Mr Burnham and Liverpool’s Mayor, Steve Rotheram.
“They [Labour’s leadership] are desperate to control the news agenda,” Mr Driscoll told i. “But the world is changing, the politics of the 1990s is gone. Mayors have a direct mandate and are able to change things that can’t be done from Whitehall.
“I think Andy and Steve would both say they have done their own kind of politics since becoming mayors. I think Andy once said ‘it’s like grown-up politics once you leave Westminster’. It’s not about which team you’re on.”
Labour has selected Kim McGuinness, the current Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria, as its candidate in the North East and she is standing on a platform of ending child poverty.
But as Mr Driscoll points out, at a national level Labour is also refusing to commit to scrap the two-child benefit cap, a policy that could help thousands of families at a stroke.
“We are in this bizarre position where the Labour Party is justifying Tory policies saying ‘we haven’t got the money’,” he added.
“What the Labour Party should do is say to their mayors, ‘Tell us what you want, tell us what your priorities are and how we can help you deliver it’.”
In December, Labour unveiled a report from former Prime Minister Gordon Brown which called for deeper devolution, including extra powers for regional mayors.
In a speech in Leeds, Sir Keir backed the recommendations and promised to deliver “the biggest-ever transfer of power from Westminster to the British people”.
But what does that mean in practice? Labour has said it will set out further commitments on devolution in its manifesto and we may hear more at the party conference this autumn.
For Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former communications director, the party can’t take a step backwards.
“The country feels totally stuck at the moment. I don’t think I have ever known politics to be held in such low regard by so many people,” he told i.
“It goes deeper than people just wanting to see a change of government. I think the country wants to see real change in how politics is done.
“Labour has largely owned the devolution argument in the past and I believe can and should do so again.
“I was sad that Bristol voted to abolish the post of elected mayor because I felt both there and in other cities around the country the benefits of having a mayor with clout have been considerable.
“We have definitely seen that in the North of England and I hope we see more of it if Labour form the next UK government. The potential is enormous.
“It is also key to a more grown up kind of politics than what we have seen in recent years in which Westminster and Whitehall have been like a truly dreadful soap opera doing enormous damage to the country.
“The old command and control system, with overwhelming power held at the centre, feels broken. Understanding that people want to see decisions that affect them made closer to home is an important part of fixing it.”
Another source close to a northern Labour mayor said they believed Sir Keir “would have a really hard time slowing down devolution”.
“It’s Labour’s natural environment, if the Tories become opposition and Starmer starts to slow it down, or doesn’t grow it, it would be an obvious point of attack,” they said.
“Starmer is saying no to lots of stuff at the moment because he doesn’t want to make it about them. He’s trying not to make any spending commitments, things like scrapping the two-child limit. Maybe when they’re in government he will just do it.”
However, the source admitted they do fear that the Conservatives may seek to replicate the Ulez controversy in other parts of the country and this could lead to tension between Labour mayors and the Starmer administration.
“If you focus on a local issue, there are lots of them in different areas that can be divisive,” they said.
“That would test the relationship [between Labour HQ and mayoral offices], but I think that would take a lot of organisation from CCHQ, to essentially plant lots of little mines across these areas and hope they will get lucky.
“It will be an interesting dynamic if Starmer becomes prime minister. We often react to government announcements quite critically, it will be different, particularly when we want to get a better deal.
“We do have to be a critical friend and speak up for the area. If [shadow chancellor] Rachel Reeves’ first budget reneges on all of those promises and other stuff they’ve said for the North that would be a really difficult moment. The first budget is the test and the spending review.”
Labour Party sources pointed to Sir Keir’s decision to commission the Gordon Brown report, and commitment to a “Take Back Control” act which would deliver further powers to local authorities on areas such as housing, transport and skills as evidence of his commitment to devolution
“We really do recognise the value that mayors bring to their local areas,” a source said.
“We do work closely with them, there will be different views on certain things but broadly, there’s no issue with us and mayors. We’re serious about devolution.”
I can’t help but think clashes are an example of Mayors working as they should. The entire point of them is to represent the interests of their city and its people. If national parties have policies that run counter to those interests, or the manifestos on which those Mayors were elected, they *should* clash. There’s no point in having elected Mayors if they inevitably kowtow to national level parties any time there’s disagreement.
Tories can’t win by themselves, so they must turn Labour council leaders into the bad guys.
Tories out.
Good they should clash.
He is the duly elected Mayor not a branch office
So the mayors are doing right by their constituents, but the bumbling baboon that is kid starver doesn’t like them doing this? The more I read about this incompetent twat waffle, the more I’m glad I’m not voting for this horrendous party anymore.
Thought they were talking about Star Trek for a hot moment.
>The morning after Labour’s historic by-election win in Selby, Sir Keir Starmer was giving TV interviews when he became briefly distracted by some loud chuckling from behind.
>
>It was unintentional, but the interruption from Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, got a very terse reaction. A visibly annoyed senior Labour spin doctor ordered a junior staffer to go and “tell Wes to stop laughing”.
>
>It was a small incident. **But it offered a brief glimpse into the strict, uncompromising, mindset that currently exists at the top of the Labour Party**.
WTF? No it doesn’t. It was disrupting an interview.
I suppose me shushing my wife when trying to watch a film is also “*a brief glimpse into the strict uncompromising mindset*” of me as a husband.
Stupid Westminster Village journalists. Go touch the grass on College Green.
Starmer really is a control freak. I don’t think he understands the negotiations and diplomacy needed to be a leader of a democratic party. He seems to run it like he is the appointed head of a top-down hierarchical organisation who has ultimate power rather than a democratically elected leader of a democratic party.
I’m not the biggest fan of Burnham but I voted for him the first time he went for mayor (I’ve since moved out of GM) and supporting Greater Manchester’s interests even if it goes against the flavour of the month from Labour HQ is part of his job.
Starmer will also clash with Drakeford. Starmer is not a Labour candidate, he is a right winger with a red tie.
Starmer as PM and Khan as Mayor of London will be good for the city and the country.
The fact that they’re clashing is a positive thing – they both want to do what’s right but they disagree on how radical they should be and how best to go about improving things. Hopefully their disagreement and debate will lead to better policy coming out of the other side.
Whoever’s position we end up closer to will be much, much better than the policies coming out of the current decrepit Tory Party who seem to want to respond to the current problems by cutting house building, increasing our reliance on fossil fuels, buggering up our relationships with our closest trading partners and distracting everyone with bullshit culture wars.
Funny because Burnham and Khan would make better Labour leaders than Sir Kid Starver.
The only way the tories could have won was to have bashed ULEZ and spinning it as an attack on the working poor.
Which is what they did. I like Sadiq Khan and the Labour mayors. They do a good job in difficult circumstances, imho.
There is not one aspect of British life that the tories have improved since 2010 unless you are wealthy.
There are so many quotes here showing what a poor leader Starmer is and what a sorry state the Labour party is in.
> Mr Burnham also said that the Ulez row had shown that Labour needed to adjust to “the reality of devolution”. “We [mayors] do our job better when it’s place first, rather than party first,” he told The News Agents podcast.
100% accurate. Starmer and Labour seem to care more about winning than actually making life better for people. It’s pathetic that they’re opposing the ULEZ on the grounds that it “cost them Uxbridge” rather than focusing on preventing 4,000 Londoners from dying each year from air pollution or taking action to prevent the diseases caused by air pollution like stroke, asthma, and lung cancer.
> Unlike Sir Keir, they already have a mandate from the general public, and feel that they are entitled to do what they think is in the best interest of their electorate.
Sing it. Starmer needs to butt out of municipal affairs.
> “They are furious with Sadiq Khan about free school meals [the mayor’s plan to give them to all London primary school children].”
This would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. First Starmer opposes taking action to reduce pollution, then Starmer supports keeping hundreds of thousands of kids in poverty by refusing to scrap the two-child benefits cap, now Starmer is coming out in favour of keeping kids hungry by opposing free school meals.
> “We are in this bizarre position where the Labour Party is justifying Tory policies saying ‘we haven’t got the money’,” he added.
Again, 100% accurate. Starmer is a Tory in a red tie and is failing to present any reason to vote for him other than “I’m not a card-carrying Conservative, I’m just conservative.”
Starmer is assuming he wins every major city whilst sticking two fingers up at everyone who lives in one.
His sales pitch to us is “I’m going to offer you nothing, this is my full and final offer, what? You’re gonna not vote for us anyway? ha!!!”
It really is no surprise that mayoral politicians who actually do need win votes from such areas have a completely different politics.
If you want to see what taking voters for granted looks like in real time, look at Starmer’s Labour. Literally revulsed by 90% of the people who will begrudgingly put him in office before feigning surprise one day when he is simultaneously knifed in the front, back and sides by a party he one day joined by accident.
I’d vote Burnham 100 times out of a 100 over Starmer.
16 comments
The morning after Labour’s historic by-election win in Selby, Sir Keir Starmer was giving TV interviews when he became briefly distracted by some loud chuckling from behind.
It was unintentional, but the interruption from Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, got a very terse reaction. A visibly annoyed senior Labour spin doctor ordered a junior staffer to go and “tell Wes to stop laughing”.
It was a small incident. But it offered a brief glimpse into the strict, uncompromising, mindset that currently exists at the top of the Labour Party.
Fears are growing that this “command and control” approach could quickly run into problems in government, as the party has other significant powerbrokers who may not take kindly to receiving diktats from the centre.
Sir Keir has already clashed with Sadiq Khan over the London Mayor’s ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) scheme, which was seen by some as losing Labour the Uxbridge by-election.
And on Friday, Labour Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, revealed that he rarely talked to Sir Keir.
Mr Burnham also said that the Ulez row had shown that Labour needed to adjust to “the reality of devolution”. “We [mayors] do our job better when it’s place first, rather than party first,” he told The News Agents podcast.
And asked about Sir Keir’s decision to stick to Tory spending limits, the Greater Manchester mayor called on his leader to “give people hope that change is coming”.
Mr Burnham and Mr Khan are not only the only Labour powers in the land. The party currently runs seven regional combined authorities with directly-elected Labour mayors.
Unlike Sir Keir, they already have a mandate from the general public, and feel that they are entitled to do what they think is in the best interest of their electorate.
“I don’t think the Leader of the Opposition knows what to do with metro mayors, they haven’t figured it out yet,” says one mayoral adviser. “I would say the relationship between Starmer and mayors has been non-existent. Their instinct is to command and control.
“Mayors don’t have the whip hanging over them, I think instinctively this administration feels uneasy about that because they are so focused on message discipline.”
Another Labour figure, in Greater Manchester, also believes the leadership will gravitate towards “command and control” if it wins power. “In terms of devolution, why would you hand over power that can be used against you?” they said. “All you do is strengthen your opponents.”
Labour is likely to have won even more regional mayoralties by the time the next government comes into power. So how will the party’s national leadership deal with these regional big beasts? Some feel there are signs in existing relationships.
“I don’t think it’s any secret that they hate Andy Burnham and brief against him,” said the mayoral adviser.
“They are furious with Sadiq Khan about free school meals [the mayor’s plan to give them to all London primary school children].”
Mr Burnham has previously called for Sir Keir’s aides to stop the “negative briefing” against him.
In Tyneside, current Mayor, Jamie Driscoll, resigned from Labour earlier this month after being blocked from standing as the party’s candidate for the new North East mayoralty which will replace his in 2024, in a move he believes was sanctioned by Sir Keir.
Labour HQ insisted Mr Driscoll simply hadn’t made the grade for their longlist, but his treatment drew criticism from the likes of Mr Burnham and Liverpool’s Mayor, Steve Rotheram.
“They [Labour’s leadership] are desperate to control the news agenda,” Mr Driscoll told i. “But the world is changing, the politics of the 1990s is gone. Mayors have a direct mandate and are able to change things that can’t be done from Whitehall.
“I think Andy and Steve would both say they have done their own kind of politics since becoming mayors. I think Andy once said ‘it’s like grown-up politics once you leave Westminster’. It’s not about which team you’re on.”
Labour has selected Kim McGuinness, the current Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria, as its candidate in the North East and she is standing on a platform of ending child poverty.
But as Mr Driscoll points out, at a national level Labour is also refusing to commit to scrap the two-child benefit cap, a policy that could help thousands of families at a stroke.
“We are in this bizarre position where the Labour Party is justifying Tory policies saying ‘we haven’t got the money’,” he added.
“What the Labour Party should do is say to their mayors, ‘Tell us what you want, tell us what your priorities are and how we can help you deliver it’.”
In December, Labour unveiled a report from former Prime Minister Gordon Brown which called for deeper devolution, including extra powers for regional mayors.
In a speech in Leeds, Sir Keir backed the recommendations and promised to deliver “the biggest-ever transfer of power from Westminster to the British people”.
But what does that mean in practice? Labour has said it will set out further commitments on devolution in its manifesto and we may hear more at the party conference this autumn.
For Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former communications director, the party can’t take a step backwards.
“The country feels totally stuck at the moment. I don’t think I have ever known politics to be held in such low regard by so many people,” he told i.
“It goes deeper than people just wanting to see a change of government. I think the country wants to see real change in how politics is done.
“Labour has largely owned the devolution argument in the past and I believe can and should do so again.
“I was sad that Bristol voted to abolish the post of elected mayor because I felt both there and in other cities around the country the benefits of having a mayor with clout have been considerable.
“We have definitely seen that in the North of England and I hope we see more of it if Labour form the next UK government. The potential is enormous.
“It is also key to a more grown up kind of politics than what we have seen in recent years in which Westminster and Whitehall have been like a truly dreadful soap opera doing enormous damage to the country.
“The old command and control system, with overwhelming power held at the centre, feels broken. Understanding that people want to see decisions that affect them made closer to home is an important part of fixing it.”
Another source close to a northern Labour mayor said they believed Sir Keir “would have a really hard time slowing down devolution”.
“It’s Labour’s natural environment, if the Tories become opposition and Starmer starts to slow it down, or doesn’t grow it, it would be an obvious point of attack,” they said.
“Starmer is saying no to lots of stuff at the moment because he doesn’t want to make it about them. He’s trying not to make any spending commitments, things like scrapping the two-child limit. Maybe when they’re in government he will just do it.”
However, the source admitted they do fear that the Conservatives may seek to replicate the Ulez controversy in other parts of the country and this could lead to tension between Labour mayors and the Starmer administration.
“If you focus on a local issue, there are lots of them in different areas that can be divisive,” they said.
“That would test the relationship [between Labour HQ and mayoral offices], but I think that would take a lot of organisation from CCHQ, to essentially plant lots of little mines across these areas and hope they will get lucky.
“It will be an interesting dynamic if Starmer becomes prime minister. We often react to government announcements quite critically, it will be different, particularly when we want to get a better deal.
“We do have to be a critical friend and speak up for the area. If [shadow chancellor] Rachel Reeves’ first budget reneges on all of those promises and other stuff they’ve said for the North that would be a really difficult moment. The first budget is the test and the spending review.”
Labour Party sources pointed to Sir Keir’s decision to commission the Gordon Brown report, and commitment to a “Take Back Control” act which would deliver further powers to local authorities on areas such as housing, transport and skills as evidence of his commitment to devolution
“We really do recognise the value that mayors bring to their local areas,” a source said.
“We do work closely with them, there will be different views on certain things but broadly, there’s no issue with us and mayors. We’re serious about devolution.”
I can’t help but think clashes are an example of Mayors working as they should. The entire point of them is to represent the interests of their city and its people. If national parties have policies that run counter to those interests, or the manifestos on which those Mayors were elected, they *should* clash. There’s no point in having elected Mayors if they inevitably kowtow to national level parties any time there’s disagreement.
Tories can’t win by themselves, so they must turn Labour council leaders into the bad guys.
Tories out.
Good they should clash.
He is the duly elected Mayor not a branch office
So the mayors are doing right by their constituents, but the bumbling baboon that is kid starver doesn’t like them doing this? The more I read about this incompetent twat waffle, the more I’m glad I’m not voting for this horrendous party anymore.
Thought they were talking about Star Trek for a hot moment.
>The morning after Labour’s historic by-election win in Selby, Sir Keir Starmer was giving TV interviews when he became briefly distracted by some loud chuckling from behind.
>
>It was unintentional, but the interruption from Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, got a very terse reaction. A visibly annoyed senior Labour spin doctor ordered a junior staffer to go and “tell Wes to stop laughing”.
>
>It was a small incident. **But it offered a brief glimpse into the strict, uncompromising, mindset that currently exists at the top of the Labour Party**.
WTF? No it doesn’t. It was disrupting an interview.
I suppose me shushing my wife when trying to watch a film is also “*a brief glimpse into the strict uncompromising mindset*” of me as a husband.
Stupid Westminster Village journalists. Go touch the grass on College Green.
Starmer really is a control freak. I don’t think he understands the negotiations and diplomacy needed to be a leader of a democratic party. He seems to run it like he is the appointed head of a top-down hierarchical organisation who has ultimate power rather than a democratically elected leader of a democratic party.
I’m not the biggest fan of Burnham but I voted for him the first time he went for mayor (I’ve since moved out of GM) and supporting Greater Manchester’s interests even if it goes against the flavour of the month from Labour HQ is part of his job.
Starmer will also clash with Drakeford. Starmer is not a Labour candidate, he is a right winger with a red tie.
Starmer as PM and Khan as Mayor of London will be good for the city and the country.
The fact that they’re clashing is a positive thing – they both want to do what’s right but they disagree on how radical they should be and how best to go about improving things. Hopefully their disagreement and debate will lead to better policy coming out of the other side.
Whoever’s position we end up closer to will be much, much better than the policies coming out of the current decrepit Tory Party who seem to want to respond to the current problems by cutting house building, increasing our reliance on fossil fuels, buggering up our relationships with our closest trading partners and distracting everyone with bullshit culture wars.
Funny because Burnham and Khan would make better Labour leaders than Sir Kid Starver.
The only way the tories could have won was to have bashed ULEZ and spinning it as an attack on the working poor.
Which is what they did. I like Sadiq Khan and the Labour mayors. They do a good job in difficult circumstances, imho.
There is not one aspect of British life that the tories have improved since 2010 unless you are wealthy.
There are so many quotes here showing what a poor leader Starmer is and what a sorry state the Labour party is in.
> Mr Burnham also said that the Ulez row had shown that Labour needed to adjust to “the reality of devolution”. “We [mayors] do our job better when it’s place first, rather than party first,” he told The News Agents podcast.
100% accurate. Starmer and Labour seem to care more about winning than actually making life better for people. It’s pathetic that they’re opposing the ULEZ on the grounds that it “cost them Uxbridge” rather than focusing on preventing 4,000 Londoners from dying each year from air pollution or taking action to prevent the diseases caused by air pollution like stroke, asthma, and lung cancer.
> Unlike Sir Keir, they already have a mandate from the general public, and feel that they are entitled to do what they think is in the best interest of their electorate.
Sing it. Starmer needs to butt out of municipal affairs.
> “They are furious with Sadiq Khan about free school meals [the mayor’s plan to give them to all London primary school children].”
This would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. First Starmer opposes taking action to reduce pollution, then Starmer supports keeping hundreds of thousands of kids in poverty by refusing to scrap the two-child benefits cap, now Starmer is coming out in favour of keeping kids hungry by opposing free school meals.
> “We are in this bizarre position where the Labour Party is justifying Tory policies saying ‘we haven’t got the money’,” he added.
Again, 100% accurate. Starmer is a Tory in a red tie and is failing to present any reason to vote for him other than “I’m not a card-carrying Conservative, I’m just conservative.”
Starmer is assuming he wins every major city whilst sticking two fingers up at everyone who lives in one.
His sales pitch to us is “I’m going to offer you nothing, this is my full and final offer, what? You’re gonna not vote for us anyway? ha!!!”
It really is no surprise that mayoral politicians who actually do need win votes from such areas have a completely different politics.
If you want to see what taking voters for granted looks like in real time, look at Starmer’s Labour. Literally revulsed by 90% of the people who will begrudgingly put him in office before feigning surprise one day when he is simultaneously knifed in the front, back and sides by a party he one day joined by accident.
I’d vote Burnham 100 times out of a 100 over Starmer.