Burnham’s Cabinet List Hid More Than It Revealed

[00:00:01]Right. So Andy Burnham says Britain has just gone through the biggest political shakeup in 40 years. Apparently all it took was a few new faces at well they actually weren't that new at all were they? But 40 years he said that Blair that's austerity and Brexit the full Olympic relay and national self-sabotage. And now it seems all it takes to wipe away 40 years of wreckage is for Rachel Reeves and David Lammy to be hauling cardboard boxes out of their offices while the press corps counts them like it's the royal family's recycling day. Well, that's that then.

[00:00:33]Mission accomplished. Here comes the change. Someone fetch the bunting.

[00:00:37]There's a new king in town. The king of the north. Except before the applause had even stopped echoing off the Downing Street cobbles. Burnham's big electricity giveaway had already shrunk to the size of a supermarket loyalty card reward. Palanteer was still very much nestling in the NHS like a stubborn parasite. Labour's Israel links were still threaded through the cabinet like athletes foot. And Donald Trump apparently still had the keys to British air bases for his next round of fireworks against Iran. But hey, Reeves had left the building, so we got change.

[00:01:08]Naturally, the entire old order must have packed up and gone with her though, right? Some people have gone. That's true. Reeves is out. Lammy is out. Good riddance to the pair of them and several others. Besides, several Star loyalists have been cleared away. It's no good pretending that didn't happen because it did. The trick, however, is getting everyone to stare only at the people leaving. Who got sacked? Who looked furious? Who just lost the ministerial jag? Which faction won? Westminster spent the day drooling over it, didn't they? treating the cabinet like football transfer deadline night while the real question sat in the corner without even a cup of tea. Who still has access here?

[00:01:48]Which contracts still remain that are still obsequious and awful? Which foreign policy commitments have survived here? And what exactly has Burnham changed? Exactly. Andy Bernham didn't sell this as a slightly improved Labor government. He sold a moral reset, didn't he? It's about putting the right values and the right standards at the heart of government. I will put the care of people at the heart of everything I do. I will give this my all and I ask you all to pull with me. You can almost smell the fresh PR ink still warm from the printer, can't you? The mission statement gets wheeled out for its first and last public appearance. But once you set that standard yourself, people are entitled to check who you brought back into the building because the great national restoration began with Louise Hey back near the top of government despite having resigned as transport secretary after pleading guilty to falsely reporting a work phone stolen.

[00:02:50]She said it was a genuine mistake and that she gained nothing from it. But the result was still a conviction, a resignation, and now under Burnham a remarkably quick return. Still, it's quite the opening act for a government supposedly obsessed with standards.

[00:03:03]Nothing says fresh start like rerunning the same old faces through the revolving door. Speaking of, then Angela Raina returns to housing after leaving government over unpaid stamp duty on a house. HMRC later found no deliberate avoidance or carelessness. You paid what was owed. Again, fair enough. But putting the minister who face planted into a property tax scandal straight back into charge of housing is so on the nose it's basically a sketch from the thick of it. You couldn't script it without being accused of writing bad satire. But here we are living it. And then Lucy Powell education. When grooming gangs were raised, Powell's first reaction involved a trumpet and a dog whistle. She later apologized and said she was attacking political point scoring rather than dismissing child abuse. And it's we we do have to make that distinction. But equally, so does the fact that when organized child sexual exploitation came up, her first instinct was to reach for the dog whistle instead of anything that might actually help a child. And now she runs education. Hope, renewal, safeguarding, all very reassuring as long as you ignore the details and squint until reality blurs.

[00:04:07]As for the mainstream media, well, the broadcasters barely pause to look at any of this because they already had their story, didn't they? Burnham had purged starrange.

[00:04:16]They showed Reeves going. They showed Lammy going. They drew up a list of the winners and the losers. They talked about revenge, factional dominance, and the rise of the Manchester crowd. All very Westminster bubble stuff. But in doing so, they basically handed Burnham a free pass, a foot massage, and a commemorative mug, didn't they? They turned movement into meaning. Changed the name plate, changed the country.

[00:04:38]Apparently, they saw the chairs shuffling around and assumed power was playing musical statues, as if the last person standing gets to run the country. but it wasn't.

[00:04:49]Amongst those calling this nonsome out was Green Party leader Zach Palansky. He was rather less impressed by the removal van. One of Andy Bernham's consistent messages in recent days is he wants to work with the other parties to build consensus, you know, for the thorniest issues. Do you think he can? Would you work with him? Can he can he build consensus with the Greens, for example?

[00:05:11]>> I believe in cons consensus and pluralist politics. It feels like we need politicians who will work together >> to tackle what I call ripoff Britain.

[00:05:20]The fact we have this toxic combination of high bills and low wages. So I want to see the prime minister bring in things like rent controls, wealth taxes.

[00:05:28]We absolutely need action on the climate crisis with no new oil and gas. My problem is some of these appointments today suggest we're looking at continuity K star. Now, to be fair, it's only day one, so they might surprise me, and I'll be the first to applaud them if they do. But appointing Shabban Mammud as home secretary, for instance. This is the same minister who's been performatively cruel, not just performatively cruel, actively cruel to migrants and refugees. I'm talking about deportation videos, messing about with indefinite leave to remain, talking about um making asylum seekers review their cases every 30 months. And so, what we really need is change. And what I'm seeing Andy Bernham do is try and appeal to reform voters. I'd remind the prime minister that at May local elections, the government lost four times as many votes to the Green Party than to reform. So yes, I'm willing to work where there's agreement, but where there's disagreement, I'm absolutely intending to replace him.

[00:06:23]>> The question is not whether Burnham can make Labor sound less miserable. It's not very hard, is it? It's not a very high bar when Starmer came before it.

[00:06:31]Not whether some of his early measures will help. Some undoubtedly will.

[00:06:36]Who powerful has actually lost anything here though? Which corporate contracts gone? Which lobbying routes been closed off? Which loophole has been tied up and shuttered up and sewn up never to be opened again? Because when nobody with money, access, or influence has even stubbed a toe over any of this. Ordinary people should probably resist being told the revolutions are right. May have just switched to a different font and slapped a new and improved sticker on the same old box. For example, Pat McFaden, he didn't leave with Star. Bernham has kept him at work and pensions, which is useful because the Mandlesson files showed us how McFaden talked about welfare when he thought the conversation was private.

[00:07:13]>> This this is fascinating because this this is lifting the lid a bit on some of the troubles of the government. And this is between Pat McFaden uh who is now the welcome pension secretary um and uh Peter Mandlesson and it's around the welfare vote and you might remember this when the government had to pull the welfare reforms because of the size of the rebellion and it really was I think the turning point for the Stara government. He was so badly damaged from this and I think it was from that point really that things went from bad to progressively worse. And this is uh Mandlesson and McFaden having quite a long exchange. Uh Pat McFadden says to him, this is on the 24th of June 2025.

[00:08:00]Uh this welfare thing is very bad. And Mandlesson says, "You did well today, but I'm afraid there is a strong anti-are tide." Pat McFadden said, "I went through lists of meetings with MPs given to me. It was bad. They're not moving." Mandolson says, "I talked to Morgan. He's thinking of amending the bill to get it through, but I wonder if it's enough to stop it being defeated.

[00:08:23]If if it presses to a vote and is lost, I'm not sure that K survives that."

[00:08:27]McFaden says he's meeting the ring leaders today. I think it's very bad.

[00:08:32]Defeat pool bill or gut it all. Destroy his authority. Uh McFaden says K's authority. Mandlesson replies yes I am afraid so. Uh and then there is a voice call and another longer uh voice call.

[00:08:47]But that is just when you're on the outside covering these stories and you know it's bad and you're trying to read the room and and understand what's going on in government. To have revelations about what is being privately said between people at the top of government about the predicament the go the prime minister is in is deeply embarrassing and also very revealing. Pat McFaden there who has been one of K star's biggest defenders actually in recent weeks as he's really struggled to hold on. It's been Pat McFadam with a few other cabinet members which insisted to the prime minister two three weeks back that he should stay and fight that he shouldn't concede that he shouldn't uh step down from government.

[00:09:29]>> Every meeting apparently was someone describing benefits like a bad smell that just wouldn't leave the room no matter how many windows you open to do so. McFadden said his approach is about getting people into work and stopping them being written off. Well, fine.

[00:09:40]That's his defense. It's a defense that many of work and pension secretaries used before him as well. But Bernham's kept him in exactly the department where those instincts became policy. The biggest economic shakeup in 40 years. We still have the same welfare minister, the same penny pinching rules, the same allergic reaction to the idea that anyone might have to chip in for the poor. And McFaden isn't some lone Mandlesson correspondents who wandered in by accident. James Pernell is now Burnham's chief of staff, former Blair minister, former work and pension secretary himself, former Labour Friends of Israel chair, most recently chief executive of Flint Global, whose personnel recorded at least 38 contracts across nine government departments. Not Prenel personally attending all 38, of course, Flint personnel.

[00:10:24]Accuracy, I suppose, has to matter, but so does the fact that the firm's British client list remains largely hidden. Who are they? Why are they still on the inside? And does Pernell's appointment give them even greater access? Now, Douglas Alexander, another starmer minister remaining in his place, told Mandolson after the election that he probably didn't realize how influential he'd been in the whole improbable journey. Where streeting, who is back, had months of political and personal messages with Mandlesson. Mandolson doesn't need a cabinet job and his address book is already running the show and probably ordering the canopes. And Palanteer is where this stops being Westminster gossip and turns into something much more concrete. Evette Cooper is now health secretary having been shifted from the foreign office.

[00:11:05]Waiting on her desk is the NHS federated data platform contract with Palanteer.

[00:11:10]The contract value is just over 182 million. It could rise to 330 million.

[00:11:15]That's a live contract. The claims used to sell it have started looking distinctly shaky though, a bit like a jelly on a bumpy train. The NHS chief executive has questioned whether assessments of Palanteer's effectiveness were generally objective and whether they would survive proper scrutiny. He supports an independent review into the contract being awarded. MPs have urged the government to use the breakout clause to get out of it. Bernham's allies floated the idea that he might access that contract, which made for a lovely headline. Shame the reality, however, is still stuck in the small print because the briefing then softened and Burnham never publicly actually promised to cancel it. Palanteer stays, it seems, like a house guest who's hidden your car keys. Started to look less like a coincidence, more like a party trick, hasn't it? The announcement moves, but the obligation doesn't. And Palanteer's reach isn't limited to health, is it? Mandolson helped open doors between the British government and Peter Teal and Palanteer's other senior people. He called the wider technology partnership his personal pride and joy.

[00:12:12]John Healey then led defense while its palanteer arrangement expanded from about 75 million to 750 million over 5 years. He's now Bernham's chancellor of the exjector.

[00:12:22]Cooper inherits Palanteer. The company gets a minister at both ends of the corridor and the public gets another speech about change served with a generous helping of deja vu. And unfortunately at this point I have to come back to West Streeting again because Bernham has now put him at defense having previously been at health which is an interesting pivot for anybody quite frankly having been once upon a time pretending to care about health and immediately jumping ship now to care more about death and destruction. The streeting's first appearance in the role wasn't to announce a rethink of Britain's military direction. It was to suggest that more money was on the way.

[00:12:55]>> The commitment that the prime minister has given uh to the defense of our nation uh is clear and will be even more clear in the coming months.

[00:13:07]>> Yesterday morning, a Russian warship fired live rounds as a live firing exercise off the coast of England. Do you think that this was a message from Vladimir Putin to the new prime minister given that it happened on the day that he was that Andy Bernham was sworn in?

[00:13:27]And do you have your own message for the UK's allies and our enemies about UK defense spending in particular? Do you does this new government believe what the new chancellor says that defense spending needs to rise to 3% of GDP by 2030? Thank you very much, Deborah. Um firstly, we should see uh yesterday's events uh as performative and irresponsible. It's not the first time that Russia has behaved like this and frankly it's the tip of the iceberg of the daily threats that this country faces and our allies face and Russia should be in no doubt about the resolve of this government and this prime minister. Uh our resolve to stand against uh Russian aggression in Ukraine but also Russian aggression against all of our allies. uh the commitment that the prime minister has given uh to the defense of our nation uh is clear and will be even more clear in the coming months. I'm absolutely delighted uh that my friend and predecessor John Healey has taken on the challenge of uh chancellor of the excheer. Um his position on defense investment is on the record as is mine.

[00:14:50]>> That didn't take long either, did it?

[00:14:52]Streeting at Defense Healey at the Treasury. One controls the military department, the other controls the money, having just left the military department under Starmer, and that was because Starmer wouldn't spend as much on bombs as Healey allegedly wanted him to. Streeting also arrives with one of the clearest pro-Israel political records and Labour's senior ranks, an LFI funded visit to Israel, funded staff travel, nearly £30,000 in declared support, hospitality, and travel link to pro-Israel donors and organizations. And it's not just streeting. It's Cooper.

[00:15:21]It's Rainer. It's Jonathan Reynolds who stays at business. It's McFadden. It's Lisa Nandandy who stays at culture. And others have their own documented links through donations and funded travel and labor friends of Israel and public advocacy or policy. Not all necessarily the same links. Not all the same weight.

[00:15:36]A donation isn't a trip. A trip isn't a ministerial decision. A ministerial decision isn't proof that someone's been bought. But even if you map them all with your eyes closed, the picture is impossible to miss, isn't it? Burnham's supposedly new cabinet remains thick with the same Israel facing relationships that ran through starr there's Healey and the F-35 contract.

[00:15:58]While he was defense secretary, Healey warned that suspending British components feeding the global F-35 program could damage US confidence in Britain and NATO. So the exception stayed. British parts could still enter the global supply pool that serves Israel. He's now left the fence and taken that treasury taken the treasury.

[00:16:14]The minister has moved, but the policy has very much stayed. And while all of that remains untouched, Burnham has launched a policy blitz, hasn't he?

[00:16:22]Surely this must be where all the changes then. The electricity VAT cut is very much real. People will pay less than they would have, which is nice, especially when you're being mugged by your own utility bills every month. But it ain't last probably for about the next 6 months. It applies to electricity and not gas. It arrives alongside an expected rise in the price cap. Martin Lewis reckons the headline 45 benefit may feel closer to 20 once the October rise gets counted. Then January based on predictions for what the price gap will rise by at that point may eat all of the rest. So the whole saving is gone by January. So yes, breathing space for a desperately hoped for honeymoon period for this new labor administration. maybe enough time for a single gasp before the bill comes back and wraps his hands around your throat once more. And Bernham says the money comes from cancelling the 1.8 billion pound digital ID scheme, which everybody's happy to see the back of except those savings were still meant to be found by departments. So that money hasn't been found yet. It wasn't a neat pile of cash stashed under the treasury mattress no matter how many times they fluffed the pillows or checked behind the headboard.

[00:17:33]More importantly, the wider identity machinery hasn't actually disappeared either. Brennham scrapped the branded digital ID program, while age assurance and online identity checks remain very much part of the plan to restrict social media access. He killed the badge, but he kept the bouncer. The state may not require a single official card, but your phone can still be asked to decide whether your face is old enough to speak online. Stunning victory for privacy as long as you don't mind your phone scanning your face every time you want to open your mouth online. There's already been a party backlash over the appointment of Shabbana Mahmud to number 11. Some people on your side of the party would have preferred Ed Milliband.

[00:18:11]What about the the reforms that she put in place with regards to immigration?

[00:18:15]Many Labour MPs would now want to kill those off if she is moved to another job.

[00:18:21]I think Shabbana Mammud's tenure as home secretary is one that has brought constonation and horror to many people in our country, particularly people working in the health and care sector who are suddenly being told that indefinite leave to remain isn't really indefinite leave to remain. It's something different. This idea of earned settlement and earned citizenship. She's got to drop that. They've got to drop that straight away. you know, if she's no longer home secretary, the incoming home secretary can obviously um undertake those changes. I know a lot of MPs, Labour, yes, but also other parties as well, and certainly all of the independent MPs really are determined to get this whole policy change. You can't keep on appeasing reform and not expecting reform to grow as a result of it. You got to stand up against reform.

[00:19:11]Their arguments about immigration and migrants working in our public services are complete nonsense. Everybody knows the NHS and the care system relies on people that have migrated to this country and made a fantastic contribution to our society. And arguably most egregious of all, Shabbana Mammud remains the home secretary, an endorsement of everything that she sought to introduce under Starmer as such. Therefore, such as her earned settlement proposals that could leave some care workers waiting 15 years for permanent residents, 15 years for key workers that there's a chronic shortage of. These are people keeping hospitals and care homes running while politicians issue weekly statements about staffing shortages and national resilience. Labor applauds them through a crisis, hires them to keep the NHS from collapsing, and then tells them to spend 15 years jumping through hoops to prove they're worthy of staying in this country. And then there's the matter of our military bases. This is truly where all the relaunch talk finally collides with reality surely not with a speech or a reshuffle or a temporary VAT cut but warmer had already allowed US use of British basis for attacks on Iran that Britain described as defensive. Burnham could have paused that could have stopped it.

[00:20:21]He could have reviewed the legal basis for all of it. He could have demanded Parliament actually debate it. He could have done almost anything to show that something genuinely new was happening here. Instead, it's been reported that Burnham has approved the continuation of that policy. He hasn't stood outside Downing Street and publicly announced it himself, but the report says RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia remain available for qualifying US strikes. And his official call with Trump stressed defense and security and keeping shipping moving through the straight of Hormuz already jumping through hoops it seems for the orange man baby. So there's Burnham's first serious foreign policy test. Washington asked whether Britain will continue to play its part.

[00:21:00]Burnham reportedly says yes. New prime minister, same runway, same old like plan. Bernham ended his speech by asking Britain to believe again though, didn't he?

[00:21:10]>> Let's build a new national sense of unity, of common purpose and positivity.

[00:21:20]Let us make this the moment when Britain starts to believe again. The moment we bring back hope.

[00:21:30]Well, hope isn't the problem. People want hope. They're desperate for it. But hope isn't a six-month discount that disappears when the calendar flips to the new year. It isn't an uncancled Palanteer contract. It isn't Mandlesson's old circle taking new jobs.

[00:21:44]It isn't the same Israel linked political relationships running through defense and the cabinet. It isn't British bases remaining open for Donald Trump's war. Andy Burnham changed the people standing in the photo, but he hasn't yet changed who gets into the room, which contracts survive, whose military priorities Britain serves, or who ends up paying the bill. 40 years of supposed change didn't even survive 40 minutes of reading the small print before the illusion wore off. It's all more of the same. Burnham's Israel stance is hardly a surprise in my view, though. His apology over Gaza went down like cold sick in just as much the same way. So, check out more on that particular story here and this recommendation right here. Please do also hit like, share, and subscribe if you haven't done so already, so as to ensure you don't miss out on all new daily content, as well as spreading the word and helping to support the channel at the same time, which is very much appreciated. Holding power to account for ordinary working-class people, and I'll hopefully catch you on the next one. Cheers, folks.