Confusion Clouds Labour’s Bid to Exploit Boris Johnson’s Troubles
(Bloomberg) --
Keir Starmer, leader of the U.K.'s main opposition Labour Party, shook up his top team in a surprise reshuffle Monday aimed at capitalizing on Prime Minister Boris Johnson's tumbling popularity and Conservative Party infighting.
Former minister Yvette Cooper, who served under both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, made a comeback to the front bench as shadow home secretary. David Lammy, also a veteran former minister under Blair and Brown, was promoted to shadow foreign secretary.
That meant a move for Lisa Nandy who will now shadow Michael Gove in the “leveling up” brief, Johnson's slogan for the aspiration of bringing prosperity to all areas of the U.K. Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves retained her role.
Ed Miliband lost his shadow business secretary role to Jonathan Reynolds, but will retain his brief on climate change and net zero. Nick Thomas-Symonds, formerly shadow home secretary, will shadow Anne-Marie Trevelyan in the international trade role.
“With this reshuffle, we are a smaller, more focused shadow cabinet that mirrors the shape of the government we are shadowing,” Starmer said in an emailed statement. “We must hold the Conservative government to account on behalf of the public and demonstrate that we are the right choice to form the next government.”
Boris Johnson Courts Edgy MPs Who May One Day End His Career
The announcement late Monday followed a morning of apparent chaos, when Labour's deputy leader, Angela Rayner, was not briefed on the reshuffle before she went out to represent the party on morning television and radio broadcasts.
Rayner had been briefed by the time she gave a major speech on how Labour plans to clean up British politics, after a slew of negative headlines over ethics and paid lobbying predominantly targeting Johnson's Conservatives.
For Starmer, though, it was far from ideal that such an event would inevitably be overshadowed by journalists' questions on the personnel changes -- nor that Rayner appeared to know very little about them.
The misstep comes on the same day that a survey by Ipsos Mori showed public support for Johnson at its lowest level since 2019. Labour are neck-and-neck with the Tories in most polls, but the party needs a sizable national lead to hold a realistic chance of victory due to Britain's constituency-based system.
©2021 Bloomberg L.P.
-
Opinion | India at 38: From Innovation Overperformer to Innovation Powerhouse
India now has 453 VC-backed deep science startups, 18 of them late-stage, after 117 percent growth since 2020. Laurus Labs, at USD 9.3 billion, is the most valuable deep science company in any middle-income economy outside China.
-
Navigating Energy Crossroads: S Jaishankar's Call For Diversified Supply Chains At G20 Ministerial Meeting
As geopolitical fault lines continue to test maritime trade routes and commodity flows, Jaishankar's message remains pertinent: true economic resilience requires open markets, protected transit lines, and a genuine commitment to multilateral cooperation rather than coercion.
-
Indians Are Travelling, But Not Every Journey Is A Holiday | The Week In Whys
Pilgrims, patients and working women are the real travellers, and the system hasn't quite caught up with them.
-
Getting To Work Costs Women More | The Reason Why
It is not just about women paying more than men. It is about women paying much more in cities than in villages.
-
AI Bias In Investing Cannot Be Eliminated, But It Can Be Governed
Framing is a particularly important example as identical financial information presented in terms of gains rather than losses can lead an LLM to reach a different assessment.
-
Joining The Dots | Dark Skies, Steady Diya: Why Hope Holds This Diwali
With war, a weak rupee and foreign outflows weighing on sentiment, policymakers at the NDTV World Summit and market veterans at NDTV Profit Ignite: Diwali Edition offered the same advice: stay invested and filter out the noise.
-
The Curious Case of Equitas Small Finance Bank And A CEO Who Quit For Stock
PN Vasudevan believes persistent investor concerns over a perceived conflict of interest had become a governance overhang on Equitas Small Finance Bank's stock, even as the lender improved profitability and asset quality.
-
Talking Points This Week: AI Cash Burn, A Tiger Comeback And An India That Still Finds Its Own Path
India is not immune to higher oil or tighter global liquidity, yet its earnings base is broader, its domestic policy levers are still available.
-
Foreign Investors Own Half Of HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank. An LTCG Cut Could Matter Most Here
Foreign portfolio investors have US$115 billion parked in HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank. If the government cuts long-term capital gains tax, Jefferies says returning foreign money could land here first.
