Miatta Fahnbulleh, the capitalism-sceptic climate zealot at the centre of a government war over net zero, was the second choice for Energy Secretary in Burnham’s reshuffle. The FT reports of Burnham:
“He promoted Miatta Fahnbulleh, a longstanding climate activist, to the job of energy secretary after arriving at Number 10, but only after culture secretary Lisa Nandy had turned down the job, according to people familiar with the matter. Nandy threatened to derail Burnham’s reshuffle by refusing to budge from her position, forcing the prime minister to back down.”
Fahnbulleh ran Burnham’s policy operation during the Makerfield campaign after sidelining Josh Simons and worked on the transition to help smooth Burnham’s entry into No10. Guido hears that she failed to impress in talks she held with major departments, often failing to understand how major policy systems worked. Some were surprised but why? She only ran one of the most deranged think tanks for most of her career…
The Energy Secretary, who is widely seen as a proxy for Ed Miliband, inadvisedly briefed that she was opposed to the approval of the Rosebank oil field, after which a large group of MPs including the Chancellor and officials in government signalled their support. The eco-agenda is a major split at the heart of Burnham’s government…
Lucy Powell told Sky News that the Ed Miliband-Russell Brand interview happened in part because the ‘social media age’ had not begun by 2015:
“Look, I mean, he approached the Labour Party, he approached the campaign team, and we’re in very different times now. We weren’t in the social media age at the time – where you could maybe search things up and see allegations about somebody at the time. and as I say, if there was any suggestion at all, we were dealing with someone who was a known sexual predator at the time, then, of course, you know, no one would have done that. But as I say, he was a well known public figure. Lots of people from Hollywood to the BBC to many others gave this person a very, very powerful platform. And we didn’t know at the time, unfortunately. It was a different era.”