Eagle-eyed Labour watchers have spotted that Wes Streeting’s husband has been doing some spring cleaning on his LinkedIn CV. Before:
After:
Dancey must have been reminiscing about his Labour career. Gone is any reference to the fact that Dancey worked for Peter Mandelson. For good measure he’s also got rid of his pitiful 2024 election performance in which he lost to Matt Vickers…
Parliamentary sources tell Guido Mr Dancey is still acting vaguely like an MP in his local area. Not much else to do after he was fired from Labour HQ…
Co-conspirators may remember Wes Streeting’s boyfriend Joe Dancey landing a plum gig (£104,985) as Labour’s new Executive Director of Policy and Communications – a combo of two previously separate roles. His job: “provide strategic leadership across the organisation to ensure that Policy and Communications functions are at the cutting edge.” Co-conspirators can probably make up their own minds on how that’s going…
Ministers are beginning to more angrily chirp at the lack of direction and poor communications – Reeves is, for now, the natural venting target ahead of the multi-year spending review next month. Within the government there is concern that the party political end of the effort is being let down by “never present” Dancey, who seems to have failed to get over being the only Labour candidate not to win in the Teesside area after Tory incumbent Matt Vickers successfully defended his Stockton West seat. He is frequently in the constituency and staffers have observed him ‘constantly’ having coffee meetings in Portcullis House – as though he were an MP…
The consensus is that party communications have lost their edge since Dancey started work. Labour has quietly briefed that Tom Hamilton, longtime ex-Labour adviser and Tom Watson’s former head of policy and research, will take up a role as the party’s “executive director of policy and research.” That means the Dancey combined role experiment is over…
Dancey will still head up the umbrella communications operation in Labour. Guido hears Hamilton is meant to start the week after next. A government source tells Guido: “The party needs its teeth back.” Ultimately it’s a contest to rearrange the deckchairs on the Titanic…
Wes Streeting’s boyfriend Joe Dancey has been appointed Labour’s new Executive Director of Policy and Communications. Stitch-up accusations abounded as Dancey was selected for the Stockton West constituency despite living in London with Wes. It didn’t matter in the end – he lost to Tory Matt Vickers in the only Labour defeat on Teesside…
Dancey will now be based in London to “provide strategic leadership across the organisation to ensure that Policy and Communications functions are at the cutting edge.” Before the election Labour had two separate roles for communications and policy, headed up by Matthew Doyle and Stuart Ingham. With those two headed into government the Party combined the roles into one £104,985 position, which Dancey has now filled. Politics is a family business…
Speaking to Sky News off the back of Rachel Reeves’ Air Passenger Duty hike, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary said:
“Labour is dependent on those Red Wall seats, and yet every move she makes poisons economic growth and damages the UK’s recovery… it’s the Chancellor who stumbles from policy misstep to policy misstep… I think her policy decisions are incredibly stupid.”
