Guido thought he’d spare a thought for those Labour MPs who served their time as junior shadow ministers and were swiftly snubbed by Starmer (or Sue Gray) as soon as the Party entered Downing Street. Though departments and roles have moved around and changed titles since Labour came into government, Guido has a breakdown of a list of MPs who held junior roles in Opposition until May 2024, though didn’t make the cut for the real deal:

• Florence Eshalomi – Shadow Minister for Levelling Up, Housing, Communities and Local Government.
• Jessica Morden – Shadow Minister for Wales. After holding an Opposition post since 2015, she was booted out by old timer Nia Griffith.
• Bill Esterson – Shadow Minister for Transport.
• Matthew Western – Shadow Minister for Higher Education since 2021, replaced by Brown-era Jaqui Smith as Minister for Skills.
• Helen Hayes – Shadow Minister for Children & Early Years since 2021, replaced by Janet Daby as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Families and Wellbeing.
• Chi Onwurah – Shadow Minister for Science. Chi served as a shadow minister every year Labour were in Opposition from 2010-2024.
• Toby Perkins – Shadow Minister for Nature and Rural Affairs replaced by Emma Hardy
• Ruth Jones – Shadow Minister for Agri-Innovation and Climate Adaptation since 2020.
• Ruth Cadbury – Shadow Minister for Prisons, Parole and Probation replaced by cobbler James Timpson.
• Chris Evans – Shadow Minister for Tech and Digital Economy.
• Tanmanjeet Dhesi – Shadow Minister for Exports replaced by Gareth Thomas.
• Gill Furniss – Shadow Minister for Work and Pensions and loyal to Starmer’s shadow cabinet since 2020.
• Mary Glindon – Opposition Whip.

Meanwhile, there’ve been cries of favouritism from MPs who’ve seen rapid promotions of a cadre of well-connected newly elected members. Some of which include:

• Hamish Falconer – minister for the Middle East and Africa. And son of former justice secretary Lord Falconer…
• Georgia Gould -Cabinet Office minister. And daughter of New Labour grandee Lord Gould and leader of Starmer’s local council…
• Sarah Sackman – Solicitor General, who worked closely with;
• Lord Hermer -Attorney General. And close ally of Starmer…
• Liam Conlon – Parliamentary private Secretary (PPS) to Transport. And Sue Gray’s son…
• Imogen Walker – PPS to the Treasury. And Morgan McSweeney’s other half…
• Torsten Bell – PPS to Cabinet Office. Left-wing think tank Resolution Foundation’s CEO and former SpAd to Alistair Darling while he was Labour’s chancellor and the visionary genius behind the Ed Stone…

Sadly for the former loyal lot, they’ve been shoved to the backbenches. Oh to be a part of the Labour elite…

The big pieces of the shadow cabinet reshuffle are in place. Junior ministerial roles will be announced later this afternoon, although it’s already clear this is a consolidation of Starmer’s power. Allies like Shabana Mahmood have been rewarded with big new roles, and there are now (as the Tories are keen to point out) five former Blair-era SpAds in the new team, including a returning Liz Kendall. Rayner has been placated with a departmental brief, which stopped her kicking off and walking out with a dozen new titles. She’s also the Shadow Deputy Prime Minister now, which she’s more than pleased with…

There are some surprises: Steve Reed taking Jim McMahon’s old brief as Shadow DEFRA secretary has turned some heads. He’s an attack dog who’s raised his profile shadowing the Justice Department; moving him to the environment brief is seen as a conscious effort to get on the front foot over stories like sewage discharges. McMahon wasn’t cutting it, so Reed is expected to be punchy…

The big loser is Lisa Nandy, who has been demoted once again to Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development. She was Shadow Foreign Secretary just two years ago. She’s regarded as a strong media performer, so to get shifted downwards once again – largely to make room for Rayner in her old Levelling Up job – won’t have gone down well. Publicly, her team are briefing out some positive spin, saying “Lisa is a team player and looks forward to getting stuck into the new role.” Playing the long game in the hopes of climbing back up the ladder later…

Here’s the full list of appointments:

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Senior Labour figures are not happy with shadow mental health minister Rosena Allin-Khan. Khan has been hyped as a potential future leader by soft left voices for years, and her coming second to Angela Rayner in the 2020 deputy leadership has only emboldened those backers. This afternoon anger is finally bubbling to the surface after Survation published a poll for LabourList testing out perceived leadership qualities of Labour figures. Accidentally, one section had been labelled “ROSENA QUESTIONS”.

The Times’ Henry Zeffman was the first to spot Survation’s cock up, with the New Statesman’s Rachel Wearmouth piling on pressure by reporting “Lots of shadow cabinet ministers angry with what appears to be leadership manoeuvres from Rosena Allin-Khan”.

A clarification from Survation’s Damian Lyons Lowe has done little to stop the runaway train of anger from Starmer loyalists, with Lyons Lowe claiming “this was an error due to the survey script using questions from a template from work done for the 2020 Deputy Leadership election”. Unfortunately for Rosena, this doesn’t prove a wholly solid defence. Lowe goes on:

“ These questions are for some new @LabourList polling that will be out next week.”

A shadow cabinet source, however, points out to Guido that Rosena Allin-Khan’s big financial backer, David Kogan, is a director of LabourList, and gave her £7,500 in February according to her register of interests. So while Allin-Khan may not be directly behind the cock up, one of her key backers responsible for commissioning the polling may have ulterior motives…

The anger continues. The Sunday Times’ deputy pol-ed Harry Yorke is told “the growing consensus in the shadow cabinet is that Rosena Allin-Khan should resign or be sacked over this”. Politico’s Eleni Courea is told by a shadow cabinet member that “they were once sitting on a train to London from Manchester when Rosena and her team boarded and sat a couple of rows in front… and overheard her asking them go round and “say something you’ve done this week to help me become Labour leader”.” When Guido asked a shadow cabinet source their response to the Survation defence, the reply was the eternally pithy: “bollocks.”

Given how aggressively Labour’s attacking the Tories for handing out a universal £400 energy bill grant – as opposed to means testing it – Guido was surprised to see Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves struggle to commit to sending that cash to a worthy cause during her appearance on TalkTV this morning. After Rishi promised to do just that on his morning media round…

Asked by Jeremy Kyle if she’d donate £400 to charity, Reeves said:

“Well, you know, I’d be happy… I already make donations to charity to ensure that I’m doing that I’m doing what I can to help people who are less well off than myself. But the point is if I were Chancellor, I wouldn’t be designing a system like this. We shouldn’t be designing a system that sees people who are the very wealthiest get as much money as those people who are just about managing… as a result, there is taxpayer money being wasted.”

Unsurprisingly, the Tories out-spending Labour has left Starmer and his team struggling for a decent attack line. Whilst Rishi’s move may be economically questionable, it’s undoubtedly left Labour gasping for oxygen politically. If the Shadow Cabinet’s main opposition is that the policy isn’t means tested, they should be the change they want to see and donate the £400 to a charity for the needy. Now we’ve got Tory backbenchers with a tax and spend leadership, and Labour backbenchers with a leadership arguing against the traditional socialist belief in universal welfare…

On Friday evening Labour eventually announced Keir Starmer’s new shadow cabinet in full, including all the junior positions. Guido was interested to observe just one of Sir Keir’s ‘big beasts’ publicly announce their spokespeople: Angela Rayner. Not only did she tweet three announcement posts, she deliberately called the appointments “my Shadow Cabinet team”. Obviously underlining her new close allies after Sir Keir’s bungled sacking…

• Her new PPS – Florence Eshalomi: 2019 intake for Vauxhall. Previously a Progress official who backed Liz Kendall in 2015. Resigned as a whip in December 2020 after abstaining against the EU Future Relationship. Switched factions and backed Dawn Butler in 2020.
• Shadow Employment Rights and protections – Andy McDonald: To support Rayner’s new role as “Shadow Secretary of State for the future of work”. Reportedly Starmer wanted to sack him from the shadow cabinet however Rayner personally fought to save him. Described as the “last Corbynite standing”. Backed Burgon in 2020.
• Shadow employment minister – Imran Hussain: A solid left-winger, backing Corbyn from the start in 2015 and Long-Bailey in 2020. Backed Burgon in 2020.
• Shadow minister for democracy – Cat Smith: A member of the Socialist Campaign Group from her first day in 2015, and an original backer of Corbyn. A former chair of the APPG on Cuba. Backed Rayner in 2020.
• Shadow paymaster general – Jack Dromey: Her team’s token anti-Corbynite, backing Owen Smith in 2016’s failed coup. Backed Rayner in 2020.
• Shadow parliamentary secretary – Fleur Anderson: MP for Putney – the only seat Labour gained in 2019. Vehemently pro-remain and anti-Brexit. Backed Allin-Khan in 2020. 

Rayner has assembled a team of mostly hard-core socialists plus an old school grey hair (Dromey) and a new intake moderate (Eshalomi) – handy to have a team that reaches across the PLP if Starmer falls under a bus driven by John McDonnell. Could end up being quite a useful group if Rayner can enthuse them…

Putting the reshuffle behind her, Angela Rayner was back to work today, in her capacity as Shadow Secretary of State for the Future of Work. Joining with the TUC, she and Labour are calling for workers to take back control and put an end to the practice of ‘fire and rehire’. Guido’s confused – fire and re-hire has worked out pretty well for Rayner jobs-wise…

Khalid Mahmood, shadow minister for defence, has announced that he quit Starmer’s front bench ahead of the local election results:

It would be easy for Labour MPs and members to whinge about the unfairness of this summary of the past decade. But we must recognise that is how we are seen by so many people in the places that were once unfailingly loyal to us – as a party that has lost its way. It is only by engagement on a local level, meeting eye to eye with voters and hearing their concerns, that we will fix that. I will be doing so not from the Labour front bench, but walking the streets of my constituency as a backbencher and talking face to face with the people I have the honour to serve.