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Recycled Leadership

Posted on 14/05/26 in Politics

One bizarre aspect of Labour’s self-destructive wallow in leadership squabbles is how venerable is the cast of characters. If we go back 20 years or so, the Conservatives have dumped four generations of politicians. Very few of the Tory leadership candidates since Cameron won in 2005, for instance, are still on the pitch. No Liam Fox, Andrea Leadsom, Stephen Crabb, Boris Johnson, Sajid Javed, Dominic Raab, Matt Hancock, or Penny Mordaunt. Cameron himself sits in the Lords, with Ken Clarke, Theresa May, Michael Gove (who has returned  to journalism where he should have stayed) and, bizarrely, Mark Harper. Still on the back benches are David Davis, Jeremy Hunt, Esther McVey, and a couple of the more recent candidates, Rishi Sunak and Tom Tugendhat.

Only a few remain in the public eye. Some from the 2024 contest are on the front bench: James Cleverly, Mel Stride and Priti Patel, and of course the winner Kemi Badenoch. Three have defected to Reform UK: Suella Braverman, Nadeem Zahawi and Robert Jenrick. Liz Truss is a floundering MAGA wannabe. Rory Stewart is possibly the most prominent of the lot, having quit Parliament to become a popular podcaster.

Yet do the same exercise with the Labour Party, and today’s dramatis personae have their fingerprints all over the current rumours and plots.

In 2007, Gordon Brown forced Tony Blair to step down and strongarmed his party into electing him unopposed. He is now an advisor to No.10 (as is the winner of the deputy leadership contest that year, Harriet Harman). The only person who tried to opposed Brown was John McDonnell, who remains an angel of doom, still making savage interventions.

Of the 2010 candidates, Ed has gone, and Miliband has gone, but Ed Miliband is a potential candidate even now. Andy Burnham quit Parliament to avoid being splattered by the Corbyn shitshow, which is problematic for him now, but is many people’s favourite. Diane Abbott, another ghost at the feast, is still always good for a quotable dig at the leadership.

2015? Burnham of course. Yvette Cooper was reported to have cast herself as one of the men in grey suits, handing Starmer a loaded service revolver. Meanwhile, Liz Kendall sits in Cabinet as a loyalist Starmerite, often sent in front of the media to drum up enthusiasm, an attack labrador. The fourth candidate of that year, a certain J. Corbyn, broods from the opposition benches as leader of Your Party, doubtless enjoying the whole thing.

Of 2020’s candidates, Lisa Nandy is a Cabinet loyalist, while Rebecca Long-Bailey has called for Starmer to go from the back benches. Sir Keir himself is inert, at the eye of a hurricane he can’t influence.

The only leadership candidate who has truly disappeared from the scene is 2016’s Owen Smith, who now works for Bristol Myers Squibb in Australia. He isn’t missed.

The two parties have gone in very different directions. The Tories have swept away piles of talent – Johnson was particularly wasteful of expertise – which is partly why they continue to struggle. But Labour have utterly failed to renew themselves. Its old guard dominates headlines, but its lack of new ideas is a handicap for Starmer, who, without a position of his own, can only reflect the party around him.