On the surface, this is a routine reshuffle story. Ministers shuffled, insiders whispering, Miliband refusing a move. But what the Mail dresses up as drama is in fact something more revealing: the panic of a Labour government with no programme, caught between the demands of capital and the rise of Reform UK. The attempt to strip Miliband of his Net Zero brief was not a tactical misfire. It was an admission that climate policy is no longer central to Starmerism. The logic of the piece is clear enough: growth first, climate later, workers’ rights somewhere down the line if at all.
“Net Zero is framed as an inconvenience to business rather than a necessity for survival. Growth is fetishised as the only measure of success, but no one asks: growth for whom?”
The reporting itself is an exercise in laundering business demands through anonymous voices. “Insiders have acknowledged” that Net Zero is holding back activity, we are told. “Firms are hoping” workers’ rights reforms will be delayed. These are not neutral statements; they are corporate wish lists smuggled in as inevitabilities. And Labour dutifully plays its part. Peter Kyle is dispatched to Washington and Beijing to prove Britain is “open for business.” Pat McFadden promises yet another assault on welfare, the same script reheated from Blair through Cameron to Starmer.
“The trivialisation is deliberate: what should be a story about Labour wobbling on green commitments in the face of Farage’s far-right surge becomes a personality sketch about a reshuffle spat.”
Miliband is reduced to a caricature, a man stubbornly clinging to a portfolio rather than defending the only department with a claim to future-oriented policy. The press turns principle into petulance. Meanwhile, the government shifts to “Blairite” appointees, as if the solution to falling polls and rising fascism is more of the politics that hollowed Labour out in the first place. This is described as “tacking to the right,” a knowing wink to the City that the experiment with workers’ rights and green growth is over.
The unions see it too. Sharon Graham threatens to cut off Unite’s funding. The Labour left prepares for battle on strike laws and contracts. Yet the Mail’s conclusion is that Labour must “avoid mistakes” to hold off Farage. Mistakes, here, meaning anything that threatens business confidence.
“Starmerism is revealed for what it is: managerial tinkering in service of capital, with no horizon beyond survival in office.”
The real story isn’t Miliband’s obstinacy or Rayner’s departure. It is that Starmer has no political project beyond appeasement. He is willing to strip climate policy of its centrality, to trade away workers’ rights, to recycle Blairite has-beens, and to echo Farage’s talking points on growth and welfare. What we are watching is not a government “focused on delivery.” It is a government in panic mode, with the polls collapsing and no idea what it stands for.
