Andy Burnham is rethinking plans to appoint Ed Miliband as his Chancellor, according to his supporters.
The Energy Secretary was being lined up to take over from Rachel Reeves if Burnham succeeds in his bid to become prime minister, but several sources told The i Paper that the new Makerfield MP may have cooled on the idea.
While Miliband is a favourite among the Labour Party membership – frequently topping polls of the most popular Cabinet minister – he is less popular with the public.
A senior party source said: “He [Burnham] knows it would be problematic.”
Another supportive MP claimed he would not give Miliband that role and has not offered it to him.
Burnham’s key concern, allies insist, is his continued support for Labour’s manifesto commitment to no new oil and gas licences in the North Sea.
“People are watching their bills go up and cannot understand why we are not using the resources we already have in the North Sea. People are really angry about it – especially in places like the Makerfield constituency,” a senior Labour source said.
Ed Miliband previously said proceeding with Rosebank would be an act of ‘climate vandalism’ (Photo: Zeynep Demir/Getty)Burnham has previously left the door open to new North Sea drilling, telling the BBC in an interview last month: “I am not saying that I have completely made a view, actually, on the North Sea issue. I am listening to what people are saying about that.”
While more drilling would be unlikely to significantly reduce UK energy prices as this is largely influenced by global markets, supporters say it would boost British jobs and tax revenue while providing enough energy to heat more than a million homes and a more secure energy stream than imported liquefied natural gas.
Burnham’s allies suggest Miliband would have to be willing to approve the Jackdaw and Rosebank fields – Shell’s gas field off Aberdeen and the vast Equinor oil field off Shetland – to put himself back in the running for Chancellor.
Other names in the frame for the role have included Rachel Reeves, who would likely have been Burnham’s shadow chancellor had he won the Labour leadership contest in 2015, Shabana Mahmood, the Home Secretary, and Wes Streeting, the former Health Secretary.
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party Lucy Powell is keen on becoming deputy PM (Photo: REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja)However, the dark horse in the race is thought to be John Healey, the former Defence Secretary, who is both ambitious and well liked within the party. But Healey is also someone who could potentially enter a leadership race.
The other job in any future Burnham Cabinet likely to be hotly contested is the role of Deputy Prime Minister. According to multiple Labour sources, both Angela Rayner, who has previously held the job, and Lucy Powell, the party’s deputy leader, are keen on the position.
Angela Rayner is also said to want to become the deputy PM again (Photo by Loannis Alexopoulos/Anadolu via Getty Images)Labour MPs Anneliese Midgley and Louise Haigh, who helped lead the by-election campaign, are both tipped for prominent roles if Burnham gets into No 10. Haigh has been linked to the job of Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister – the role currently held by Darren Jones – while Midgley is understood to be in the running for Burnham’s chief whip.
Meanwhile, Lisa Nandy – another member of what Burnham affectionately called the “northern women powerhouse” – is believed to want to stay in her current position as Culture Secretary.
Burnham’s first official appointment was Grace Pritchard – Miliband’s former special adviser who was on loan to him during the campaign – as his head of communications.
Despite claims he has already offered jobs to “huge numbers of people” in return for their support, his allies insist this is not the case.
However, with Burnham expected to be sworn in as the new Labour MP for Makerfield on Monday, swiftly followed by a tilt at Number 10, it may not be long before he starts having to make decisions about the people he wants to appoint to his top team.
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