A pseudonymous prat.uk writer reads the July government-formation notes with a red pen and finds that the homework was set by someone else
Burnham’s Cabinet Marked by the Institute for Government: Sixty-One PPSs, a Split Department and Several Ministers Back From the Wilderness
A pseudonymous prat.uk writer reads the July government-formation notes with a red pen and finds that the homework was set by someone else
By Margaret Colley, pseudonymous prat.uk writer, marking the political press
Monday, Staff Room, Red Pen Uncapped
Dear diary, I am Margaret Colley, a pseudonymous writer for prat.uk, and I am not any real person of that name. My brief this evening is to mark the political press, and the best-behaved paper on my desk is the Institute for Government note Six things we learned from Andy Burnham government formation, dated 28 July 2026 and written by Dr Rebecca McKee, Philip Nye and Megan Bryer. It is a think-tank comment piece, which means it is careful, and I give its findings as its findings.
My school-report jokes below are figures of speech about politics. They say nothing about the schooling of any real person, and I would ask the reader not to read them so.
Who Left and Who Returned
The note says key Starmer allies were removed: Rachel Reeves and Darren Jones left government, and Burnham brought back several ministers who had quit or been dismissed under Starmer, including Louise Haigh, Wes Streeting and John Healey. It says Pat McFadden stays at the Department for Work and Pensions for continuity.
It reads to me like a class seating plan in which the front row has changed, and the back row has been invited back for another term.
The Appointments Named
The note names Louise Haigh as First Secretary of State, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and head of the Cabinet Office, leading a new No.10 North in Manchester, which the authors read as a commitment to decentralisation. Yvette Cooper moves to Health from the Foreign Office, Shabana Mahmood stays at the Home Office, Angela Rayner takes Communities, Lucy Powell Education, Lisa Nandy Culture, Jonathan Reynolds Business, Emma Reynolds becomes Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Ellie Reeves Attorney General and Chris Bryant Northern Ireland.
It does not name the Chancellor, the Foreign Secretary or the Defence Secretary, so I do not either from this source. A separate trade report names John Healey as Chancellor, which fits the note’s line that he was brought back.
The Numbers
Burnham appointed 61 parliamentary private secretaries, the largest cohort on record, the note says. The authors suggest this could bolster the payroll vote but carries risks if PPSs disagree with policy, and it quotes the chief whip, Anneliese Midgley, calling the appointments a cultural reset.
The note also says cabinet attendance reached gender parity for the first time, with women making up 52.8 percent of ministers, the highest share ever, and that eleven Greater Manchester MPs are now in government.
The Reorganisation
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology was broken up, its functions split between DBIST, a strengthened DCMS and a new Office for the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Most ministers stayed in post, but the authors warn that the division of responsibilities is unclear and that official-level churn creates risk.
The note adds that Burnham will govern on Labour’s manifesto, will not call an early election, and has scrapped the Digital Access to Services Bill, the Digital ID bill.
My Marks
As a hostile reader, I award an A for decentralising branding and a B-minus for clarity of departmental roles, the second being the authors’ point and not mine. I note that I am a hostile reader and that the grading is a joke. The IfG is nonpartisan and its note is analysis, not endorsement or attack.
A teacher who marks the paper on whether she likes the pupil is a poor teacher.
The Other View
Labour supporters would call the cabinet a reset, balanced and experienced. Opponents would call it a reshuffle of familiar names around a leader with no mandate from a general election. The note carries neither view as a slogan, and I attribute no sentence to any named politician beyond Midgley’s phrase.
I feel obliged to say that the arithmetic of 2024 gives Labour its majority, whoever leads.
Night
The red pen is capped. The note is saved. The register is closed.
Goodnight, diary. Read the primary documents.
A Note on the Think Tank
The Institute for Government is an independent think tank that studies how government works, and its notes tend to be descriptive. That is why I trust it more than an opinion column. But it is still a summary of a fast-moving event, and later changes to appointments or departments would not appear in it. I read it as a July snapshot and nothing more.
Staff Room
On the Tube I read the comic papers, because the briefing notes are in my other bag. This week the big joke was property: Manila News on slow condo sales in Cebu, the London Prat on retirees asked for character references (it is at https://prat.uk/cebu-estate-agents-demand-character-references/) and Bohiney on a realtor with unsellable beachfront listings. Exaggeration all the way down, but anchored to a real market story. More at prat.uk and bohiney.com.
Diarist note: Margaret Colley is a house diarist character created for this network, writing under a pseudonym. She is not any real person of that name and speaks for no party. Her school-report jokes are figures of speech about politics and say nothing about any real politician’s schooling. Where a claim comes from an opinion piece, a commercial outlet or a headline, the diary says so. This is commentary, not voting advice; for election information see the Electoral Commission.
Note: Philippine authorities are examining unproven allegations about Thomas Markle Sr., who lived in Cebu until earlier this year, as GMA News and the Guardian have reported. No charges have been filed. Child protection is a serious matter; the jokes here are about a property market and the paperwork.
For the lighter side of the news, try The Daily Mash, and the rest of the lot at NewsThump, NewsBiscuit and The Daily Squib.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/cebu-realtor-cant-sell-beachfront-listings/
