Sir Keir Starmer, the UK’s Labour Party leader, has appointed two former Labour cabinet ministers, Jacqui Smith and Douglas Alexander, to junior ministerial positions. Smith served as home secretary and has now been given a peerage and appointed as higher education minister in the House of Lords. Alexander held multiple cabinet roles in the previous Labour government and is now a business minister, having returned as an MP for the first time since 2015. The appointments are part of a small number of new ministerial appointments made by Prime Minister Starmer on his first full day in office.
Ellie Reeves, who served as co-director of Labour’s election campaign, has become the minister without portfolio. She is also the sister of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who has been given a cabinet-level post as shadow chancellor of the exchequer. Dan Jarvis, the former Mayor of South Yorkshire, also joins the Home Office as a minister.
Matthew Pennycook and Jim McMahon, who held roles in Sir Keir’s shadow government, have become ministers in the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Jarvis describes housing and boosting economic growth as essential to national renewal. Pennycook sees his appointment as a “real honour.”
Smith, who is not an MP, last held the position of education minister 25 years ago under Tony Blair. She went on to hold many ministerial roles, including being the first female home secretary. She resigned in 2009 due to a series of expenses scandals, including claiming expenses on her Redditch home and blaming gender bias for the heightened scrutiny of her expenses.
After helping to orchestrate Labour’s successful election campaign in 2001, Alexander became a junior minister under Tony Blair. He then served in various roles before being made both transport secretary and Scottish secretary in 2006. While holding the office, Alexander repaid over £12,000 he had claimed from Parliament. He was defeated by the SNP’s Mhairi Black at the 2015 general election, overturning his 16,000-vote majority while serving as shadow foreign secretary. After leaving parliament, he joined Harvard and New York University as a professor and became an advisor to U2 frontman Bono. In 2023, he was announced as Labour’s candidate for East Lothian, one of the party’s top target seats in Scotland.
These new appointees join many former cabinet members from the previous Labour government in Sir Keir’s new top team, including Yvette Cooper, Hilary Benn, and Ed Miliband. The new Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has also been having conversations with Alan Milburn about a role in the government, according to a Labour source. Mr. Milburn served as Mr. Blair’s health secretary during the latter part of his first term
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