Apart from Starmer himself, ministers sacked or not reappointed in Burnham\u2019s takeover include chancellor Rachel Reeves, deputy prime minister and justice secretary David Lammy, housing secretary Steve Reed, business secretary Peter Kyle, health secretary James Murray, and Cabinet Office minister Darren Jones. <\/p>\n
Others, such as prisons minister James Timpson<\/a> and science\/innovation minister Patrick Vallance, jumped before they were pushed.<\/p>\n Many of these changes were expected and not all the ex-ministers were successful in office. Moreover, it is not unreasonable for an incoming prime minister, particularly one who so audaciously unseated a predecessor, to want to reward their supporters. Politics is, to use the cliche, a tough business and to the victors go the prizes of ministerial office. <\/p>\n Nevertheless, such an approach also has its risks. Jones pointing out that Burnham\u2019s proposal to cut VAT from household electricity bills from October is \u201cunfunded\u201d<\/a> is a timely reminder that there is now a group of disaffected and often still ambitious backbench MPs. Each has an intimate knowledge of how Whitehall works and a bulging address book of journalists from the lobby and beyond. <\/p>\n Despite Burnham\u2019s protestations about how much he hates factionalism in the Labour party, this week saw raw factionalism in action. From now on, one is either for Burnham or against him. <\/p>\n And when the Burnham government\u2019s honeymoon period ends and political capital is ebbing away, the potential for these excluded malcontents to seek revenge is obvious. So how does Burnham deal with this \u2013 and what lessons can be learned from Machiavelli\u2019s treatise The Prince when assessing Burnham\u2019s options?<\/p>\n The key takeaway is Machiavelli\u2019s observation that power inevitably creates enemies. The wise ruler must manage, anticipate, and \u2013 if particularly deft at the political dark arts \u2013 cultivate these enemies for the purpose of overcoming them and being seen to do so. <\/p>\n This is because defeating an enemy publicly demonstrates strength, which enhances legitimacy and deters future challengers. So far, Burnham seems to have done this quite effectively. But so did his predecessor Starmer when he sidelined the Corbynites and eventually pushed Jeremy Corbyn<\/a> out of the Labour party in 2024.<\/p>\n Some potential enemies are harder to manage, however. Machiavelli tells us that the wise ruler prevents rivals from uniting against them by keeping ambitious nobles competing with one another. This prevents one group from dominating.<\/p>\n He or she then uses reward, restraint and rotation of influence as disruptors. In other words, you lever ambition and rivalry to divide the opposition. Burnham\u2019s decision to make John Healey<\/a> chancellor of the exchequer, rather than Ed Miliband or Shabana Mahmood, is a classic Machiavellian move. <\/p>\n The conventional wisdom was that Miliband and Mahmood were rivals for the chancellorship. While Mahmood will be happy enough to retain her Home Office portfolio, Miliband\u2019s failure to become chancellor (a job he apparently coveted) can be regarded as a modest but important clipping of the wings. <\/p>\n Similarly, the appointment of Wes Streeting as defence secretary<\/a> is a shrewd appointment that places another potential rival in a demanding role that will keep him busy for now.<\/p>\n In the end, however, even the wise ruler run outs of political capital and luck. Burnham is the sixth prime minister since David Cameron resigned following the Brexit referendum of 2016. In his Downing Street speech<\/a> following his visit to the king, Burnham expressed a desire to break the cycle of instability and push on with a ten-year national plan.<\/p>\nCreating enemies \u2013 lessons from Machiavelli<\/h2>\n
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