Andy Burnham will become prime minister on Monday, triggering a Cabinet reshuffle that has already sparked jockeying among ministers and backbenchers. Rumours have swirled that Douglas Alexander could be replaced as Scottish Secretary — a move that would divide Scottish Labour, where Alexander is blamed by some for the party's dreadful Holyrood election performance and criticised as arrogant and brusque.
The reshuffle comes as Burnham pushes a devolution agenda summed up by phrases from Labour's 2024 local election campaign: “Growth in every corner of the country”, “more money in people’s pockets”, and “people taking back control of what matters to them”. That earlier campaign, led by Keir Starmer, promised “full fat devolution” to tackle regional inequality. Burnham’s own pitch, delivered last month at the People’s History Museum in Manchester, calls for reversing Thatcherism and returning to a postwar golden age of social democracy.
“Andy Burnham becomes PM Monday; Douglas Alexander may lose Scottish Secretary role amid devolution debate.”
But critics argue that narrative is incomplete. Centralisation was already advanced by the 1970s — the 1945 Labour government took the biggest step by nationalising municipal services. One analysis describes Burnham’s story as “as misleading as it is seductive”, warning that it does not reckon with societal changes that have accompanied the flight of power to remote institutions. The question, the argument goes, is whether Britain can still govern itself locally — or even wants to.
