At last! As Labour faces the biggest electoral and governmental crisis in its modern history, Keir Starmer has announced he is bringing back serious proven performers: Gordon Brown as envoy on global finance and former deputy prime minister Harriet Harman as an adviser on women and girls with a focus on tackling violence and improving economic opportunities.
In January, I argued that he should do precisely this, because some premierships are in such a dire position that only bold, radical action can bring them back to life. That point has been reached, still more so in May than back then. At the time, I noted that Labour has massive talent and experience that are not being utilised: time to dive deep into that well of knowledge. The article urged Gordon Brown, the conscience of the Labour party, to step up.
Starmer should go much further than Brown and Harman.The article advocated bringing David Miliband back to head up a new Growth Ministry, separated from the Treasury, which in the 20 years since the global financial crisis has been unable to achieve sustained growth. There's no time to lose. Labour has had two years and it hasn't happened.
It is deeply ahistorical, as well as ageist, to denigrate bringing back those with wisdom and authority. William Gladstone was 82 when he returned as prime minister in 1892, Churchill a mere 76 when he came back for his effective last turn in No 10, while Harold Wilson joked when he quit in the spring of 1976 that he was leaving “to make way for an older man”, the 64-year-old Jim Callaghan. “That is no country for old men,” wrote WB Yeats in Sailing to Byzantium, arguably decrying a world in which age is not valued. Indeed.
Come on, Starmer. Announce next week that you’re bringing back adviser Sally Morgan, Labour's shrewdest mind on making No 10 work. Get Alan Milburn, former secretary of state for health and social care, reforming the broken civil service. Tony Blair should be foreign secretary, for all the excellent work that Yvette Cooper has put in. With the world at its most dangerous state since the end of the cold war, why would you not want a man known in every capital across the world?
May 2026 could be seen as the time when Starmer at last regained the initiative, started galvanising the country and looking after the most vulnerable people. Summoning the best to help him achieve it is not weakness: it takes a big person to bring in the grownups.
Anthony Seldon is a co-founder of the Museum of the Prime Minister
Photograph by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
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