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You scratch my back, and... Labour does favours for Tories
Why is the Labour government so addicted to giving government jobs to Tories when it spent so long trying to oust them? In the hope the favour is returned the next time the Tories return to power, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
COSY CLUB: Akshata Murty has been appointed a trustee of the V&A by Starmer. Qualifications: being very, very rich — and married to Rishi Sunak

THERE has been a small rush of Tory-linked appointments by the Labour government, showing Starmer’s ministers are pretty comfortable working with Conservatives. It all looks like a uniform, centrist “political class” are settling back in power, however we voted.

In March, Science Secretary Peter Kyle made former Tory science minister David Willetts chair of the Regulatory Innovation Office. A Labour science minister giving a government job to a former Tory science minister looks like “one hand washing another,” a political system where the “insiders” just give each other jobs.

At election time, the winning party promises “change,” and claims big ideological differences with the losers for the purpose of the election. After the votes, we get more of the same.

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