Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
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.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
TORY HIGH SOCIETY:  Sir John Ritblat
Features / 19 September 2025
19 September 2025

It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES

Prime Minister Keir Starmer speaks as he hosts a VJ Day commemorative reception in the garden of 10 Downing Street, London, August 14, 2025
Features / 5 September 2025
5 September 2025

Keir Starmer’s hiring Tim Allan from Tory-led Strand Partners is another illustration of  Labour’s corporate-influence world where party differences matter less than business connections, writes SOLOMON HUGHES

Defence Secretary John Healey (third left) and his French counterpart Sebastien Lecornu (second left) view a long-range air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missile, during a visit to MDBA in Hertfordshire, July 9, 2025
Features / 22 August 2025
22 August 2025

MBDA’s Alabama factory makes components for Boeing’s GBU-39 bombs used to kill civilians in Gaza. Its profits flow through Stevenage to Paris — and it is one of the British government’s favourite firms, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES

Rachel Reeves and Jonathan Reynolds
Features / 8 August 2025
8 August 2025

SOLOMON HUGHES asks whether Labour ‘engaging with decision-makers’ with scandalous records of fleecing the public is really in our interests

Similar stories
TORY HIGH SOCIETY:  Sir John Ritblat
Features / 19 September 2025
19 September 2025

It is rather strange that Labour continues to give prestigious roles to inappropriate, controversy-mired businessmen who are also major Tory donors. What could Labour possibly be hoping to get out of it, asks SOLOMON HUGHES

Israeli Defence Forces soldiers work on their tank near the
Features / 17 October 2024
17 October 2024
STEVE BISHOP argues that the US failure to restrain Israel is pushing the region towards wider war, with an attack on Iran likely to have devastating consequences
Palestinians react to a fire after an Israeli strike hit a t
World / 14 October 2024
14 October 2024