Reed is first Cabinet casualty under new PM Andy Burnham

WALTER CRONXITE, Political Editor, on the end of a local MP’s ministerial career, as power shifts in Downing Street

Steve Reed, the MP for Streatham (and Croydon North when he could be bothered) was the first to resign from the Cabinet as Andy Burnham this afternoon became Britain’s fifth Prime Minister since 2020.

At least, Reed will say that he resigned, after posting a typically self-regarding letter to Burnham on Elon Musk’s hate platform.

But it did not take much reading between the lines to work out that Burnham had made it clear that there would be no place in his administration for Reed, one of the prime movers in getting Keir Starmer installed as Labour leader.

Reed had been Secretary of State for housing, communities and local government for less than a year, having been reshuffled out of a similar position at Defra in September 2025. Tellingly, as Burnham went into No10 Downing Street for the first time as Prime Minister, he pledged to end rough sleeping in Britain – something his departing housing secretary had failed to address.

Reed, with his former Lambeth Council colleague Morgan McSweeney, had been a founder of Labour Together, the shadowy organisation that set out to replace Jeremy Corbyn as the leader of the Labour Party with someone who could be manipulated and apply policies that better-suited their Blue Labour outlook, and that of their donors and sponsors.

This extended, at Labour Party conference last autumn, to donning Bob The Builder plastic hats and outlining what amounted to a developers’ charter, including a push for more building on Green Belt land. “Build Baby Build”, Reed’s MAGA-like motto, remained on his personal Twitter profile even after his resignation/sacking at 3.33pm this afternoon.

Reed was the first of Starmer’s team to exit of government, but he was by no means the last, as within minutes it was being reported that Rachel Reeves had gone as Chancellor and David Lammy was also leaving whatever job it was he’d been fucking up over the past few months or so.

In his letter, Reed claimed that he was stepping down out of loyalty to Burnham’s predecessor Keir Starmer.

“I hope those who did not show loyalty to Keir will now show it to you,” Reed, a distrusted politician with a record for disloyalty, wrote to Burnham.

Reed said that he was “disappointed to be leaving government now”, which many interpreted as he had been told by Burnham or his senior aides, such as the new Chief of Staff James Purnell, that there would be no job for him in the new government.

Did we mention self-regarding? “I was part of the campaign that fought to save our party and take it back to power against all the odds,” Reed wrote, referring to law-breaking Labour Together, before adding the now common untruth about the 2019 General Election, “… after our worst-ever election defeat.”

Reed, who has himself used antisemitic tropes in the past, also chuntered on about “anti-Jewish racists who’d occupied our party”. His rewriting of history in his letter continued as he falsely claimed to have started a process to bring “water companies under greater public control” when at Defra.

The man who enjoyed generous hospitality at Premier League football matches courtesy of the private utilities’ parent companies went on to claim credit for introducing “severe punishments for water executives responsible for pollution”.

Reed’s letter also referenced his time as leader of Lambeth’s “Co-operative Council”, as if it was some kind of example of best practice in devolving powers – “pioneering”, Reed called it. It might not be a description that the residents of Lambeth would recognise.

Reed’s letter went on, over two foolscap pages, listing what he sees as his achievements in office, including the amending of council funding which has helped in Makerfield as well as in Croydon, but has still failed to resolve the massive debt burdens carried by councils across the country after 15 years of government austerity policies.

“You can’t make funding fairer for the rest of England by making it unfair on Londoners,” Reed continued.

And he wrote, “Keir Starmer showed loyalty to me by appointing me to his Cabinet. I make no apology for returning that loyalty… I’m proud I acted with integrity at every step over the turbulent past few months…

“I will do everything in my power to ensure you succeed.”

Reed, who was awarded an OBE for something or other, became an MP for Croydon North in 2012, following the death of sitting Labour MP Malcolm Wicks.

He had tried, and failed, to get into Parliament earlier, but before the 2010 General Election, Labour members in what was then his home constituency of Streatham decided they liked, and trusted, Chuka Umunna more.

As MP, Reed was very close to the “Gang of Four” – Tony Newman, Alison Butler, Paul Scott and Simon Hall – who managed to run Croydon Council’s finances on to the rocks.

Reed was notably silent over the council’s financial plight after 2020.

Part of Croydon’s financial collapse was caused by the Brick by Brick housing company which resembled, in many aspects, the housing policies that were introduced in Lambeth during Reed’s time there.

He also helped bring to Croydon former Lambeth employees, such as Jo Negrini. Katharine Street sources say that Reed provided a reference for Negrini when she applied for an executive director job in Fisher’s Folly.

Reed had also worked closely on Labour campaigns with Joel Bodmer, the union official who, together with his wife and two others, is awaiting trial on charges related to allegations of vote-rigging in candidate selection.

It was Reed and Bodmer who in 2021 ran Labour’s campaign against having a directly-elected Mayor, even purging councillors for their support of the proposal. The campaign ultimately back-fired, consigning Croydon residents to (at least) two terms of Tory Mayor Jason Perry.

Reed now slouches to the Labour back benches, going from a Cabinet member’s salary of £166,000 per year to the MP’s “basic” of £98.599.

Who knows, Reed might now have more time for constituency matters in Croydon North. He’ll probably get plenty of lucrative consultancy offers, too.

But if Andy Burnham wants to last longer as Prime Minister than his four predecessors, he might find he has to keep a close check on the man on his back benches who, when leader at Brixton Town Hall, ordered council staff to spy on the emails of his own party colleagues.

More Reed: Reed group fined for slow declaration of £800,000 donations

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