“Lisa Nandy thinks RADA is a knock-off brand in Wigan market’: It’s Sarah Vine’s guide to the Burnham Cabinet!

Our Andy wants us to think that it’s Les Misérables: a dramatic uprising, a fight against injustice, a struggle for a better world. The reality feels more like Mamma Mia! A cash-in built on familiarity, rather than the plot itself.

The press pack scrambled to identify the “surprise appointments”, as if every reshuffle isn’t ultimately just a glorified exercise in moving the same pool of ambitious people around an overcrowded chessboard. Former heavyweights — Liz Kendall, Darren Jones, Steve Reed and Peter Kyle — were repackaged as yesterday’s news. Burnham’s allies, meanwhile, became visionaries.

Every new leader dreams of a fresh ensemble, but with a talent pool shallower than Meghan Markle at his disposal, our new casting director discovered on Monday evening that he had more parts to fill than star turns available. How else to explain Lisa Nandy at the DCMS?

As he stood on the steps of Downing Street with our new first lady, Marie France Van-Heel, wearing a rather unflattering Victoria Beckham number, I half expected him to break into a rendition of ‘T’Winner Teks It All’. 

The appointments dragged on late into the evening, so I dipped in and out. By the time I’d unpacked the Ocado and interrogated the feckless driver – basil yet again substituted for coriander –  I tuned back in to see Angela Rayner strutting up Whitehall in an epauletted blazer that made her look like the vice-admiral of a barge on the Manchester Ship Canal. 

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For those of you who survived opening night, here is the cast list:

Chancellor of the Exchequer – John Healey

The ultimate background extra, miscast as the theatrical lead, forced to ad-lib his way through Burnham’s expensive script while frantically blocking Wes Streeting from raiding the till for the exact same billions he once demanded for defence. Don’t be surprised if he is rock solid on his lines and quietly hopes the reviews blame the director.

Foreign secretary – Ed Miliband

Shrewd. It gets Mad Miliband off the Net Zero brief and, crucially, out of the country. How could Eddy resist? Alas, it’ll be a hard watch to see bits of bacon sandwich fall from his mouth as he whines to dashing Marco Rubio that Britain can’t meet its NATO spending commitments because foreign aid is now 90 per cent of GDP. Let’s just hope he doesn’t shout “Hell yeth I’m tough enough” at the UK’s greatest ever chum, poor Benny Netanyahu.

Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster – Louise Haigh

I used to be married to a man who did this prestigious job, and watching this convicted fraudster take the reins was one in the eye for gals everywhere whose marriages collapsed to the soundtrack of their husbands establishing lucrative VIP lanes for defective PPE. Watch out for Haigh. Her hair is no longer deep red, but her politics are. 

Home secretary – Shabana Mahmood

Shabana Mahmood reminds me of the woman who used to chair the PTA at my children’s school: impeccably organised, beautifully composed and utterly unmoved by the chaos unfolding around her. I know the type because, despite decanting my pasta into glass storage jars and keeping a kitchen drawer devoted to takeaway menus, I’ve spent my adult life aspiring to be her. Then she lost the takings from the duck race and it turned out the competence was a front all along. By Christmas, we’ll no doubt be assured that everything is under control, in much the same way I reassure my dinner party guests that the smoke alarm is part of the evening’s ambience.

Business and Trade secretary – Jonathan Reynolds

The hard left equivalent of my favourite merino wool M&S cardigan. Durable, impossible to get excited about, and wheeled out when something expensive needs sorting. 

Housing, Communities and Local Government secretary – Angela Rayner

Yeah but, no but, yeah but. People say the commentariat have got it in for Ange because we’re threatened by an unapologetically working-class carer and teenage single mother who overcame enormous obstacles to get herself to the top of British politics. That is why, they say, we resort to cheap digs about her clothes and appearance. Nonsense. It’s because she reminds us of Vicky Pollard.

Transport secretary – Heidi Alexander

I once volunteered backstage for the school production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It involved three hours of panic and one scenery collapse. Heidi Alexander now gets to repeat the experience every day, only with Network Rail.

Culture, Media and Sport secretary – Lisa Nandy

I expect she thinks RADA is a knock-off tracksuit brand sold in Wigan’s covered market.

Defence secretary – Wes Streeting

My secret crush. Come on, we’re all allowed one from the other team. How is a red-blooded woman supposed to stay partisan when the Leonardo DiCaprio of neoliberalism is flirting with Palantir in the green room? Just imagine stepping out with that pink face. You’d be the talk of Leicester Square. And if his instincts for private procurement at Health are any guide, he’s precisely the sort of operator we need to lick those stuffy MoD bods into shape. Super Trouper!

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Health and Social Care secretary – Yvette Cooper

Or Ed Balls’ wife, as she’s more commonly known. I always envied those women who glide effortlessly from Pilates to the school governors’ meeting without so much as a mascara smudge. Yvette is the Westminster equivalent. If she ever wore any.

Work and Pensions secretary – Pat McFadden

Veteran of the Labour machine and continuity Starmer appointment. Retained to prove that with enough press releases continuity can be marketed as radical change.

Environment secretary – Angela Eagle 

Every January I develop a brief but intense relationship with the recycling bin. I separate newspaper from plastic with an evangelical zeal, until somebody puts a jam jar in with the cardboard and civilisation collapses. Poor old Angela gets to referee that argument for an entire country. No wonder she wears flat shoes. 

Energy secretary – Miatta Fahnbulleh

Westminster’s latest contribution to the pub-quiz bonus round. While half the country is still Googling her, by next week she’ll be explaining why your rocketing energy bills are good news. Having Googled her myself, I give it six months before the Labour front bench is playing down some “late payment of a TV license” scandal, like it’s nothing.

So there we have it. The programme insists this is a bold new production. The audience, meanwhile, can’t shake the feeling they’ve seen it all before. 

Break a leg, Andy. Because by the time we reach the interval, the only question is whether the stalls will be singing SOS before the actors.  

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