Red Wall voters have savaged the appointment of Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband to top roles in Andy Burnham’s Cabinet.
Speaking to GB News, locals in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, did not hold back when quizzed on the plum jobs for the pair in the hotly contested former Labour heartland.
Yesterday, Mr Burnham became Britain’s new Prime Minister and set about assembling his top team.
As well as purging those considered loyalists to his predecessor Sir Keir Starmer, Ms Rayner was returned from the political wilderness to her old post as Housing Secretary.
The Ashton-under-Lyne MP resigned from the role in September last year amid a scandal over underpaid stamp duty on a flat in Hove, which she was subsequently cleared of.
Mr Miliband was also moved from Energy Secretary under Sir Keir to Foreign Secretary by the new Prime Minister, one of the most senior positions in government.
Voters in Worksop appeared to be largely unimpressed with Mr Burnham’s choices, with one man savaging the new Foreign Secretary as “absolutely useless”.
“Out of 10, I’d probably rate Ed Miliband a two!”
The local was similarly unexcited about the return of Ms Rayner, which he described as “another mistake”.
“(Ed) Miliband is just a waste of time. He’s an absolute waste of time,” another man said.
Reflecting on Mr Miliband’s time as Energy Secretary, the voter said: “You don’t know what he’s doing.”
He also shared a gloomy outlook for Britain under Mr Burnham generally, despairing: “Things are not going to get better.
“I know, I’m just talking no positivity, but I think things are just going to get worse.”
Shaking his head, the local said: “I can’t see things improving no matter who becomes Prime Minister.”
Another Worksop man told The People’s Channel about his concerns over rising taxes under the new government.
“You work to do well and look after your family and later life, and all they do all the time is bring in things like inheritance tax and stuff like that.
“It’s never your own (money). So I call it the politics of envy.”
In some relief for the government, another local said “you’ve got to give them a chance” even if he was concerned about rising taxes.
One woman welcomed plans to cut VAT on energy bills, sharing: “I thought that was great. Yeah, it’s going to save quite a bit of money on your bill every, every month.”
Worksop, found in the constituency of Bassetlaw, is an area Labour are keen to keep control of amid pressure from Reform UK. Labour won the seat back at the previous election after it fell to the Conservatives in 2019, the first time the area had not voted red in decades.
