Health Secretary Yvette Cooper has publicly stated that the Labour party "hasn't done government very well" during Keir Starmer's two-year tenure as Prime Minister. Cooper, who was moved to the Department of Health and Social Care by the current Prime Minister Andy Burnham after serving as Home Secretary and Foreign Secretary under Starmer, offered a critical assessment of the party's performance since its 2024 general election victory.
Speaking on the Political Currency podcast, hosted by former Chancellor George Osborne, Cooper reflected on the past two years, noting that while the party had pursued important initiatives and made progress in areas like increasing neighborhood police numbers and reducing NHS waiting lists, the focus had shifted. "We had missions in the first six months, and then they kind of disappeared," she said.
Cooper contrasted Starmer's leadership style with that of Prime Minister Andy Burnham. She described Starmer's approach as demanding that cabinet ministers "bring me solutions, not problems," which she questioned as a viable strategy in politics. "I'm not sure you can do that in politics," Cooper stated, adding that this style might be more suited to other institutions but not the complexities of political problem-solving.
In contrast, Cooper praised Burnham's method, describing his engagement with the social care sector as an example. "The energy behind doing social care, a lot of that has come from Andy," she noted. "He wanted to then talk a lot about what's the problems here. How should we be thinking about it? How should we be trying to solve it? And he wanted me to be part of the event, launching it, to be speaking at it, to be talking about it. And I think that's maybe a… there's a difference in style of operating."
Cooper also commented on how major announcements were handled under Starmer's premiership. She recalled an instance when she was Home Secretary, and Downing Street wanted Starmer to announce Labour's plans to cut legal migration independently, even though he had not been significantly involved in the policy's development. "That was the way the No10 operated," she said. "It was like, well, you can sit in the front row of the launch, but actually the PM is going to launch it. But actually the PM's not really been involved in the development of the policies."
Cooper, who has since been moved to the Department of Health and Social Care, acknowledged her own demotion but remained effusive about Prime Minister Burnham's leadership style. "I don't think the nature of politics is you've got to have a passion and be hungry about the problems and what it is you want to solve," she added, suggesting that Starmer's approach was perhaps too legalistic or judicial, focusing on choosing between pre-defined problems and solutions rather than engaging deeply with the underlying issues.