This Week in Labour: From insulation miracles to defence dilemmas and budget blunders—who’s up, who’s down, and who’s just spinning?
Read all about it in this week's Who's Top Who's Not
Top – Ed Miliband
Ed Miliband, who appears to have kept his £13.2 billion Warm Homes Plan intact despite the Treasury’s best efforts to put it on the chopping block, has emerged as this week’s power player.
With Rachel Reeves wielding the fiscal axe ahead of next week’s Spending Review, Miliband has pulled off a minor political miracle—proving that if you argue about insulation long enough, eventually people listen.
Over a million households stand to benefit from warmer, greener homes, meaning Labour gets to say it’s tackling fuel poverty and Net Zero in one go. It looks like a win for green policy, but also a win for Miliband’s persistence, proving that sheer determination can outlast even the most sceptical Treasury officials.
This approach aligns with Labour’s wider “securonomics” strategy—investing in infrastructure and resilience to reduce long-term costs and boost economic productivity. By committing funds to make homes more energy efficient, Labour is betting that lower household energy bills will eventually deliver economic benefits to consumers and political benefits to the government.
Miliband’s success solidifies his role as Labour’s leading advocate for Net Zero, but it also raises questions about internal dynamics. How will Labour balance climate investment with fiscal discipline in the months ahead? If further spending battles arise, will Miliband be able to hold the line again?
Middle – Keir Starmer
The UK’s Strategic Defence Review dominated headlines earlier this week, with the Prime Minister unveiling a sweeping overhaul of Britain’s military capabilities. With defence spending commitments, nuclear expansion, and cyber warfare strategies in focus, who’s emerging as a winner—and who’s in the firing line?
Despite unveiling ambitious reforms, Starmer has stopped short of explaining how he will fund the 3% GDP defence spending target, sparking criticism from NATO allies and defence experts. With Donald Trump pressuring the UK to increase spending sooner, Starmer faces a tough balancing act between foreign and domestic policy priorities.
With military preparedness now the buzzword of the week, expect further debate over spending commitments, domestic cuts, global expectations, and whether Britain’s defence strategy will ever stop being a political football.
Not – Rachel Reeves
Poor Rachel Reeves – things just aren't clicking. She unveils a £15bn programme of transport investment but journalists just want to ask about her backtracking on winter fuel payments. Doom loop indeed.
The Chancellor strutted onto the stage promising the biggest-ever boost to Northern infrastructure, a move designed to reassure Red Wall Labour MPs and prove that the government is serious about economic growth beyond London. But her well-orchestrated transport announcement was swiftly drowned out by headlines dissecting her U-turn on pensioner payments, proving that timing is everything.
Government clarity on winter fuel payments is about as clear as a foggy morning in Manchester. Reeves’s grand announcement that the £300 winter fuel allowance would be reinstated for millions of pensioners was supposed to be a feel-good moment. And yet, it was immediately followed by speculation that the funding would magically materialise from high tax returns, with actual details delayed until the next budget. A win for pensioners? Possibly. A win for transparency and political agility? Not so much. U-turns need to be performed quickly, otherwise you risk driving off a cliff.
Meanwhile, Reform UK and Conservative critics gleefully pointed out that Labour’s backpedalling on benefits overshadowed its transport triumph, turning what should have been a celebratory week for investment into a scramble to control the narrative. If Reeves was hoping to steer political discourse towards growth-focused spending, she instead found herself stuck in a media quagmire—reminding everyone once again that being Chancellor is no easy feat.