If politics is about timing, framing, and not stepping on rakes…this week managed all three.
John Healey exits stage to cross-party applause, Josh Simons is quietly pulled back into the Makerfield spotlight, and Katie Lam discovers the danger of quoting statistics that remember the last government a little too well.
Read this week’s Who’s Top, Who’s Not – brought to you by Whitehouse’s Tim Moxham
Top: John Healey
Healey resigned as Defence Secretary on Thursday, saying he was left with "no option" after the Defence Investment Plan failed to give "our Armed Forces the investment they need." Former RAF commander Greg Bagwell called it "an honourable decision from an honourable man." Penny Mordaunt posted: "Thank you John. Country before party." Honourable, certainly. But also, politically convenient.
Andy Burnham contests Makerfield on 18th June and is widely expected to mount a Labour leadership challenge should he win. Resigning now, wrapped in cross-party goodwill, potentially positions Healey for a senior role in a Burnham administration. Cynics might suggest that by overtly resigning on a matter of policy and principle is, ironically, very political and that the nature of Healey’s resignation could create a platform for a leadership bid from Labour’s solid sensible middle.
The challenge for Healey is that any future return to government would necessitate meeting 3% defence spending – a target which is both militarily necessary, but also economically and politically unachievable at present. Regardless, the political optics around his exit will leave him feeling confident about his future.
Middle: Josh Simons
When Simons stood aside, Burnham publicly praised his "sacrifice" and said he had "seen first-hand how effective he has been" for the communities of Makerfield. Warm words. And then, for much of the campaign, Simons was quietly kept offstage.
That changed this week. After Reform's candidate attacked Burnham as "parachuted in" at the BBC debate, Burnham's camp apparently decided they needed a more local face: enter Simons once again. The calculation is clear: use Simons' ‘genuine constituency’ record to counter the outsider narrative and shore up wavering local Labour voters. A bold strategy considering some Labour voices claim Simons would have struggled to find Makerfield on a map pre-2024.
For Simons, the timing is awkward. Happy to be in the background for most of the campaign, then suddenly pushed forward in its final days. Any role Burnham hands him afterwards will invite the question: was this a reward for services rendered, or a genuine appointment on merit? Some suggest Andy has a history of promising jobs in advance so we shall wait and see if Simons makes the cut.
Bottom: Katie Lam
Considered a rising star in the Conservative Party, Lam stood up in the Commons to challenge the Home Secretary on migration and youth employment, citing figures showing that for every young Briton who found work, 27 non-EU migrants joined the workforce over the same period. It should have been a telling blow, but it did not go according to plan.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood calmly noted that the employment statistics Lam had just used ran from January 2020 to December 2025, largely covering the years of Tory government. "So, I congratulate her," Mahmood told the House, "on exposing the track record of the Tory government."
It was a brutal moment and illustrates the ongoing problem the Conservatives have of not being able to attack the Labour government on policy without highlighting their own record after 14 years of government. Nearly two years into opposition, too many Tory attacks on Labour inadvertently indict themselves.
On migration, on NHS waiting lists, on economic growth: the data that damns the current government almost always carries the fingerprints of the last one. Until the Tories develop a credible story about what they'd do differently in the future, rather than just pointing at statistics from the past, they keep handing Labour the same opportunity to spike Tory guns. For a party still searching for its identity, it's the political equivalent of stepping on a rake, repeatedly, and in public.