Daniel Zeichner MP leaves the Government having held the post of Minister of State at the Department for Environment, Food, & Rural Affairs since the general election – having held the shadow post for several years before that.
Mr Zeichner confirmed the announcement below.
This was part of a wider series of changes that also saw the Minister for Local Government, Jim McMahon MP also leave office in the wake of Angela Rayner’s resignation. The sentiment in the immediate responses from policy stakeholders historically hostile to Labour has been broadly positive towards Mr Zeichner – effectively saying that he was a good listener but did not have any of the powers or influence needed to stop HM Treasury from bringing in controversial policies.
Reshuffles are normal – Tony Blair had them annually
That said, the frequent turnover of ministers has been a source of comment in Westminster and academia – the problem being that it takes up to a year for any minister to become well-versed in their policy areas if they’ve had no background prior to taking office. Hence David Lammy MP moving from the Foreign Office to the Ministry of Justice (although he has a professional background as a solicitor) and Yvette Cooper MP moving from the Home Office to the Foreign Office caught many politics watchers off guard. TV-talking heads seemed more interested about the impact it would have on the weekend’s headlines (the press being compelled to cover the ministerial changes, not Angela Rayner’s resignation or the fun and games at TeamNigel’s conference) than the impact on government policies. At its most extreme, a change of senior government minister can feel like the equivalent of a change of government to the civil servants working for them if the new ministers have very strong – and different ideas to what their predecessors had.
Having Mr Zeichner on the back benches may help stabilise a Cambridge Labour Party that has lost a number of council seats and activists over the past year
One thing that was noticeable when Mr Zeichner became a minister was that his parliamentary presence on Cambridge issues all but evaporated. The outdated conventions in Westminster mean that MPs who hold ministerial office are not allowed to ask questions of ministers on the floor of the House of Commons. It all has to be done in writing instead. Not good in a social media world if you want to promote your work very visibly to your constituents. In the early 2010s that meant tweets and FB updates. For the mid-2020s that now means short video clips.
With Cambridge Labour having lost a number of council seats on both city and county councils over the past couple of years, there is a risk that the party could lose political control of Cambridge City Council for the first time in over a decade. As things stand, there are 23 Labour councillors with 17 opposing them. If the 2025 results were repeated for 2026 at the next city council elections, that would result in 3 LibDem Gains (Castle and the two Chestertons) and two Green gains (Newnham and Romsey), resulting in no overall control but with Labour still the largest party. (Likely 18 Lab, 15 LD, 7 Green). But that’s based on a whole host of assumptions including whether the Corbyn/Sultana Your Party Cambridge stands candidates (which may cause issues for both The Greens and Labour), and whether TeamNigel stands any candidates.
Mr Zeichner can now speak in the Commons again, unburdened by the convention of collective responsibility (but still under the watchful eye of Labour whips!)
For any Cambridge constituents (all city council wards bar Cherry Hinton and Queen Edith’s, which are in South Cambs represented by Pippa Heylings for the Lib Dems) who want to get in touch with Mr Zeichner and ask him to raise issues/ask questions on the floor of the Commons, see his contact details page here. (You must provide your home address in correspondence to confirm you are a constituent). One question people may want to ask about is what impact the reshuffle will have on Cambridge’s future growth plans and the Cambridge Growth Company. There has been some speculation about the New Towns Taskforce being close to announcing the locations of any newtowns – something likely to be of greater concern for the 3 LibDem MPs surrounding Cambridge.
In the meantime in the north of the county…
Or rather, in Peterborough, local democracy continues to be as volatile as always with a new leader Dr Shabina Qayyum now in control of the city’s Labour group. There’s a full council meeting there on Fri 12 Sept from 2.30pm as councillors have to thrash out who is going to be the new council leader, which parties/groups will form the ruling group, and who will take which seats on the Combined Authority committees noting that the council has veto powers on things like the Local Transport Plan. Which will make the next set of CPCA meetings ones to keep an eye on!
If you are interested in the longer term future of Cambridge, and on what happens at the local democracy meetings where decisions are made, feel free to:
- Follow me on BSky
- Spot me on LinkedIn
- Like my Facebook page
- Consider a small donation to help fund my continued research and reporting on local democracy in and around Cambridge.
The Cambridge Town Owl 