When you’ve got a majority of 167, how do you keep control? The answer, it seems, is jobs for the boys (and girls). Another round of government appointments made a week ago has seen yet more new MPs promoted. Alex Barros-Curtis, Joe Morris and Jack Abbott are among the 2024 intake who ascended the first rung on the ministerial pecking order by being named parliamentary private secretaries (PPS). But it was the appointment of Mark Ferguson as a bag carrier at the Ministry of Housing which caught Steerpike’s eye.
The Gateshead Central MP gushed on LinkedIn that he is ‘especially excited to serve our Deputy Prime Minister and my friend Angela Rayner, who is driving forward change at pace’. But it seems there is a growing contingency of Labour MPs who would disagree with Ferguson’s assessment. Steerpike hears Ange’s colleagues think she is not doing a particularly good job with the housing brief – with Ferguson’s hire, in addition to her two current PPSs, believed to be a bid to help the ‘struggling’ politician who is experiencing difficulty keeping on top of her workload, according to a rival Labour MP.
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