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Published : 23 Jul 2026, 05:55 PM
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham has appointed Ed Miliband and Wes Streeting to key cabinet posts after reshuffling his government.
The two ministers bring sharply different records on foreign policy, defence and climate issues, Al Jazeera reports.
Burnham, who replaced Keir Starmer on Monday as the United Kingdom’s seventh prime minister in a decade, quickly removed several Starmer loyalists, including Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy, promoted close allies and convened his first cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
Ed Miliband: Who Is He?
Miliband was born in 1969 to Polish Jewish immigrants; his father, Ralph, was a Marxist intellectual who fled Belgium during World War II.
He has been an MP for Doncaster North since 2005, served in Gordon Brown's cabinet alongside his brother David, then foreign secretary, and led the Labour Party from 2010 to 2015.
He held the energy and climate brief under Starmer until this week.
Where Does He Stand on Foreign Policy?
His most significant foreign policy moment came in 2013, when he broke with the government of the day to oppose striking Bashar al-Assad's forces in Syria after a chemical attack killed hundreds of civilians in Ghouta, near Damascus.
His stance tipped a crucial Commons vote against military action, and Washington subsequently backed away from strikes of its own.
Asked in 2015 by broadcaster Jeremy Paxman whether he had the toughness to lead the country, Miliband pointed to that Syria vote as proof he did.
Al Jazeera reported that, more recently, Miliband had pushed Starmer to recognise a Palestinian state, and was among the loudest cabinet voices against Britain joining US and Israeli strikes on Iran in February, a position that reportedly frayed Starmer's relationship with Trump.
Miliband's open dislike of the US president now sits awkwardly with his new brief managing that same transatlantic relationship.
What Is Miliband Known for on Climate?
Miliband built his recent reputation around pushing Britain toward net zero emissions by 2050 and getting at least 95 percent of the national grid running on wind, solar and nuclear power.
According to British media reports cited by Al Jazeera, senior figures close to the new prime minister see that agenda as a liability, fearing it will push up energy bills at a moment when households are already squeezed by the cost of living.
Miliband also froze new licences for North Sea oil and gas exploration during his tenure.
Trump has taken repeated aim at that record, accusing Britain of squandering its North Sea reserves, while his energy secretary Chris Wright has dismissed the UK's 2050 target as sheer "lunacy”.
Who Is Wes Streeting?
Streeting was raised in council housing in Stepney, East London, and became the first in his family to go to university, studying history at Cambridge and later heading the National Union of Students.
His path to politics ran through the charity sector, focused on educational disadvantage, and local government as deputy leader of Redbridge Council, before he unseated a Conservative MP in Ilford North in 2015 with one of the biggest swings in the country.
He rose through shadow ministerial posts before becoming health secretary in 2024.
Does He Have Any Defence Experience?
Former army chief Richard Dannatt told LBC Radio, the day before Streeting's new post was confirmed, that the incoming defence secretary knew essentially nothing about the brief, warning that dropping Dan Jarvis, a former soldier, after barely six weeks in the job was a step backwards.
What Has Streeting Said About Israel?
A longtime member of Labour Friends of Israel, Streeting toed the party line when Israel's genocide on Gaza began in October 2023, resisting calls for a ceasefire and waving off South Africa's genocide case at the International Court of Justice as a sideshow.
His tone shifted as the conflict dragged on.
Al Jazeera reported he was calling Israel's actions in Gaza "intolerable" by April 2025, and by September was warning they risked turning Israel into an international pariah.
Private messages to Peter Mandelson, then then Britain's ambassador in Washington, went even further when they later surfaced publicly: Streeting wrote that Israel was committing war crimes in plain sight, and said he backed sanctions against the country.
He has stopped short of calling it genocide, though, a line that has drawn accusations of hypocrisy from anti-war campaigners at Stop the War Coalition and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, who called his defence appointment disgraceful.
He has also had to defend, and continues to defend, his decision to bring Palantir, a firm with close Israeli ties, into the National Health Service through its data algorithms.
