Which Labour ministers did the most broadcast interviews in 2024?

Pat McFadden has dominated the airwaves with the most morning broadcast rounds of Labour ministers in 2024, LabourList can reveal.

Extensive LabourList analysis of broadcast rounds over the last year by Labour shadow and later government ministers found that the Wolverhampton North East MP had been sent out to bat the most on radio and TV interviews.

McFadden, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, took part in 17 morning broadcast rounds over the last year, with six of these taking place after Labour’s election win in July.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting came a close second with 16 appearances on the morning broadcast round, with Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones and Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson tied for third with 14 each.

Jones and former Shadow Paymaster General Jonathan Ashworth took part in the most broadcast rounds pre-election with 11 appearances each.

The Cabinet Office dominated broadcast appearances, with 51 appearances from Labour ministers or shadow ministers for the department over the last year. The Treasury was a distant second with 30 broadcast rounds, with the Department of Education closely behind with 28.

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Of the four great offices of state, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has performed the most media morning rounds with ten appearances – five of which took place after the election in July.

The figures are based on analysis of Politico‘s daily round-up of ministers scheduled to appear on behalf of the government.

‘I’d be looking at the news by about 4am’

Thangam Debbonaire, who served as shadow culture secretary before the general election, said her time doing the opposition broadcast round was often spent swotting up to be able to answer questions – with morning rounds sometimes totalling up to nine interviews back to back.

She said: “In my experience, you wouldn’t know until quite often the day before – and in any case, you can’t really prep until the day before or even the morning of, because if you are doing a full round, you have to be prepared as an opposition frontbench spokesperson to answer questions on whatever is in the news that day.

“The main thing is you do your prep the night before and the morning of.”

Interviews can start as early as 6am, with Thangam recalling how she would be looking at the news by about 4am with her spad and be on the parliamentary estate by 5am.

“You go from interview to interview. Your spad is the one who knows where you’re going next – I knew roughly what I was doing but it wasn’t me that was managing that because I had to keep in my head the things I had to say.

“Between interviews, you don’t get much time – sometimes it is a matter of seconds. You don’t have much time to be tactful. If you do something which needs to be corrected, your spad has to tell you pretty bluntly pretty quickly. My spad was always amazing at being able to do that in a constructive and productive way.”

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