Back on the pitch: how Burnham’s chief of staff pick reunites late-90s Labour football team

The most powerful football team in the country is getting back together. Andy Burnham’s decision to appoint James Purnell as his chief of staff should he become prime minister will reunite not only two old friends and former Labour ministers but two of the linchpins of the famous Demon Eyes team set up in the late 1990s. That team, whose members have included Burnham, Purnell, the former shadow chancellor Ed Balls and the former foreign secretary David Miliband, was originally formed by New Labour advisers in the early years of the Blair government. Many of its players would reach the heights of ministerial office, though in the intervening years most have left Westminster politics for other careers. But the reunification of Burnham and Purnell at the heart of what is likely to be the next government shows how Labour’s modern history is still being written by those who first propelled it to power in 1997. As for their skills on the pitch, Patrick Hennessy, a former Labour adviser and now a senior director at Hanover Communications, said: “Andy was technically a good player, a fast attacker with good finishing.” James Purnell: ‘a decent centre-back’. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy Hennessy, who captained a rival team of political journalists, added: “James was a decent centre-back – he wasn’t the most physical, but he was very, very dogged. Those two were at the core. “But the main thing about the team is it was very, very competitive. …