Starmer is heading to Yorkshire this morning to unveil his grand plan to reform the civil service. He will attack the “bigger but weaker” state and outline his vision to modernise Whitehall with “AI and tech teams.” The plan includes 2,000 tech apprenticeships in the civil service by 2030. He has also pledged to cut the administrative costs of regulation by 25%, blaming Britain’s “flabby, overcautious state” for blocking infrastructure projects. Sounds good…
Science secretary Peter Kyle was sent on the morning round ahead of Starmer’s speech. He declared that Labour will somehow save £100 million…by paying civil servants more and avoiding headcount cuts. He told Times Radio:
“So the objective isn’t to cut staff. The objective is actually to drive efficiencies within government itself to make work more rewarding within the civil service. I’m being very honest I’m going to pay more because of the very highly skilled nature of doing so. We will lower the cost by 100 million pounds net and we will increase the skills and make sure that the skills are there to transform the civil service and the way we deliver government services into the future. So this isn’t always just a straightforward reduce costs by sacking people.”
Despite Starmer’s efforts to reassure civil servants, the unions remain unimpressed. On Newsnight, FDA chief Dave Penman accused Starmer (again) of “denigrating civil servants” and pushing unrealistic expectations. Tightening the purse strings in Whitehall without a fight looking increasingly unlikely…
Lucy Powell told Sky News that the Ed Miliband-Russell Brand interview happened in part because the ‘social media age’ had not begun by 2015:
“Look, I mean, he approached the Labour Party, he approached the campaign team, and we’re in very different times now. We weren’t in the social media age at the time – where you could maybe search things up and see allegations about somebody at the time. and as I say, if there was any suggestion at all, we were dealing with someone who was a known sexual predator at the time, then, of course, you know, no one would have done that. But as I say, he was a well known public figure. Lots of people from Hollywood to the BBC to many others gave this person a very, very powerful platform. And we didn’t know at the time, unfortunately. It was a different era.”