Guido first reported in October last year that the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – which had only just got going under Rayner – was for the most part dead under David Lammy. Guido got a call that night from an unfortunate civil servant arguing that ‘DPM’ Lammy definitely still had an ‘office’ – not true…
It was after all a Rayner initiative. No substantial staff were redeployed by the MoJ to cover for Rayner’s rebranded housing civil servants, who obviously just went back to MHCLG. In a final humiliation for Lammy Guido can report the Cabinet Office rooms used by Rayner for the ODPM have now been filled by Darren Jones’ “Command Unit“…
To clarify those are the windowless rooms with only a skylight. If Rayner comes back she can probably give herself an even bigger room – wouldn’t want to break up Darren Jones’ party. In the meantime David Lammy gets to go around calling himself the ‘DPM’ and – oh, that’s it…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”
