With 14 days to go until Starmer’s one-year anniversary in Downing Street there is chaos inside government. Are co-conspirators surprised?
Starmer’s initiation of “Phase Two” some weeks ago has done nothing to address the toxic relations among key officials. Guido hears from internal sources that the two powerhouses of government – No10 and the Cabinet Office – are in disarray. There is criticism of Starmer’s Principal Private Secretary Nin Pandit, who one Downing Street source says is “hopeless and seems to dislike everyone and everything with no ability to fix things.” Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney and his deputy Vidhya Alakeson are close and have so far failed to begin turning things around for Starmer…
The Cabinet Office is worse according to high-level sources, one of whom describes it as a “sh*tshow.” Chris Wormald – a Civil Service lifer who Starmer appointed Cabinet Secretary in December to the dismay of more ambitious political staff – has so far disappointed and “might as well not be there.” So too has Cabinet Office permanent secretary Cat Little, who one source says “seems to promise the earth all the time but can’t deliver.” Guido hears the Mission Delivery Unit, which is made up of circa 30 staff reporting primarily to Starmer and Pat McFadden, is chaotic and failing to perform according to expectations. Labour has all but hidden the missions from their own website…
Characters currently keeping the department afloat are said to be Director General Matt Collins, Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Black, and Propriety and Constitution Director Darren Tierney. Guido hears all three of them are eyeing an exit. Good luck to the rest…
Poor communications work has too begun to sour relations with political journalists – far earlier than usual in the cycle. Quite the job to get done in just one year…
Latest quarterly civil service headcount figures reveal that there are now 550,000 pen-pushers as of March 2025, the highest in nearly 20 years under blob-lover Tony Blair in 2006. And 4,000 more since Labour came into power…
That’s also a 1% increase on March last year. Co-conspirators will remember the song and dance Labour made when they announced 1,200 redundancies in the Cabinet Office – though that’s just a quarter of how much the headcount has gone up by since Starmer took the keys to Downing Street. Labour’s promise to cut back the blob proving to be more hot air when they’re on track to hire civil servants more than they’re firing…
Back when the government told civil servants to come into the office it also said departments would begin to monitor the computer use of staff who worked from home to see if they were actually working. Labour said it would continue with the 60% office mandate when it came in. No sign any of work from home accountability taking place…
Guido’s FOI unit asked the Department of Science what systems it has deployed in the last year and a half to monitor the on-screen activity of staff – it has deployed none. The unit also asked DSIT for any reports or disciplinary notifications in relation to civil servants use of at-home screen time in that period – nothing. The taxpayer is footing the bill for thousands of pounds worth of work from home equipment including “footrests,” “noise dampeners,” chairs, and monitor risers. Not that departments care what their staff are actually doing when they’re at home…
Next week is the NHS’ “Equality, Diversity and Human Rights Week.” Founded thirteen years ago by the NHS Confederation and NHS Employers to lecture staff on crucial diversity matters…
Over at woke-obsessed healthcare regulator the Care Quality Commission there is a packed schedule. Their Deputy “Equity and Diversity Director” says: “For CQC, it’s an ideal opportunity to reflect on equality and rights for all the sectors we regulate, as well as for ourselves as an organisation. We do this by focusing on 4 key areas:
The week will feature “lively panel discussions, Q&A sessions, and a mix of personal and professional insights from keynote internal and external guest speakers.” Here they are:
Note how all events are firmly lodged inside working hours. If Streeting was serious about cutting waste this would be a prime target…
Civil service unions are gearing up for battle as Labour’s fiscal squeeze threatens job cuts in Whitehall. Rachel Reeves is scrambling to stick to her self-imposed fiscal rules in Wednesday’s Spring Statement (definitely not an emergency budget). The axe is swinging towards the civil service…
The Cabinet Office’s Pat McFadden is writing to departments this week ordering them to slash administrative budgets by 15%, a move designed to save £2.2 billion a year by 2029-30. Reeves took to the Sunday shows, claiming 10,000 pen-pushers will be culled. Though now ministers are reportedly quietly drawing up plans to sack 50,000 civil servants. Co-conspirators will remember the union backlash when ex-chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced plans to cut the blob by 66,000 in 2023…
Unsurprisingly, the unions are livid. PCS union boss Fran Heathcote fumed: “The impact of making cuts will not only disadvantage our members but the public we serve and the services they rely on. We’ve seen this before under Gordon Brown- cutting backroom staff led to chaos. Cuts plucked out of the air in order to make it sound like an efficiency they will meet with a lot of opposition”. FDA general secretary Dave Penman told ITV: “We’re talking about something close to 10% of the entire civil service salary bill over the next three to four years. The Civil Service is about half a million strong—so up to 50,000 jobs could go.” That number is now being briefed by the government…
Meanwhile, Mike Clancy, boss of the Prospect union, warned that ministers must avoid turning budget cuts into an “arbitrary” civil service headcount reduction. He pointed to Reeves’ pledge of a “zero-based review of spending” saying it must include a “realistic” look at what the government won’t be able to do after these cuts. Another grovelling letter from Starmer to civil servants to stave off more strikes incoming?
Pat McFadden announced this week that he was cancelling government procurement cards in a bid to tackle civil service waste. Though this is just a freeze – cardholders will now have to reapply and prove they really need them. No doubt Whitehall’s finest are already thinking of ways to pass that test…
Guido welcomes any effort to rein in taxpayer-funded excess, given what mandarins have been splashing out on. Between September and December last year, civil servants at the Home Office, Cabinet Office, DEFRA, and DCMS spent a staggering £11,650 on work-from-home office ‘equipment’, according to research by the Taxpayer’s Alliance. Despite the government’s best efforts to drag civil servants into the office three days a week, pen-pushers splashed the cash on home “footrests”, “noise dampeners”, chairs, and monitor risers. All very necessary of course for a productive day of shirking from home. Guido will be keeping an eye on how many of these mandarins manage to keep hold of their taxpayer-funded credit cards…
Lucy Powell on LBC, asked by Tom Swarbrick for her reaction to Labour MP Samantha Niblett’s call for a ‘summer of sex’ debate in Parliament: “I personally don’t own any sex toys, but each to their own… I’m not really sure that’s the right place for it, no.”