Downing Street is not keen on letting Angela Rayner chair too many Cabinet meetings. Insecure?
Rayner chaired her first Cabinet meeting last Tuesday while Starmer was at the G7. This was the first time – usually they just cancel them when the PM is away…
If you trust the readout everything went normally. E.g: “The Deputy Prime Minister opened today’s Cabinet by saying her thoughts were with all those who lost loved ones following the devastating Air India plane crash last week. She reflected on attending a memorial service at the Indian High Commission yesterday, and said it was a very moving occasion.” Professional…
Guido hears Downing Street has just cancelled the next few Cabinets for which the PM is absent. Back to the old system. Wouldn’t want people getting any ideas…
Labour has presented its defence for gagging top military personnel. ‘We let one of them speak on-record once’…
Shadow defence minister Mark Francois asked the MoD in a written question “for what reason his Department has advised senior military officers not to speak on the record at events where a Minister is present.” As Guido revealed the gagging order has been imposed by Starmer’s strategic communications director after a row between Downing Street and top defence chiefs…
Armed forces minister Luke Pollard replied today: “This is not true. Recently, the Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Roly Walker spoke on the record, and live on Sky Television at the RUSI Land Warfare Conference on the same day as the Secretary of State for Defence.” Not the defence Labour thinks it is…
The gagging order is unlikely to be lifted under the current Chief of the Defence Staff Tony Radakin, whose extended term runs until autumn this year. Recent massively impactful military events make the imposition of the gagging order even more farcical…
Chaos surrounding Labour’s “Phase Two” in government has delayed talk of an impending reshuffle. Starmer’s lost the appetite…
The plan at the beginning of the year was to go after the dust settled from the Spending Review. There is little chance of that now…
Poorly-sourced speculation stories from newspapers that there would be a reshuffle before then – also putting up Phillipson and Hermer as write-offs – have proven wide of the mark. Typical…
Some wobbles over Reeves have been stabilised and Guido hears from Downing Street sources that despite hopes from the Labour backbenches there is “no chance” she will leave in the short-term. Reeves is useful to Starmer as a punching bag – for as long as she can weather it…
Rayner resolved her arguments at the Spending Review and has been guaranteed the housing brief. Starmer is as usual intensely focussed on foreign policy and visits, the team and execution for which have been polished by Downing Street. Can’t run from the voters forever…
Guido hears that plans are now up in the air – current thinking has any reshuffle taking place around conference season. The first McSweeney reshuffle may have to wait a few more months…
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…
The soon-to-be-outgoing Chief of the Defence Staff Tony Radakin’s relationship with Downing Street is cited by multiple sources as the trigger for Starmer’s unprecedented gagging order on military personnel. The farcical order means a bizarre mishmash of officers are on or off-record at events where journalists are present…
Downing Street’s comms team has enforced the order on the MoD – to much consternation in the chain of command. The gag is widely seen as unsustainable, as Defence Chiefs have always been free to speak their minds…
Guido hears it is Admiral Sir Tony Radakin and his office that has caused the most anger in Downing Street – particularly over his remarks around the Strategic Defence Review. Radakin has been careful in his wording on the SDR. When it came out the adjectives he used to describe it to the press were “brand new”…
A few days ago he said of European allies: “Never mind our 50 tanks or our modest increase in the Army; they are increasing their armies by tens of thousands and they are increasing their tanks by hundreds.” He said of the Royal Navy: “We continue with the existing programme and we make some progress in the 2020s, but the really significant progress is in the 2030s when we’re heading to three per cent.” Starmer won’t guarantee it…
Radakin views the 3% defence spending rise as a priority. Starmer has been bruised by his failure to secure a path to that target, which remains only an “ambition.” Relations between the MoD and Downing Street are extremely frayed, and the gagging order is unlikely to be lifted under the current CDS. Radakin’s extended term runs until autumn this year. Downing Street will be hoping that the installation of a new CDS may change things, it will be Starmer’s pick…
A snippet of inside briefing given to the FT yesterday confirms that it was Starmer’s own idea to present Farage and his four MPs as the ‘real opposition.’ A choice that has caused consternation inside Labour…
“Starmer disclosed his plan to tackle Farage head-on in a text message last month to Morgan McSweeney, his chief of staff, after learning the Reform leader was planning a bold pitch for Labour votes in a speech on May 27.
Two days after Farage’s démarche — in which the Reform leader vowed to be the champion of “working people” — Starmer declared in a speech in St Helens that the new choice for voters was between Labour and the “fantasy economics” of Reform.”
Co-conspirators may remember May’s bizarre St Helens speech in which Starmer obsessively attacked Farage and was then humiliated by successive journalists’ questions. It was quite the show…
FT readers now know that the pivot and accompanying stunt wasn’t the idea of Downing Street Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney – known by top insiders as “the McIavelli.” A camp inside Labour thought it wiser to leave the Reform attacks to the large army of Labour backbenchers who are at the party’s beck and call anyway…
Downing Street is briefing that the PM will “step up the attacks in coming weeks” by attacking Farage’s council DOGE units and anti-net zero policies. Reform may see that as more of a gift…
Former leader of the SNP in Westminster Ian Blackford told Times Radio why he believes Nicola Sturgeon’s claim that she spent no time in the kitchen and therefore didn’t see any of her husband’s purchases:
“She doesn’t have a passion for cooking.”