40% of Keir’s No. 10 staff appointed uncontested

It’s not been a good week for Sir Keir’s lefty lot. In the last few days alone, Starmer’s army has been hit with the revelation that over half of all Brits feel disappointed by Labour’s achievements in government so far – while just hours ago, a new survey by FindOutNow saw Nigel Farage’s Reform party surge to second place, overtaking the current government of the day. And now the beast that is Labour’s cronyism row threatens to rear its head once more.

Steerpike would remind readers that back in 2020, every Permanent Secretary co-signed the grandly-named ‘Declaration of Government Reform’ in June 2020, promising to usher in a new era of transparency, meritocracy and excellence in the palaces of Whitehall. It promised that ‘all senior appointments to public competition by default’ will be ‘advertised in such a way as to ensure the widest pool of applicants.’

Yet in response to a written question from the Conservative party’s John Glen – who enquired after the proportion of jobs at No.