Labour backbenchers have spent years dreaming of the day they are in power and get ‘the call’ from the Prime Minister, inviting them to become ministers. But this time, a few were surprised that when the call came they heard the cut-glass accent of Sue Gray on the line.
Perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised them. Her power over the government is hardly a secret: she helped run the country as a civil servant during the Tory years. Now she does so as a political adviser. Why disguise it?
Sunak told the electorate to judge him on how well he fulfilled his five missions. In the end, they did
Gray is a veteran of the process of forming and reshuffling governments, scrawling the names of hopefuls on cards and moving them around. Party whips work out the politics, mandarins run propriety checks. Such is the British constitution in all its dignity and efficiency. Now Keir Starmer wants a ‘mission-led government’ dedicated to five main projects: ‘boosting growth’, energy, crime, health and ‘opportunity’ outcomes.
On the all-important government grid, the first steps of these projects have been allocated separate ‘mission colours’. A new prime minister may be impressed by this treatment. Gray knows it’s an old trick. ‘Every administration changes the colours,’ sighs one veteran. Rishi Sunak’s government had its own five missions: his pledges. He told the electorate to judge him on how well he fulfilled them. In the end, they did.
Gray spent most of her career in the crumbling Cabinet Office at 70 Whitehall. She watched as Francis Maude and Jeremy Heywood seized control of functions like communications, personnel and finance. These were centralised on the grounds of cost-cutting. The result? A sprawling empire of 15,000 staff, which duplicates much of the work done by other departments. ‘It’s a complete mess,’ admits one Tory veteran.
It now looks likely that this will be scaled back from its ‘command and control’ style to functioning more like a secretariat. Peter Kyle’s department is an early beneficiary of this decentralising push, with Science and Technology last month gobbling up digital services. The mission leadership will be run from Cabinet Office.
Gone, supposedly, are the days of ‘department silos’ in which each permanent secretary and their minister patrol their land like feudal baronies. Instead, five director-generals will preside over the five missions, reporting to Starmer himself. The first of these is Chris Stark, tasked with turbocharging the UK to clean power by 2030. He ranks beneath his permanent secretary – but some fear the impact of these new arrivals on the real-life Sir Humphreys of Whitehall. ‘They’ll be cut off at the knees,’ predicts one official. Others expect the traditional hierarchy to prevail, but questions need answering. How do the mission chiefs interact with the rest of their department? And, crucially, do they boast a direct line to Starmer, Gray and Secretaries of State?
Georgia Gould, one of a clutch of new MPs made ministers straight away, is key to this process. Appointed to the Cabinet Office, she has first-hand experience of ‘mission-led government’. She pioneered the theme as leader of Camden council from 2017 until earlier this year, on topics such as safer streets and healthy food.
Transferring the ‘mission’ model into Westminster, of course, carries risks. The first was best expressed by Macmillan. ‘Events, dear boy,’ get in the way. Each of Starmer’s five missions refers to domestic policy, but much of his first month has been dominated by events overseas. The second risk is the Treasury – the historic graveyard of Labour schemes, especially as Rachel Reeves has declared that ‘if we cannot afford it, we cannot do it’.
Aiding Starmer and Gray are a collection of political appointees. Some, such as James Timpson, have been received positively; a signal of good intent. Others, like Labour donor Ian Corfield as a Treasury director, have ruffled more feathers. A residual degree of wariness can be found among some Labour tribalists: both the Cabinet Office and Business departments have purged their non-executive directors.
The lack of special adviser appointments, four weeks on, has also raised eyebrows, as has the bruising way in which some Labour staff learned that they did not have jobs in government. Certain teams, such as the Treasury, are better supplied and can call on a Council of Economic Affairs. Others, like the Home Office, have fewer aides than before. Liz Kendall, who may end up having the toughest battle of all on welfare reform, is still looking for people to help her.
The biggest appointment will be, of course, the cabinet secretary given the looming departure of Simon Case. ‘I’m sure Sue has her thoughts,’ remarks one ex-colleague. Opinion is divided as to whether this will be one of the existing permanent secretaries or a former mandarin such as Olly Robbins or Melanie Dawes. The appointee will do much to set the tone of government.
Under the Tories it sometimes seemed as if officials were in a state of open rebellion, with ministers facing bullying accusations or being issued with requests for ‘written direction’ (done to register a deep objection to a given policy). Under Starmer, with his extensive experience of the state legal service, Whitehall seems delighted to have one of its own at the top. ‘A collective sigh of relief,’ is how one insider characterises the reaction to the election result.
Early moves to lift department recruitment caps and remote working restrictions went down well (as you might expect). Welcome addresses from the likes of Bridget Phillipson were appreciated by staff who felt like the previous government saw them as the problem. There is a feeling that Labour may end up uninterested in civil service reform. ‘They see it as a Tory thing,’ remarks one ex-official: ‘No one in Labour is really thinking about this.’ No minister, it seems, has been given responsibility for the subject.
In the Blair years, there was a greeting card that ministers would send to each other on their birthdays. ‘What does anyone have against civil servants?’ it read. ‘It’s not as if they do anything.’ If the Tories had too little faith in the system, it may well be that Labour has too much. The size of Starmer’s majority was, in no small part, due to the Tories’ inability to deliver. If his colour-coded missions fail, Keir will end up every bit as vulnerable.
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