Keir Starmer’s mission impossible

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?

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.