What Keir Starmer’s Civil Service Reforms Reveal About His Evolving Government

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Did Keir Starmer’s “Plan for Change” represent a change of plans? The prime minister’s address last week, laying out the next “phase” of Labour governance, is still driving the agenda in Westminster. In that sense, it has succeeded.

But interested observers are still yet to form a consensus on what the speech actually consisted of.

The most common characterisation, that the address inaugurated a political “reset”, is still vociferously denied by government ministers. The distillation of Labour’s abstract “Missions” into wordier, more focused “Milestones” reflects the natural evolution of a government emerging from nascency, the relevant line contends.

But consider the surrounding context. This government is young but troubled. And the political stakes that dictate the severity of Starmer’s woes have been heightened by international circumstance and example. Everywhere incumbents are punished by merciless electorates. If Starmer is to secure a second term he must deliver on voters’ concerns: Thursday’s speech, then, was about ensuring Britain’s electors and the elected government are on the same page.

So Starmer sought to spell out the defining mission of his government in evermore explicit language. “The purpose of this government is to make our public services and economy work for working people”, Starmer stressed.

The repetition of the government’s commitment to “working people” suggests Starmer has selected his audience. The “Plan for Change” not-a-reset, of course, followed a budget that proudly vowed to champion this ill-defined collective by protecting them from tax hikes and placing money, directly and indirectly, into their “pockets”.

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Intriguingly, the prime minister also cut a more frustrated figure than previous set pieces.

Starmer wants to style Labour as insurgent and agitating for change against the odds — as stacked by the last Conservative government. Previously, Starmer has highlighted the existence of three fiscal, political and societal “black holes” that the government confronted, mostly unexpectedly, upon entering office.

There was less emphasis on Westminster’s multiplying, intertwining dark chasms last week. But Starmer sought to underline his challenge in another sense. After all, the speech’s “reset” vibe was most discernible from the prime minister’s comments on Whitehall and his relatively sudden enthusiasm for civil service reform.

Paraphrasing one of US president-elect Donald Trump’s more potent promises, Starmer declared: “I don’t think there’s a swamp to be drained here. But I do think too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline.”

The prime minister went on: “Make no mistake — this plan will land on desks across Whitehall with the heavy thud of a gauntlet being thrown down. A demand, given the urgency of our time. For a state that is more dynamic, more decisive, more innovative.”

The comments followed the appointment of Sir Chris Wormald as the new cabinet secretary and civil service chief. Announcing his pick, Starmer called for “nothing less than the complete re-wiring of the British state”.

And today, Pat McFadden, the senior Cabinet Office minister, has added further detail to the plans sketched out by Starmer in his “Plan for Change” address and promised by Wormald’s appointment. In a speech this morning, McFadden invoked the names of Spotify, Airbnb and WhatsApp as examples of workplace cultures that the civil service must replicate. New “crack teams” of “problem solvers”, McFadden announced, will be sent to improve public services, imbed a “start-up mindset” and help the government achieve its goals.

He even channelled Dominic Cummings, the mercurial former chief adviser to Boris Johnson, suggesting that appealing to “weirdos and misfits” is part of the government’s strategy.

McFadden said: “You might remember a few years ago, there was a call for weirdos and misfits in the system. Well, whatever term you want to use, we do want innovators and disrupters and original thinkers.”

The invocation of one of the most controversial figures to enter popular political discourse in recent years is immensely instructive as to Starmer’s ambitions. Above all, it’s a reminder of just how comfortable the prime minister is embracing paradoxes.

Starmer, in terms of his public pronouncements, does not have a reputation for consistency. And critics have lampooned his latest “Milestones” (which follow Labour’s “Missions” and “First steps”) along these lines. But if there has been one constant in the PM’s politics since he seized Labour’s reins in 2020, it has been his reverence for — and commitment to staunchly defend — institutions.

But today, the former Director of Public Prosecutions is engaging in a war on state excess — citing Cummings, the infamous scourge of the institutions, as inspiration. There are also not-insignificant parallels between Starmer’s civil service reform agenda and that pursued by Elon Musk with his DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) initiative in the US.

Along these lines, McFadden was asked about what Labour could learn from Musk. He responded thusly: “I was around in the government last time, and we brought in various people from the business world to help out. Some of them were an enormous success, made great ministers, did great things. Some others less so. Let us see what he can do.”

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On state bureaucracy as with immigration, Keir Starmer is increasingly seeing potential in the arguments and agenda of political populists. In fact, Labour seems to be at its most comfortable and pugnacious when embracing ends once repudiated by British progressives.

Starmer is an instinctive institutionalist, a tinkering technocrat to his critics, pursuing populist ends. Politically, it fits the professed narrative of this government as insurgent. Electorally, it elucidates how Labour plans to thwart the trans-national tides that have dislodged so many incumbents in recent years — particularly exposed progressives.

The driving rationale of the “disrupter” is to go fast and break things. Starmer, certainly, is a prime minister in a rush — and willing to dispense with political norms and embrace progressive taboos to get things done.

In the end, the success of Starmer’s “Milestones” will be determined by whether the government delivers on them. That much is plain. Rishi Sunak lost the 2024 general election for many reasons; but above all because he failed. Starmer has since declared that a necessary step toward success involves reworking, revitalising and rewiring Whitehall. In the meantime, what’s wrong, Labour reckons, with making a little political noise?

But from 2022-2024, Sunak made political noise at the expense of policy delivery. It begs a question that deserves additional treatment: will the government’s laser focus on the next election buttress its re-election chances, or will Starmer’s tangible, slightly tetchy sensitivity latch Labour to the same political doom spiral that sank Sunak?

For someone so keen to stress his irreverence for “rabbits”, performance and political signal, at this stage, are still important parts of Starmer’s strategy.

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Lunchtime soundbite

‘You might remember a few years ago, there was a call for weirdos and misfits in the system. Well, whatever term you want to use, we do want innovators and disrupters and original thinkers.’

— Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden invokes Dominic Cummings as he sets out Labour’s civil service reform plans.

Now try this…

From Politico: “The landmark defence agreement between the US, UK and Australia could be in jeopardy with the maverick Republican back in the White House.”

‘Unions slam Starmer’s “tepid bath of managed decline” civil service attack’
Via Civil Service World.

‘Jamal Khashoggi’s widow urges Starmer to raise husband’s murder at Saudi meeting’
Starmer will meet crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia for talks about forging closer ties on Monday, The Guardian reports.