A new term, a new line-up on the assembly platform. As pupils return to school, in many places they and their parents will be confronted with some fresh teachers. So it is with 10 Downing Street. On his first day back, Sir Keir Starmer has made a series of appointments designed to strengthen his team.
The key move is that of Darren Jones, plucked from the Treasury where he was chief secretary, effectively Rachel Reeves’ No 2, into a specially created role of chief secretary to the prime minister, in charge of “driving forward progress in policy areas and reporting directly to the prime minister”.
Not surprisingly, the opposition has been quick to seize on the switch as a serious snub to the chancellor, weakening and undermining her and her department. There is, though, another way of viewing Jones’s arrival. Starmer is not comfortable with economics. Give him the law and he is a fluent expert, as good as anyone in the Inns of Court. He speaks the language, is able to see both sides and to present a reasoned, coherent argument. It’s his background; he did it for decades at the highest level.
Money, finance and the markets, put simply, are not his thing. He’s preferred to let others do the talking for him, notably Reeves herself, who never ceases to remind people that she once worked as a Bank of England economist and at a clearing bank. Just how proficient and senior she really was has been the subject of debate, but one aspect is clear: her communication and delivery have been poor. So much so that support for Labour has plummeted, and the government’s ability to win a second term must be in doubt. This, don’t forget, is from a position of overwhelming strength, with a substantial majority.
Of course, Starmer could have chosen to remove her, but that would have damaged him still further. He and Reeves were joined at the hip; in the run-up to the election, they campaigned and wooed the City together. To lose her would be an admission of catastrophic failure, which would imperil the pound and harm Britain’s standing among potential investors.
No, Jones’s promotion is more about strengthening Starmer than injuring Reeves. In the end, everything emanates from and leads to the prime minister. It’s his administration; he is in charge.
For a year, when speculation mounted as to what Reeves’s first Budget would contain and afterwards, the headlines have all been about her. In recent months, the coverage has been torrid as the impact of the steps taken then – imposing inheritance tax on farmers, scrapping non-doms and hiking employers’ national insurance – is felt, and a seeming drip-drip of ideas for the next one being thought up and tested, which has come out of the Treasury, has added to the sense of chaos and lack of direction.
Crucially, her promise of “going further and faster to kick-start the economy” has failed to materialise. Instead, the still-repeated phrase has become hackneyed and laughable. Whatever caused her tears in the Commons provided an abiding image of disarray. A different voice is needed, and it should be No 10, not No 11, doing the explaining and selling. The centre is getting a grip, taking command.
It doesn’t make the decisions any easier – the government is in a funding pickle – but it ought to mean the sense of direction becomes clearer. It should reduce, too, the controversy that has built around Torsten Bell, Reeves’ leftist adviser. As the final touches to the Budget are prepared, Starmer will have, in his room, someone in Jones, who hails from the Labour right, who is an avowed Blairite. The centre is firmly at the centre, as it were.
Not only Jones. A former deputy governor, no less, of the Bank of England, Baroness Minouche Shafik, joins Starmer’s team as economics adviser. Several notches up from a desk economist, if indeed that is what Reeves was, in other words.
He is also beefing up his PR muscle, selecting a proven heavyweight in Tim Allan, who worked successfully under Tony Blair. Out goes the ill-equipped James Lyons; in his place is a formidable bruiser.
The moves, and others, signify what lies ahead. The school has been through upheaval, the exam results were awful, pupils and parents, not to mention fellow staff members, are fed up. This immediate term is set to be crucial in the life of “Starmer High”. Purpose and confidence must be restored, and fast.
