Just under a fortnight ago, a tanned and unusually ebullient Sir Keir Starmer gathered together his staff in No 10 to launch “phase two” of his government. He gave them a pep talk. It was released as a video, and it hasn’t aged well.
“We’re going to phase two in good spirits – confident, and with conviction about what we’re doing. It needs a more powerful No 10, so we’ve added to the team some really important new members, and made a number of other changes. But this is about focus on delivery,” the PM declared, purposefully.
As they say on social media: “How’s that going, Keir?”
Rather than the “focus on delivery” – about which the prime minister was right – the focus has been on Angela Rayner’s tax affairs, her resignation as deputy prime minister, Peter Mandelson’s apparently overly devoted loyalty to Jeffrey Epstein, his resignation as ambassador in Washington and, ironically enough, the seemingly dysfunctional ways of the newly beefed-up No 10 machine.
Rightly, given his role at the centre of affairs, focus has now centred on the role and influence of his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney. We may never know the full truth about who was responsible for the ill-fated decision to make Lord Mandelson ambassador to America, but there’s no doubt that Mr McSweeney wasn’t aloof from the process.
It was Lord Mandelson who recruited Mr McSweeney to the Labour machine two decades ago (coincidentally, at the height of his association with Epstein), and the pair are, or were, in constant contact, as might be expected. It is not denied that Mr McSweeney “pushed for” Lord Mandelson to be sent to Washington and, latterly, was reluctant to see him sacked.
At the moment, it is not at all clear who knew what and when about Lord Mandelson’s unsuitability for the post, except – again, not denied – that the vetting process had prompted unspecified warnings from the security services. These, however strong they were, were overridden by a political decision to press ahead. That is not so unusual, and certainly not unconstitutional. But, it turns out, it was a catastrophic misjudgement.
Blame for the debacle is currently being shuttled between the Foreign Office, the Security Service and, within No 10, around the prime minister and his advisers, including Mr McSweeney. Nonetheless, the public deserves to know how far the decision to appoint and, initially, retain Lord Mandelson was made by Sir Keir, and how far it was delegated to the unelected and (in governmental terms) inexperienced Mr McSweeney.
The voters deserve to know what happened and what lies behind such a nationally humiliating episode – one that was apparently so rushed, there wasn’t time to brief US president Donald Trump about the sacking, a serious discourtesy. More crucial than that, though, they would like their government to escape from the “chaos and confusion” that Sir Keir so often accused his Conservative predecessors of falling into.
“Delivery” is indeed much needed. To this end, Sir Keir has reorganised and bulked up his No 10 operation; he is now to have three parliamentary private secretaries, a record. With Baroness Shafik now his chief economic adviser, he has also signalled that he wants a greater role in economic policy, at the expense of the Treasury. Bringing Darren Jones as his “chief secretary” adds to No 10’s ministerial firepower and that focus on delivery.
The question is, however, whether the prime minister’s problems are more a matter of the quality of the people working for him rather than the quantity of the personnel. A smaller, smarter team working closely together as a cadre might be more effective than a sprawling quasi-presidential bureaucracy, which Sir Keir seems to have opted for. That, in turn, raises further questions about the prime minister’s judgement.
Doubts about his leadership have begun to embolden his internal rivals – principally the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, currently using Lucy Powell’s campaign for the deputy leadership as a proxy for his own ambitions.
The prime minister remains central to the success of the Labour government he did so much to bring about, against seemingly insuperable barriers when he took over in 2020. He needs to regain his equilibrium, find his voice, and give strong identity to his administration. Part of the job of political persuasion can be achieved by better communications, but much more by tangible evidence of delivery by individual ministers and departments.
If Sir Keir’s government can indeed make the economy grow, fix the public finances, rescue the NHS, improve the schools, produce cheap green energy and reduce irregular migration, then he can still hope for a second term, unlikely as the polls make that feel today. “Phase two” may or may not be over, but the political battle is still far from lost.
