- 8 hours ago
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Hello and welcome back to In The Room.
00:02We've got lots of new listeners in the last week, so if that's you, hello and welcome.
00:06I'm Cleo Watson, a former Special Advisor in Number 10.
00:09I'm the former Deputy Cabinet Secretary, Helen McNamara.
00:12Don't forget to follow us on your preferred podcast player and look at us on YouTube at In The Room
00:17Politics
00:17and of course go to Instagram to see our favourite clips at intheroom.pod.
00:26So this week we want to talk to you about the problems that past Keir Starmer has set up for
00:32future Keir Starmer.
00:34It's clear this is something you and I talk about quite often,
00:36that we don't really always help out our future selves by doing a sensible thing today.
00:41But Keir Starmer has really excelled in this recently, so I don't know,
00:44perhaps you push a task into the future thinking it's going to go away, hoping it might not happen,
00:49and we think that's how Keir Starmer is going to feel after the local elections.
00:53Yeah, you can actually see his thinking.
00:56You know, when he was making some of the decisions of his, let's say, to-do list for after May
01:02the 7th,
01:03he was thinking, well, the MPs are very febrile just now
01:07and they're the ones who are going to vote on any legislation that I bring forward.
01:10The country is facing great uncertainty with the Iran war
01:14and his personal credibility was in question over Peter Maldeson.
01:18And maybe time, the great healer, would make these problems fall away
01:25and he'd be able to face up to the now quite extensive to-do list he has to do.
01:29But unfortunately, the situation is now much, much worse.
01:33So here's a quick summary of the to-do list.
01:36Here we go.
01:36Defence and security.
01:37The government committed to a generational shift in how we manage defence,
01:40but that could have tax implications and departmental cuts.
01:43It will.
01:44And then the second thing is the cost of living is going to be miraculously sorted out
01:47after the local elections.
01:49Keir Starmer's made it his personal priority.
01:50Our energy prices are going to come down.
01:53Rail prices are going to be frozen.
01:54There's a whole bounty of things that await us, apparently.
01:57Safety for trans people and single-sex spaces.
02:00So it's a year since the Supreme Court ruled in favour of women-only spaces in some areas.
02:06That's been on the pending pile for quite some time.
02:08It really has.
02:09And the government's yet to bring forward formal legislation.
02:12And then there's a whole new package of city regulations in place,
02:17which, again, very controversial for Labour,
02:20where there's going to be even more liberalisation, indeed,
02:22of the regulations surrounding the city and the financial markets,
02:26which, I mean, no risks involved in that, surely.
02:28Yeah, we must be friendlier to the bankers, for sure.
02:31There's also the Northern Ireland Troubles Bill.
02:33So the government has vowed to replace the controversial legacy legislation
02:36with a, quote, victim-centred approach.
02:40But that was stalled in February while they consult with the DUP and the Irish government.
02:44And in further creating opportunities to punch yourself in the face news,
02:48there's going to be a bill for stripping the titles from disgraced peers.
02:52The two most favours of those at the moment are, of course, Labour peers.
02:55So why the government's doing that, good question.
02:56But that's going to come up in the period after the elections as well.
03:00And speaking of disgraced peers,
03:02that is the humble address that the government is still being asked to respond to.
03:05There is what we're calling the second tranche of Mandelson files to come.
03:09I can't imagine that's going to have good stuff in it for the government.
03:12No, I mean, tranche is another word like vetting
03:14that we should probably just put on the bin, I imagine.
03:16But we've talked a lot about Peter Mandelson and the various situations,
03:21but I think it's important to set out the two or three things
03:23that have happened and where we are right now.
03:26Yeah, so just to contextualise this,
03:27Helen and I have watched all the committee appearances,
03:29we've read all the articles, we've looked at all the evidence.
03:32I don't think this is doing us any favours.
03:34We're husks now.
03:35I would love to hear your few takeaways.
03:38So I think we've had this most almighty political row
03:42and kind of very hurtful and some actual human beings being dragged into this
03:46and having a very unpleasant time.
03:48People losing their jobs, people getting criticised,
03:50horrible bitchy briefing behind civil servants' backs
03:53about each other actually sometimes.
03:55It's been pretty unpleasant.
03:56The net-net of all of this is that everybody violently agrees
04:00that contrary to this huge breaking story from a couple of weeks ago
04:04that the security vetting process for Peter Mandelson
04:06when he was appointed, you know, the ambassador wasn't properly followed.
04:10Actually, it turns out everyone agrees that it definitely was properly followed.
04:13And all of us got very distracted about taking red boxes on forms
04:16and how developed vetting really works to the total delight and glee
04:20to our enemy's security services, I'm sure.
04:23Totally.
04:23We've had an absolute bounty in the last couple of weeks.
04:25And then we've discovered that Peter Mandelson was sacked.
04:29We knew that.
04:30Morgan McSweeney sacked himself because he thought that he'd let the Prime Minister down
04:35by advising that Peter Mandelson should be appointed.
04:37And of course, Morgan McSweeney is the Prime Minister's former Chief of Staff.
04:41He appeared before a select committee yesterday, explained that,
04:44and also explained quite deliciously it wasn't entirely his fault.
04:47So there was a couple of little revelations.
04:50One was that actually the first idea about appointing a political appointee
04:55to the ambassadorship was in February 2024.
04:59It was Sue Gray and Simon Case who were custodians of the plan
05:03to make a political appointee ambassadors.
05:06Sue Gray, I should say, was Keir Starmer's first Chief of Staff.
05:10She was not in that role for very long, and she was a long-time civil servant before that.
05:14She, for example, penned the Partygate Report.
05:17Simon Case was the then Cabinet Secretary.
05:18So they are both in the House of Lords now.
05:21So I wonder whether they'll get involved in the disgraced peers bill.
05:25Who knows?
05:25Who knows, indeed.
05:27So we discovered from Morgan McSweeney that he'd done exactly what he said he did.
05:31He did quite a good job of not trying to throw lots of people under the bus.
05:35But we didn't really learn much from that.
05:37There had been some reporting that Emily Thorne we brought to the committee
05:39that Morgan McSweeney had told Sir Philip Barton,
05:42can you just fucking get on with it?
05:43And it turned out, no, he didn't.
05:46Now, anybody who'd ever met Morgan McSweeney, he's not that sort of...
05:49People imagine that Chief of Staffs are all kind of your friend Dominic Cummings redux.
05:53They're not always.
05:54And even Dom didn't actually swear unpleasantly at civil servants.
05:58Well, he's more creative.
05:59He was probably more creative in his use of language.
06:03But there's other things.
06:04We have these two huge things that Peter Madison failed his vetting scandal,
06:08that massive pressure was put on FCDO, and that was all wrong.
06:12So where are we left?
06:14We're left with a permanent secretary of the Foreign Office.
06:16We're left with a prime minister whose judgment is called even further into question
06:21because I think the two or three really striking things from where we are
06:27are number one, a lot of people put a lot of hope into Keir Starmer.
06:31So everybody kind of, we all transmitted our kind of what we thought was going to,
06:36what he was going to be like as prime minister.
06:37I think the facts are pointing to that rather than being a decent, kind and principled person
06:44all the time, that the way in which he operated, the people who work, works for him is not nice.
06:48And you can't really, you can't sugarcoat that.
06:52And there's something, I've always said this about prime ministers,
06:56where essentially what it really comes down to is your character.
07:00Character is so much more important than I think anybody would want us to believe.
07:04And I think Keir Starmer's character under pressure is not showing him or anyone at their best.
07:11And the second thing is that I do believe that the relationship between the civil service
07:15and the government is now really, really, really bad.
07:17We'll come on later in the episode to talk about what we think we would do about that.
07:22But you don't just summarily dismiss civil servants.
07:26And the kind of civil service on civil service unpleasantness about this is also quite corrosive and difficult.
07:33The prime minister was given some really bad advice.
07:36If there are lessons to be learned anywhere here, I would think about, well, what's happened there?
07:40Because what are the protections against the prime minister being given similarly bad advice on other things?
07:44Is this how we're rolling now?
07:46It's just somebody gets the wrong end of the stick and then all hell breaks loose.
07:50That's not very reassuring.
07:51And the last thing I'd say is I think that, you know, he has not with his own people,
07:58his own party, covered himself in glory either.
08:01And I know we're going to talk about that too.
08:02But I think the political situation for him is much worse.
08:06And it's not about can he rehire Peter Madison and fire him again?
08:09No.
08:10Can he rehire Morgan McSweeney and fire him again?
08:12No.
08:12Can he rehire Orly Robbins and fire him again?
08:15Well, actually, he can and probably should rehire Orly Robbins and definitely not fire him again.
08:19But he's kind of run out of road with that as an excuse that it's everybody else.
08:24And these problems are not going to go away.
08:26There's another group of people who he's got problems with and that's not going to go away either.
08:30Yes, that's very true.
08:32So, of course, we're going to be talking about Labour MPs, Labour cabinet ministers, Labour members.
08:37And, of course, because it is the local elections next week, the public at large.
08:45So, Cleo, what is going on with these troublesome MPs?
08:48Yes, this is a very tricky element for the Prime Minister because that little list of things that he has
08:54to do that we talked about in part one are very thorny, whatever the circumstances.
08:59And by kicking them into the long grass, he's actually made his job much harder because there are snakes in
09:04the long grass.
09:05And I'm going to tell you about a few of those snakes.
09:07So, we are recording at midday on Wednesday.
09:10So, the Prime Minister is currently at PMQs, which the only reason he's at PMQs today is because he prorogued
09:16Parliament and they managed to get the days wrong.
09:19They botched it.
09:20I mean, if you're going to prorogue, take it from me.
09:22Prorogue big.
09:22Do it properly.
09:24Exactly, do it properly.
09:26He's getting his head bashed around a bit by Kemi Badenok.
09:30Like, understandably, it's a perfect way for her to end the kind of parliamentary term before the local elections.
09:36And all the leaders of the opposition parties will be having a go at him today.
09:39Clip it up.
09:40Send it out onto the airwaves for your supporters.
09:43It's perfect.
09:44Last night, so that's Tuesday evening, the Prime Minister faced a vote on whether he should be referred to the
09:50Privileges Committee.
09:51So, the Privileges Committee is a committee of the House of Commons that if somebody has misled Parliament, particularly, or
09:56brought Parliament into disrepute,
09:58then it's the privilege of being a Member of Parliament that is taken away from them.
10:01And it can be only done by fellow MPs in a committee.
10:04Most famous one of those recently, Boris Johnson, where Harriet Harman was the chair when he was accused of misleading
10:10the House over party code.
10:11I remember it well.
10:13So, he was actually able to escape that.
10:16He won the vote, but he had to whip his old MPs incredibly hard.
10:20They won a three-line whip, which is really unusual in these circumstances.
10:23I'd like this for a second, because I think of the oddities of the situation.
10:29There's a vote that has been organised by the Conservative Party, organised by the opposition,
10:32in order to basically say that your guy, the leader of the Labour Party, should be hauled before the Privileges
10:38Committee, brackets, the same thing they did to Boris Johnson.
10:41Yes.
10:41So, it's not a kind of shades of grey real vote, is it?
10:44It's kind of, you would hope that Labour MPs are going to say, actually, thanks very much, Kemi, but we're
10:48going to stick with our guy for all of his flaws.
10:51So, you wouldn't really imagine that you would have to organise in order to get your own MPs to be
10:57on the side of the Prime Minister.
10:59And yet, and yet.
11:01And yet, but it's organising and it's organising.
11:03I mean, they, the Prime Minister met at Chequers this weekend with his key advisers and some members of the
11:10Cabinet.
11:11And the entire period was dedicated to how do we win this vote on the Privileges Committee.
11:16They will have got no work done in Downing Street on Monday and Tuesday, manning the phones.
11:21I mean, I can go into this in greater detail because Helen, you and I have had to do this
11:24a few times.
11:25Oh, not me, mate.
11:26This is your side of the table.
11:28But the actual business of what you should be getting on with is completely derailed whilst you, and this doesn't
11:35just, I don't just mean number 10 staff.
11:36I mean, members of the Cabinet, all the Whip's office, obviously, lots of senior MPs.
11:41There's a kind of phone tree and the Prime Minister himself ringing up people trying to persuade them.
11:46So, you divvy up the list of all the people and then you put, go on, I mean, do tell
11:50us.
11:51OK, so poor Theresa May faced, not only did we have the meaningful votes on her Brexit deal, she also
11:56had a couple of confidence motions against her as well.
11:59And the two staff at the time, Gavin Barwell, set up a war room where we were all given lists
12:06of Conservative MPs to ring up based on perhaps what our policy area was or how well we knew people,
12:12what special relationships we had.
12:15Just a side note, I had almost exclusively Brexiteers of the slightly more swivel-eyed kind.
12:21And so I had some pretty difficult chats with them, as you can imagine.
12:25There was sort of no point wasting the minutes on my phone plan, to be honest.
12:32And you have a list, you have a big spreadsheet, someone will hold the pen on that.
12:35And it's almost always colour-coded.
12:38And it will literally include, there'll be a column on like, have they tweeted support?
12:43They might have said privately, this is where I'm going to vote.
12:45Have they also put out a statement or done something on the media or tweeted their support?
12:48You know, we must it with the Prime Minister at this difficult time or whatever.
12:52And one of the really telling things, I think, and this will come into some of my advice later on,
12:57is that there are MPs who are saying, I've never really spoken to the Prime Minister before and I heard
13:02from him.
13:02Or I really was considering either abstaining or voting to refer him to the Privileges Committee.
13:10But I got a call from a senior number 10 person and I got a call or two from members
13:15of the Cabinet and it has changed my mind.
13:18So these operations can work, but they are so resource-heavy, they're time-consuming.
13:22Where you are making trades, don't you?
13:24Because I used to, on my side of the table, I used to get the consequences one of these ring
13:30rounds.
13:31Because one of you...
13:31And we've got a lot of knighthoods coming.
13:34One of you fellas would have promised all sorts of stuff.
13:36And then the next reshuffle conversation, firstly, I do actually, when you said we check the timing of the tweets,
13:42I do remember one of, like, losing my rag in a who-should-we-appoint-to-a-job conversation
13:47when somebody was trying to argue for somebody completely inappropriate for the job,
13:51who would have been a total disaster in a job that was actually quite important,
13:54on the basis that they'd got their tweet in two minutes earlier than the other guy.
13:58There have been some heavy things given away in these conversations this weekend as well.
14:01It's not just a gargantuan waste of time.
14:03It's also not looking after your future self again,
14:07because you're just storing up a whole load of other favours that you now need to pay off somehow.
14:11He has this to-do list already, much of which will probably be in the King's speech on the 13th
14:16of May,
14:17another cracking King's speech, because he's just dishing them out like mad in the last 24 hours.
14:21He's doing so well.
14:23There will be policy things as well that will be privately agreed or will be considered.
14:29And that's pretty serious stuff.
14:31In order to save the Prime Minister's skin, people will be saying,
14:34well, you know, some of it is like, I really want this A road in my constituency or something,
14:40which is money and kind of crazy.
14:43I'm now weeping softly.
14:44Exactly.
14:45In order to deliver all of these different things on your to-do list,
14:49which is, you know, legislation and policy and all kinds of big, thorny, important things,
14:54you need the civil service to be a humming machine that is wanting to cooperate with you.
14:59Where do you think the Prime Minister is on that, Helen?
15:02Well, I think it's really important.
15:04Whenever you talk about this, people say, oh, well, he's lost the civil service.
15:07And just imagine that civil servants are now like, well, until you're nice to me, I'm not coming out.
15:11That's actually, reassuringly, not how it works.
15:14People are still doing their jobs.
15:16They're not civil servants because they love the government.
15:19They're civil servants because they believe in public administration and like doing their job and work with their...
15:23There's lots and lots of other reasons why they are doing their job.
15:26So don't panic, everyone.
15:28They are still doing their job or rather panic sometimes because they are still doing their job.
15:33I think that the thing that is hard to get away from is that really at the heart of this,
15:38you have a dysfunctional setup in the centre of Whitehall, which all of us have been saying for...
15:44I mean, you and I used to say that to ourselves quite often.
15:47Really, it's that dysfunctionality, that lack of team playing,
15:50the kind of what the hell is going on with the Cabinet Office and the relationship with Number 10.
15:54Why is everybody so far away from each other?
15:57There is a real kind of...
15:59That is a problem and that dysfunctionality stays.
16:01That's a problem for everybody.
16:02And there has been some quite unpleasant civil servants turning against each other.
16:06This was the Permanent Secretary of the Cabinet Office who effectively started all...
16:10She started it, but who started all of this stuff.
16:13She did.
16:15And it's very consequential.
16:17And I think it's important to understand that actually, yes, okay,
16:21civil servants are going to be angry with Keir Starmer.
16:23Civil servants being angry with Prime Ministers and still doing their jobs is pretty normal.
16:27So that really reminds me of a Twitter account somewhere in government that when I worked in Number 10...
16:34...tweeted about how much they hated...
16:35...how much they hated the Tories and the incumbent Prime Minister.
16:39Yes, so it was the UK Civil Service Twitter account, which I'm sure you're a big follower of,
16:44which is run by the Cabinet Office.
16:46And they tweeted, can you imagine trying to work for these truth twisters?
16:51Can you imagine trying to work for these arrogant and offensive truth twisters?
16:54I don't even know.
16:55I think...
16:55It wasn't even that bad a day.
16:57Obviously, everyone went absolutely crackers.
17:00And particularly the special advisers in Number 10 and ministers were like,
17:04this is an absolute disgrace.
17:05He was hacked the account.
17:07And I can remember thinking, the account password will just be password.
17:12It was!
17:13Or a lobby.
17:14Cabinet Office, they're like, we've been hacked.
17:15So you haven't been hacked.
17:17Everybody knows it's password.
17:18Someone's bored and is having a fun time.
17:20Yeah, that was...
17:21Yeah, so they're not in the hacking tweet stage.
17:24They're definitely not.
17:25But they are very unhappy.
17:27And what actually is the thing that is a proper attack on the civil service
17:31is that even the Prime Minister now thinks Olly Robbins was doing his job.
17:35We haven't heard him say anything about Olly Robbins not doing his job.
17:37He said he's a distinguished public servant with a fine track record.
17:41I mean, yes, he is.
17:43Yeah, and that he made an error of judgment.
17:45Well, hello, kettle, it's me, pot.
17:49Indeed.
17:50I mean, I'd even dispute he made an error of judgment.
17:52But leaving that to one side, you can't fudge it.
17:56If you sack a civil servant in a heartbeat
17:59because you don't like the answer to a question,
18:01I'm not sure how many civil servants would be left.
18:03Can you imagine if that was how it worked?
18:06It's a proper attack on the fundamentals.
18:08And so civil servants are really unhappy about that.
18:11And that's in a kind of straw that breaks the camel's back kind of way.
18:14There's lots and lots of reasons to be unhappy.
18:15The Kirsten Armour has attacked the civil service a number of times.
18:18This is the fundamental behaviours.
18:20It doesn't matter all the warm words.
18:22They've been really, really damaging.
18:24And then the second thing is, is the civil service has attacked itself.
18:27That's been really, really damaging.
18:28And what you see played out in public in a way that makes me very proud to have been a
18:31civil servant
18:32is all these very good, measured, calm people from FCDO explaining very purely and clearly and accurately what's happened.
18:39And it really shows that there is a big and significant factor.
18:42And if I was Antonio Romeo, you have to be thinking who is the new cabinet secretary, still very new
18:47cabinet secretary.
18:48And there's an opportunity too, because, you know, if there ever was a point at which the cabinet secretary could
18:53turn up to the prime minister and go,
18:55all right, sunshine, here's my list.
18:57We might be in that stage.
18:58So that covers off his own MPs that don't like him very much just now, the civil service who aren't
19:04totally enamoured of him just now.
19:05And then, of course, the wider public.
19:07So next Friday, we will be getting the results in from the local elections, which are happening all across the
19:13country.
19:13And you're going to be very bored, I imagine, dear listeners and viewers, just hearing about it.
19:18You're going to see so many polls.
19:20You're going to see so many Vox Pops in the streets, which is when a news person gets a random
19:26member of the public to give their opinion on their local area
19:29in which way they're going to vote for the six o'clock news.
19:32It's a very exciting moment.
19:34And every poll so far is suggesting huge losses for the Labour Party.
19:39And it's not a brilliant picture, to be honest, for the Conservatives either.
19:43And it slightly depends where you are for the Greens and Reform and the Lib Dems as well.
19:48But again, as part of this sort of salami slicing, kicking things off into the long grass,
19:54the Prime Minister, you know, for various reasons, thinking, I don't want to ruin my chances.
19:59I don't want to make our polls worse at the local elections.
20:03Let's do this after.
20:05He's going to be in a weaker position because he's expecting heavy losses.
20:08And in some ways, with some of this legislation that we talked about at the beginning,
20:13you're kind of already in.
20:15You're already plumbing the depths of your approval rating.
20:17Why not just get some stuff done?
20:19And to boot, keep your MPs busy with some legislation.
20:23That they're not going to like?
20:24No.
20:25I mean, they're really not going to like it once you are the worst performing political party.
20:30I'll tell you what, I've got a brilliant idea how to make that even better.
20:32Why not have a reshuffle as well?
20:34Oh, yeah.
20:35So there's rumours that there's a reshuffle being planned for after the local elections,
20:38which might include, excitingly, the return of Angela Rayner.
20:42You know, this is the other thing that is a classic of the playbook, is reshuffle speculation.
20:47So then all of the, it slightly puts, ministers who like their jobs start to think,
20:52oh, actually, maybe I shouldn't be quite as rude about the Prime Minister, even to my friends,
20:56because maybe that's going to get back to them and I'm going to get sacked or moved.
20:59Now, don't we not want to get sacked or moved,
21:00because we definitely aren't going to win the next election and I need a job afterwards.
21:04And I'm going to see all of this.
21:05It becomes like really big politics and really small politics quite, quite quickly.
21:10And reshuffle speculation is a classic trying to keep everybody on their toes thing.
21:15It's also an absolute classic for that is not ever the recipe to get governing done.
21:21It takes such a long time for ministers to, not because ministers are bad,
21:25it takes a really long time to master a new brief.
21:27You've got to get to know a whole load of new people.
21:29You've got to have the first, you're doing really brilliantly.
21:33If in six months in a job, we all know this from jobs we start ourselves.
21:36Like six months, I pretty much know where the loos are.
21:39And I've worked out, broadly speaking, which person's great and which person might be a bit of a question mark.
21:44Other than that, don't really know very much.
21:46And yet we do this to ministers and Keir Starmer keeps on moving ministers around government
21:51and then is surprised that actually stuff isn't getting done.
21:55It's a real problem.
21:55You're right.
21:56I mean, I think the reshuffle speculation, it's a classic political expediency,
22:00which is make everybody feel a bit nervous and then they'll feel loyal to you.
22:04But what that also means is they pretty much down tools because they think,
22:08well, I might be moved anyway or I really don't want to do this thing that the government,
22:12the number 10 is like trying to make me do.
22:14I might not have to in a couple of weeks, so I'll put it off.
22:18It is, if you bin people from the cabinet, you've got some very cross, quite powerful people on the back
22:24benches.
22:24With a lot of time on their hands.
22:25Who are really ready to plot and they know a lot of stuff that's been going on from inside government.
22:30Exactly as you say, you've got new people coming into the job who might just want to have a very
22:35motivated and happy civil service to help them deliver what they now have to do,
22:40which is actually quite an extensive list that we've just been discussing of things that, you know,
22:44there's a reason the prime minister has put these things off because they are controversial with Labour MPs.
22:48So there is also, if you have a kind of constantly revolving, moving around question mark about ministers,
22:53if you're a minister sitting in the hot seat and there's a really tough decision to take, you think, hmm,
22:57I'll tell you what,
22:57why don't we just see if I can give that as a gift to the future minister, not my future
23:01self,
23:02but the future inhabitant of this job, whoever it is.
23:05And our government and politics is bedevilled by just shoving everything to the right.
23:09Yes, and almost all the things on Keir Starmer's to-do list that we talked about involve money.
23:15And that's exactly what people don't have just now.
23:18And Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, has basically no headroom at all at the Treasury.
23:23So there are really tough choices ahead.
23:25So if there is a reshuffle next Saturday, as is being speculated, that, you know,
23:31that six month that you were talking about for new ministers, that's going to land just in time for a
23:38heading into winter,
23:39very concerning cost of living crisis, even worse than we currently have.
23:43So it's a pretty bleak picture.
23:45I think the next question of this is what can actually be done about this?
23:49What would we be advising if we were in government right now?
23:55So, Cleo, what can the different players in government do now?
23:59What would be your advice for number 10?
24:01I don't think he's being brilliantly advised.
24:04And there's a lot of turnover, particularly on the political side in his team.
24:08And they've just got to settle down for a bit and everyone get on with their jobs.
24:12And that really doesn't help if they're suddenly being pulled into, you know,
24:16Operation Save Small Dog or whatever to try and keep him in position.
24:21Just that little gag for the insiders because the Operation Save Boris Johnson was called Save Big Dog.
24:28All jokes are always better if you explain them.
24:34Can I just jump in a tiny bit thinking of people I know in number 10?
24:38It's not just that he does have some brilliant people.
24:40There is something about what is going on in the way that works.
24:44Yes, I know less about the structure of what's going on in there.
24:48But I think speaking to some of my experience from working for Theresa May when I was quite junior
24:53and then Boris Johnson when I was quite senior is that there were kind of, in my experience anyway,
24:59there were these sort of layers where you were occasionally brought in to the tent.
25:04And otherwise you were quite outside.
25:05You didn't know what was going on.
25:07So when we had the war room for her confidence vote,
25:09suddenly you're pulled in and you're really central to it
25:12and you feel like you're pulling in the same direction
25:14and you're being informed what's going on.
25:17And then quite a lot of the time you can tell something's going on
25:20because you walk past the Prime Minister's office and the atmosphere is somewhat fraught.
25:25But the door's shut.
25:26I think more than anywhere else I've ever worked, the atmosphere in number 10,
25:31you can kind of, you can smell it or feel it.
25:33Yeah.
25:33There's something about...
25:34It's like Chernobyl.
25:35Like you can just be walking along and you've got your Geiger counter
25:38and you're just like me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
25:41Uh-oh.
25:42I think we've found the swirling vortex of doom.
25:46So I saw briefed into last week that Lady Starmer,
25:49Keir Starmer's wife, Victoria,
25:51has been inviting groups of MPs in for drinks.
25:55Inevitably, that has put some noses out of joint
25:57because they weren't on the first list to go through
25:59and she's going to have to work through the whole parliamentary party
26:01plus spouses.
26:04That's a bit much, right?
26:05Exactly. But again, this isn't a great stage
26:08when you're having to do a three-line whip on a privileges committee vote
26:11and you're having to wheel out the Prime Minister's poor wife
26:14who has a busy job and life
26:17and is having to host these people with English sparkling wine or whatever.
26:21So you have to shut down speculation on things like reshuffles.
26:24I completely understand this idea that you want people to be nervous for their jobs
26:27but you're not getting anything done.
26:30They need to start thinking about a proper political strategy here.
26:33So that list that we talked about at the beginning,
26:36the reason it's controversial is because Labour MPs, by and large,
26:39don't agree on a lot of it.
26:41They're quite divided on some of it
26:42and that also speaks to Labour members and the wider public
26:46and they have to start making this decision
26:48on quite a granular political level.
26:51Who are their voters?
26:52Who are they trying to retain?
26:54Who are they trying to win back?
26:56And the 2024 picture is not that helpful for them
26:58because it was a referendum on the Tories
27:00more than change for the Labour government.
27:02So what you're saying is they need to kind of pick,
27:04on lots of this stuff, they need to pick a lane.
27:05Yes.
27:06That they've been all things to all people.
27:07Correct.
27:08And they're not going to be all things to all people anymore.
27:09Pick a lane, pick a strategy to hold on to that
27:11and then, if necessary, behave quite tactically in a lot of this stuff.
27:16And, you know, it goes without saying that, as usual,
27:20chuck a psycho in
27:21because you've got to have some different thinking.
27:23Like, you need psychos in the whip's office just now.
27:25That is an area where actually
27:28you really need people playing by your tune.
27:30They need to, the MPs need to come alive
27:32to the fraught danger ahead
27:35of what's going to happen if Keir Starmer goes
27:38and who your fantasy cabinet might be
27:41and what a mistake that might be
27:43without that leaking
27:44because you don't want that getting out
27:45that you've been doing sort of head-to-head
27:47polling on anybody.
27:49But unfortunately, this will change quite dramatically
27:51after the local elections
27:53when they'll lose a lot of councillors.
27:54But when we were having difficulties managing MPs,
27:56you could have quite a lot of luck
27:59by working through associations
28:01and association chairmen,
28:02inviting them in and doing briefings with them.
28:05And I think moving beyond the PLP
28:08and looking at some of the unions that Labour work with,
28:11looking at some of the, like, actual governance structures
28:15of the Labour Party,
28:16I think there are other ways to work around MPs
28:20and to pressure them into doing, quote, the right thing.
28:22How can the Prime Minister sort of refresh his relationship
28:27with the civil service?
28:28And dare I say, you know, Antonio Romeo,
28:31exactly as you said, is very new to the role.
28:34Is there, you know, how would you advise her
28:36if you were still Deputy Cabinet Secretary?
28:38Well, I think, number one,
28:39it's perfectly possible to reinstate Ollie Robbins.
28:41He shouldn't have been sacked.
28:43And save us a bit of money as well.
28:44Save us a lot of money.
28:45They're trying to find somebody
28:46who will not be as good as him
28:47to replace him in his job.
28:49Just say this has all been a terrible mistake
28:50and that will be by far the best in the country.
28:53I think that would be delightful.
28:55My number two thing is that Antonio does have the chance now
28:59to say, get everyone in a room together
29:02and bang some heads together in terms of the civil service.
29:05Because from the outside,
29:07and not just from the outside,
29:08from what I know about what still goes on,
29:11the Cabinet Office has taken itself
29:12four million miles away from the rest of Whitehall
29:15and is not behaving and operating in a way
29:18that works very effectively with others.
29:20The Cabinet Office has become entirely bloated,
29:22out of shape.
29:23The Centre of Whitehall doesn't operate properly.
29:25Instead of treating governing like a team sport
29:28and putting the weight of work on departments
29:30and who run their own agenda,
29:32who do their stuff,
29:33who talk to people outside,
29:34who know what they're on about,
29:35and then trying to coordinate in the middle
29:37and run the Prime Minister's writ over it,
29:40you've got the Cabinet Office
29:40sort of just doing its own merry thing
29:42and then marking everybody else's homework.
29:43And there's always been a bit about that
29:45in the Centre of Government.
29:46But we are seeing in various ways
29:48the manifestation of some really poor decision-making
29:51over a long period of time,
29:52an organisation which is about,
29:54I don't know,
29:54I would say it's about infinite amounts
29:57bigger than it ought to be
29:58because I would just abolish it.
29:59A Zen pick for the Cabinet Office
30:01is what we're saying.
30:02A Zen pick for the Cabinet Office.
30:03More than that.
30:04Something more faithful.
30:05Assisted dying probably for the Cabinet Office.
30:08You're right though,
30:08I remember when we worked in government together,
30:10the Cabinet Office became this sort of,
30:14no offence to you,
30:15because obviously you were there,
30:16but it became a kind of dumpster
30:17of where you put things
30:19which you weren't sure what to do with them.
30:20Unfortunately for this government,
30:21they have a lot of things
30:22they're not sure what to do with them,
30:23so the Cabinet Office has expanded
30:25and expanded and expanded.
30:27It's just,
30:27it's like a skip.
30:29Also,
30:29there are obviously still brilliant people
30:31that work in the Cabinet Office.
30:32Thank you for listening to today's episode.
30:33Remember to follow the show
30:34on your podcast player of choice
30:36and leave us a five-star review
30:37if you enjoyed it.
30:38We're very appreciative of them.
30:40And you can keep up
30:41with the best bits of the pod
30:42on Instagram at intheroom.pod.
30:45This podcast is part
30:46of the Independent Podcast Network
30:47and produced in association
30:48with Next Chapter Studios.
30:50The executive producers
30:51are Carrie Rose and Olivia Foster
30:53and the producer is Sam Durham.
30:55And special mention to Maya Anoushka
30:57and our video editor,
30:58Vali Raza.
30:59Thanks for listening
31:00and we'll see you next week.
Comments