No more Mr Nice Guy for Keir Starmer

no more Mr Nice Guy? “I’m not taking this anymore” could also be the message from Sir Keir Starmer’s big speech this week, according to a senior source. Sir Keir was not just listing his political priorities, he was showing what has been no secret in Westminster for some weeks, his “frustration, real irritation”, according to another source, at how difficult it seems to be to get the job done. Do it.

The Prime Minister was not fair Refuting the claims of civil servants insidersBut trying to counter the disappointing public perceptions that governments can’t really make much difference to our lives. Sir Keir is not a man who likes to be told something can’t be done.

His speech, which No. 10 has been considering since before the Budget at the end of October, gives you and me a card with which to mark the Government’s progress. This shows that what the Prime Minister’s team has come to is what is most important to the public and therefore the most pressing problems of the country to fix.

The Prime Minister’s aides rejected suggestions that this was another campaign event – ​​after all governing means choosing, so to speak – and that he had made the big decisions about what to do, and what, By implication, has fallen down the list.

But away from policies, this week’s moment was about Sir Keir and Number 10 “putting the stamp of authority on things”, says one insider – not just in a broader political sense, but also in a very specific way. Whitehall is increasingly busy with the upcoming spending review, the moment when the Treasury reveals how much cash each department is going to get in the coming years, possibly now after Easter, in May or early June. But the insider says the Prime Minister has now publicly set out the priorities, so no one can “turn away from the fact that Number 10 will be in charge”.

Isn’t number 10 always in charge? Well, the spending review process was invented by the then Chancellor Gordon Brown, one source recalls, to ensure that “he could control the big decisions, not Tony (Blair)”.

For years there has been haggling over the amount between Chancellor No. 11 and other government departments. According to an aide to Sir Keir: “The Treasury has the pens, the meetings and the numbers, then Number 10 ends up getting involved in political risk.”

not this time. Now this week with Sir Keir’s declarations “political strategy comes first”, “then pounds and pence” I am told, with Rachel Reeves agreeing.

There is also a hope that such a public setting of priorities (these are the Prime Minister’s own words) might avoid the noise that precedes that important review. Sir Keir has made it clear what is important to him. If a minister is not lucky enough to get his agenda included in his shopping list of priorities, the idea is to get the job done by debating with willing pens and microphones, whether privately or publicly, through aides or journalists. Not going to last – “Political choices have been made”, says one source.

But guess what? It may not be so easy for the new Prime Minister to bare his teeth, show his frustrations and then find that he is suddenly in complete control. New goals set by a new, clearly frustrated Prime Minister are suddenly unlikely to be able to convince you all.

Another Whitehall insider told me – “I thought he managed to portray both Rishi and Boris at once with six goals and CS (civil service) stuff yesterday” – not just one, but two of his. They were teased for being metaphorically dressed up as their predecessors. , Ouch! While Sir Keir has six targets, Rishi Sunak had five pledges which led to his unsuccessful time in government. And just as Sir Keir talked about “deniers” in his speech, Boris Johnson was fond of taking on people he described as “doomsters” and “gloomsters”.

Sir Keir will not like comparisons with Johnson or Sunak, whom he criticized in office. He certainly would not want to give the impression that he is imitating his style or tactics. But he is often accused of cutting and changing himself.

Sir Keir’s joke about becoming the next James Bond was just that, a joke. It is unclear whether he ever engaged in fancy dress, certainly as an adult. But it is the case that we have seen different versions of Sir Keir with contradictions.

The tough sheriff who was intent on rapidly locking up criminals during the summer riots is now looking for shorter jail sentences for some wrongdoers. He was a City scholar when he was trying to lure business to the Labor Party, which then raised billions in taxes on companies. There has been a prime minister who wants a radical restructuring of the state, who this week appointed a classic Whitehall insider as the head of the civil service. And of course, he was an aspiring party leader on the moderate left of the Labor Party, standing with Jeremy Corbyn, who then rejected him and his policies.

“It looks like cakeism,” warns one senior official – the Prime Minister wants it all the way, and doesn’t want to define, or choose, what he actually wants, or maybe , the officer warned, he doesn’t actually do it knowing?

A long-standing criticism of Sir Keir is that he does not have his own ideology, he is not part of any particular political tribe and so it can be hard to work out who he really stands for. A former senior official has described him as a “sole trader” in politics who will do what is necessary at a particular moment but does not understand sympathy or persuasion, telling me, “He neither persuades nor “He wants the country to eat all our bran, but he also thinks it’s inappropriate for people to be motivated by human connection or emotion”. Another insider comments, “His manipulation is what works, so there is no ‘Starmerism’ – meaning it is difficult for the civil service to know what he wants, or that he is intuitively aware of most issues.” What do you want to do about it”.

But the Prime Minister’s apparent irritating act has caused real trouble in Whitehall.

There is no doubt that some officials consider his comments this week an attack on them. They have come as a shock, it’s “weird” is how someone describes it and says it came out of nowhere. The suggestion that the civil service is happy to preside over mediocrity has indeed surprised and troubled officials, who feel that they owe it to their ministers to know and understand what the new government is all about, and to help them achieve their goals. Mustering courage to help achieve. , One senior official told me, “The anger is real” and “suggests a disconnect” between Number 10 and departments where civil servants are “working like dogs” to try to understand their new master’s plans. Are.

His colleagues do not, and he has never pretended that Sir Keir is a person who makes friends in politics. He himself admits that to get the job done he will have to be unpopular. He says he is engaged with the public, he cares about what results will be achieved, not what Westminster is busy with. But perhaps it means that over time he has become willing to adopt different political personas, to play different roles, depending on what suits him at the time.

One aide acknowledged that his change in position meant that “to those who want to criticize him, whether on the left or the Tories, it may mean he looks incoherent”. But he says, “a more fair and honest assessment of him is that he’s focused only on what works”. The word repeatedly used by sources close to him about his political character is “pragmatic”. After all, the public is not at all happy with the results of politicians who follow ideology.

Politics is rarely pure, no successful leader has ever followed a predetermined path. Yet one union leader worries, “In government it is substance and decisions that matter. You need something to rely on as your guiding principles that will help you make decisions”.

Consistency also matters. Sir Keir’s allies say he is far happier being prime minister than being leader of the opposition because he can do more than just talk. Yet one of the insiders I spoke to warned that the Prime Minister’s frustrations stem not from a lack of desire in Whitehall to do something, but from a lack of clarity in his instructions to the government. The insider argues, “He may know how to be prime minister, but not how to do it. He doesn’t really know what he wants to do beyond the level of vague generalities.”

But after five months of government, we are seeing the Prime Minister trying a new part – the frustrated boss. Pointing the finger at the “naysayers” and “detractors”, whoever those people are, who are wallowing in the lukewarm bath he describes, is a deliberate decision.

As Sir Keir tries to tighten his grip on the government machinery, this is the personality he is portraying at the moment.

“He is more determined to win than people think,” says a source who has worked closely with the Prime Minister. Perhaps the only persona he really wants to avoid is playing the loser.

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