KEIR Starmer’s government has returned from their summer break and decided to don an enormous glowing neon sign saying: “We’re in trouble and we’ve no idea what we’re doing”.
Of course, not literally. But anyone able to read the political runes could gather as much from the internal reshuffle of top staff at the heart of government.
The widespread story is that Starmer is trying to claw back authority from the Treasury, undermining Rachel Reeves.
This is broadly correct, though the truth is a little more complicated than that.
What is most alarming is that Starmer appears to be trying to model No 10 on the Treasury, presumably concluding it had done such a fine job since Labour came to power last July.
He has poached Reeves’s deputy Darren Jones (above), a man best known to the public for his offensive comparison of benefits with pocket money, for which he was forced to apologise.
Starmer appears to have seen that episode – plus Jones’s reported "tough guy" reputation as the Treasury’s cuts enforcer – and decided that Downing Street wanted his energy.
He has also surrounded himself with a coterie of economists who will aim to beef up No 10’s power to counter the Treasury. The outsize power of that department, and Reeves’s inability to challenge or overrule officials, is widely believed to have resulted in the Winter Fuel Payment debacle, which defined for so many the approach of this Labour government.
The spin from the Government is that Starmer’s shake-up will result in a cannier political operation – counter to Treasury orthodoxy which generally involves bean-counting with scant regard to political consequences.
The plan, as friends of the Prime Minister have briefed the papers, is to consolidate power in No 10. After a year in government, this is a frankly stunning admission from Starmer’s people: “We’re not really in charge and we’re trying to fix that.”
But whether it will actually challenge the Treasury is another matter.
Look at who has been brought in: Dan York-Smith, formerly a top official under Reeves (above), has been made Starmer’s principle private secretary; Baroness Shafik, formerly of the International Monetary Fund and the Bank of England will advise him on economic policy; Jones has had a new role invented for him as chief secretary to the Prime Minister.
An injection of fresh thinking it ain't. Plus it has also been briefed that this does not constitute a shift to the left, which some had been predicting after Labour’s rightward trend in power has repeatedly ended in tears.
As one source told The Times: “This is about bringing the grown-ups in.” Sound familiar?
And Starmer’s selections seem to be a tacit endorsement of Reeves’s operation at the Treasury. He is said to have brought in Jones in so he can perform the same role as he did for Reeves. At No 11, he was left with the day-to-day grunt work so that the Chancellor could focus on “big picture” stuff.
Starmer appears to have looked at Reeves’s handling of her brief and thought he must get in on the action. Drawing that conclusion puts him among a vanishingly small minority.
Meanwhile, insiders have told the press that they are baffled by the chain of command in No 10 under the new regime. Perhaps they should not be too worried, as it seems few last very long in Starmer’s Downing Street; he has, after all, gone through four directors of communications in five years as Labour leader.
Starmer is trying to spin the reshuffle as him moving to phase two of his masterplan to fix the country: “delivery”.
Voters may be given the final say on phase three, which seems increasingly likely to be unveiled at the next General Election and may well come under the heading: “defeat”.
