Announcing the decision, Keir Starmer said:
I want to thank Simon for his service to our country and for the invaluable support he has given to me personally during my first months as prime minister. He has been a remarkable public servant over many years, and our best wishes go to him and his family as he now takes time to focus on his health.
I am delighted that Chris Wormald has agreed to become the next cabinet secretary. He brings a wealth of experience to this role at a critical moment in the work of change this new government has begun.
To change this country, we must change the way government serves this country. That is what mission-led government will do. From breaking down silos across government to harnessing the incredible potential of technology and innovation, it will require nothing less than the complete rewiring of the British state to deliver bold and ambitious long-term reform.
Delivering this scale of change will require exceptional civil service leadership. There could be no-one better placed to drive forward our plan for change than Chris, and I look forward to working with him as we fulfil the mandate of this new government, improving the lives of working people and strengthening our country with a decade of national renewal.
Quite what Starmer means by “complete rewiring of the British state” is not clear. It sounds a bit like Dominic Cummings. Or like Kemi Badenoch, who has regularly spoken about her desire to rewire the system and who told the CBI last week “one of the things that we’re going to have to do is rewire everything”.
he thinks Wormald will be a good cabinet secretary.
Sam Freedman, the Prospect columnist and Comment is Freed Substack commentator, also worked as an official at the DfE when Wormald was there. He has posted his take on the new cabinet secretary on Bluesky.
Chagos Islands to Mauritius on UK-US defence relations.
Luke Pollard, a defence minister, is responding. He says the deal is “strongly supported” by the US, including all relevant departments and agencies.
Labour MP Lucy Rigby joins the government as solicitor general.
No 10 has also announced that Ellie Reeves, the Cabinet Office minister and Labour party chair, will start attending cabinet.
a BBC report saying many councils have told the government they do not think its target can be achieved.
Holmes said:
In just five months we can see that this government’s target of 1.5m new homes lies in tatters. The NHF (National Housing Federation) say the government will miss their target by 475,000 without more grant.
The housing minister [Matthew Pennycook] last week said the same and now Labour-run South Tyneside council say the plans are ‘wholly unrealistic’ with other Labour councils agreeing.
Isn’t it time that the government admitted defeat, come back with a deliverable plan, and provide the sector with the certainty it needs to deliver more social homes across this country?
And Rayner replied:
[Holmes] has forgotten – his government failed to meet their housing targets every single time. This government is committed to building the 1.5m homes over this parliament.
Under the Tories, housebuilding plummeted as they bowed to pressure from their backbenchers to scrap local housing targets. We’re bringing back mandatory housing targets. The chancellor [Rachel Reeves] has put more money into the affordable homes programme and we will build those homes.
He doesn’t know my history and how I work.
says some people think Wormald is not the obvious choice for a PM wanting to rewire the British state. (See 1.37pm.)
Some eyebrows raised over Starmer’s appointment of Wormald, who has been a civil servant since 1991, to deliver the “complete rewiring of the British state” he says is needed to deliver ambitious long-term reform.
(One counter-view is that a classic civil servant is better placed to do this, and take Whitehall with him, than an explosive character like Dominic Cummings.)
n social media praising the new cabinet secretary.
When the killer zombies invade, I’d like Chris Wormald at my back. A great civil servant and total mensch. Shrewd choice by Starmer.
her closing submission at the end of module 3 (the phase of the inquiry looking at the impact of Covid on the NHS).
And then there was Sir Christopher Wormald. To be succinct, my Lady, those who listened to his evidence,and certainly our families, found it to be an object lesson in obfuscation, a word salad, so many, many words, so very little substance.
What we saw in both [Matt] Hancock [health secretary during Covid] and Sir Christopher was institutional defensiveness at its highest form. Although sympathy was tendered on behalf of the bereaved by politicians with expressions of sorrow, humbly offered in hushed tones, that fell flat for our families listening and watching.
Here is the clip.
the sketch he wrote when Wormald gave evidence to the Covid inquiry last year and John described his evidence as a “masterclass in time-wasting”. It turns out John was prophetic.
Imagine what it would be like working with Chris. A lifetime in the hell of a bureaucratic cul-de-sac. Where process trumps outcome every time. But he will get his reward. People pay good money for that kind of futility. Which is why he’s tipped to be the next cabinet secretary when Simon Case steps down. Make that Lord Wormald.
on social media.
Since I left No10 Ive explained how Westminster now is truly pathological, it seeks & destroys the few things that work, like its persecution of special forces and closing of sewage monitoring necessary for bioterror etc. So it is a truly beautiful, artistic appointment to appoint as the most powerful official – a role 100X more powerful than ministers (other than the PM) – the official who told us all in Q1 2020 that we were ‘the best prepared country in the world’ for covid, who was responsible for the PM being told by then Cabinet Secretary on Thurs 12 March to go on TV to advocate for people holding ‘CHICKENPOX PARTIES’ so that as many as possible caught covid as fast as possible – the official who has presided over the implosion of the NHS and A&E ….
Today should be a wake up call to all investors in UK and young talent – the Westminster system is totally determined to resist any change & will continue all the things of the past 20 years that have driven us into crisis, the war of Whitehall on the productive and civilised forces in this country will continue to the knife.
9.26am) by saying it should prioritise getting council homes built. The Green MP Ellie Chowns said:
Labour’s housing strategy involves cosying up to big wealthy developers and falling for the myth that the private sector will build the housing that we need. But too many developers are more interested in lining their own pockets than in providing what communities are actually crying out for, which is affordable housing.
We can’t privatise our way out of the housing crisis. If we are to build the right homes in the right place and at the right price, we need to build hundreds of thousands of new council and social homes. These need to be in places well served by schools, health services and public transport. Not detached housing estates with a predominance of large expensive homes that make a quick and big buck for developers but are out of reach for most people.
the government has announced. He will replace Simon Case, who became cabinet secretary when Boris Johnson was PM.
Announcing the decision, Keir Starmer said:
I want to thank Simon for his service to our country and for the invaluable support he has given to me personally during my first months as prime minister. He has been a remarkable public servant over many years, and our best wishes go to him and his family as he now takes time to focus on his health.
I am delighted that Chris Wormald has agreed to become the next cabinet secretary. He brings a wealth of experience to this role at a critical moment in the work of change this new government has begun.
To change this country, we must change the way government serves this country. That is what mission-led government will do. From breaking down silos across government to harnessing the incredible potential of technology and innovation, it will require nothing less than the complete rewiring of the British state to deliver bold and ambitious long-term reform.
Delivering this scale of change will require exceptional civil service leadership. There could be no-one better placed to drive forward our plan for change than Chris, and I look forward to working with him as we fulfil the mandate of this new government, improving the lives of working people and strengthening our country with a decade of national renewal.
Quite what Starmer means by “complete rewiring of the British state” is not clear. It sounds a bit like Dominic Cummings. Or like Kemi Badenoch, who has regularly spoken about her desire to rewire the system and who told the CBI last week “one of the things that we’re going to have to do is rewire everything”.
“a handful of middle-class women of a certain age”.
Asked about the comment from Wallace, in an Instagram post at the weekend defending his conduct, the PM’s spokesperson said:
The culture secretary spoke with the BBC leadership at the end of last week on this matter and wider workplace culture issues to seek assurances that there are robust processes in place to deal with complaints.
Clearly the comments we have seen from the individual over the weekend were completely inappropriate and misogynistic.
More broadly the BBC is conducting an independent review into workplace culture which must deliver clear and timely recommendations. It’s essential that staff and the wider public have confidence that the BBC takes these issues seriously.
Wallace’s laywers have denied that he engages in sexually harassing behaviour.
Keir Starmer tells the health service to prioritise cutting hospital waiting lists, other aspects of healthcare will lose out.
At the Downing Street lobby briefing, asked if it was realistic to set a goal of of getting the number of patients who get their operation within 18 weeks up to at least 92% (reportedly part of Stamer’s “plan for change”), the PM’s spokesperson replied:
What you’re seeing with all of these milestones is that they are going to be ambitious. There’s no point in setting milestones that aren’t ambitious.
But do we think that they are achievable? When it comes to the NHS, as the Darzi report showed, we inherited an NHS that’s broken, and the manifesto showed clearly that tackling waiting lists would be our immediate priority.
The spokesperson said the milestones would be “ambitious but achievable”.
Asked specifically about claims that other parts of the NHS might lose out as a result of this being set as a target, the spokesperson replied:
Tackling waiting lists is a critical step in taking pressures off A&E and GP services. It’s why it’s been set out as one of the government’s priority aims in office.
That’s not to say that the government isn’t going to continue to take action on continue to take action on wider priorities in the NHS.
I would point out we’ve already resolved strikes, making this the first winter in years that all A&E staff will be on the frontline rather than the picket line.
claims that the “plan for change” being unveiled by Keir Starmer on Thursday will suggest that achieving the highest sustained growth in the G7 is being downgraded as a target, the PM’s spokesperson rejected this. He said:
We’re fully committed to all the missions. One of one of the missions is about the UK being the fastest growing economy in the G7 and it’s important that it’s the number one priority, because it’s only through economic growth that we directly improve people’s living standards.
We’ve been clear that the benefit of growth must be felt by working people. Milestones set out later in the week will set out how we’re going to achieve that.
I will post more from the briefing soon.
Source: theguardian.com
