“Of course we were always going to get ‘our people’ in! It’s what you do,” says one bemused veteran of the 1997 Labour government.
Old political hands regard the furore over Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves installing “cronies” into government jobs as par for the course – and certainly no worse than what the Tories have done for more than a decade.
But that argument has not helped stem the criticism, given Starmer’s government was set up claiming to hold itself to higher standards than its predecessors.
It started with one party donor and businessman, Ian Corfield, getting a getting civil service job in the Treasury, before it emerged a few other Labour-linked figures had been given more junior government posts.
There were reports of some departments replacing non-executive boards previously appointed by the Tories, and a further outcry over giving party fundraiser and Labour peer Waheed Alli a pass to No 10.
Reeves moved to defuse the row over Corfield, a former executive for a credit card company, by moving him to the role of an unpaid political adviser. No 10 also said Alli only held a pass temporarily during the transition period as the party entered government.
But the row showed no sign of abating this week, as it emerged that Alli had run an operation to think about who the Labour government would like to get prominent public appointments as they come up in the next few years. Bloomberg reported that this had been termed “Operation Integrity”.
The prime minister’s spokesperson was forced to clarify on Friday that Alli was “not involved in any government or policy decisions” and that “public appointments are made by ministers and departments”.
There were further signs that Starmer and Reeves have turned to longstanding Labour allies to bulk up their government’s expertise and business credentials.
Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, a New Labour stalwart who co-founded advisory firm Global Counsel with Peter Mandelson, was lined up for a job as investment minister before turning it down, while Jonathan Powell, a former chief of staff to Tony Blair, suddenly emerged on Friday as the new special envoy on talks over the Chagos Islands.
One senior Labour source pointed out that some of the figures who have been in the frame for jobs go back a very long way to the roots of the New Labour operation. Back in 1997, there was a media buzz around a group of high-flying young Labourites who often kicked a football around Highbury Fields on a weekend.
Among them were Corfield, then a researcher for the Fabian Society, and Wegg-Prosser, at the time an aide to Mandelson, as well as Tim Allan, former press aide to Blair who went on to found the PR firm Portland. Others in the Islington circle included Peter Hyman, who worked for Starmer as a policy chief until the election, and James Purnell, who went on to become a cabinet minister and is set to become chief executive of a political advisory and PR firm called Flint Global.
Senior government sources, however, disputed the idea that jobs were being given out to people on account of their Labour pedigree, saying: “Both Ian and Ben have a huge amount of experience in business and Ian in particular was brought in on a short-term contract to deliver on the investment summit and is doing incredible work on that. He gets business, he knows it and has got a lot of capital with very important investors. That’s why you make these kind of appointments.”
They added: “Rachel has known Ian and Ben over a number of years in various guises but most recently, in particular, on business engagement. How do you build on what we did in opposition and bring it into government? That’s what we’re doing.”
Another person with knowledge of the thinking around Labour’s recruitment of business people added: “I think they’re less interested in Labour heritage and more in people who can make a proper contribution and bring knowledge networks and experience that you don’t necessarily get in SW1.” They pointed to James Timpson, the new prisons minister, and a businessman who employed ex-prisoners, and Patrick Vallance, the new science minister, as key appointments from outside Labour circles.
However, others within Labour believe the manoeuvring of Starmerite sympathisers into crucial jobs in government very much mirrors what the prime minister did to the top of the party after taking over from Jeremy Corbyn. And some even believe Starmer’s operation has not gone far enough in getting political people in control of the machinery of government.
Far from ushering in dozens of new cronies, senior Labour figures say if anything, they feel very exposed in departments where cabinet ministers have no experience of government – and under pressure to swiftly approve decisions that are already in train from the previous government.
“I would say if anything we are chronically under-spad-ed,” one complained. “It takes an awful lot to stand up to the machine and ask to look again at key decisions, and new cabinet ministers really, really need their people in there.
“There are some very difficult decisions to come. We need people to be fighting hard on budget submissions. We are probably going to have to make real-terms departmental cuts. This is not a time to be cutting cabinet ministers off from proper advice and letting civil service brain take over.”
One senior government insider said that the battle for government jobs within Labour had been “far more brutal than most people in Westminster realise” and added: “It was really a bloodbath. Unless you were specifically protected by Sue, Morgan or by a influential cabinet minister who would accept no substitute, then you were out.” But many of those who are winning out in the race for positions appear to be loyalists of the highest order.
