Stop blaming civil servants for your failings, Ed Balls tells Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer should stop blaming civil servants for the failings of his Government, Ed Balls has said.

Speaking on his Political Currency podcast with George Osborne, Mr Balls, a former Labour minister and the husband of Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, said the Prime Minister should “get on and deliver”.

His comments came as he discussed a column by a political commentator, which said that, since Sir Keir had been the Labour leader, he has always had someone else to blame when his strategy was not working.

He blamed Jeremy Corbyn for Labour’s failure to win the 2019 election. He then sacked Sam White, his chief of staff – who was reportedly blamed for being excessively cautious – ahead of this year’s election. Sue Gray, his chief of staff in government, left Downing Street in October amid tensions with senior figures around him.

“I mean, you’ve got to stop blaming other people and get on and deliver. Fundamentally, it’s Downing Street which hasn’t been doing well enough in the last few months. Not permanent secretaries, not other departments,” said Mr Balls, who was Gordon Brown’s right-hand man in the Treasury.

“People need to feel as though there’s a plan and we’re moving in the right direction, and that they can see some optimism. And then, of course, they need to see some results.

“And I think Michael Barber [an adviser on mission delivery] and Pat McFadden [the Cabinet Office minister] and individual Cabinet ministers are all working, as you said, on being competent and delivering some change. But you’ve got to combine that with a story, an optimistic story, of where we’re going – and it’s still not there.”

It came as a former Cabinet secretary said weak ministers blamed their civil servants for failures in an apparent swipe at the Prime Minister.

Lord Sedwill, who was Cabinet secretary under Theresa May and Boris Johnson, said the strongest ministers were the ones who were the most complimentary about their officials.

“It’s the weaker ministers who will sometimes use their officials as an alibi. It’s really simple,” said Lord Sedwill in an interview with Lord McFall, the Lord Speaker, for his podcast.

It follows a speech by Sir Keir, setting out his priorities, in which he said that “too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline”. Dave Penman, the general secretary of the FDA union, which represents senior civil servants, said the PM’s comments were “astonishing” and “really damaging”.

Sir Keir and his Government have faced a public backlash since taking office that has seen Labour fall behind the Tories in opinion polls, and be behind Nigel Farage’s Reform UK in one.

In his interview, Lord Sedwill said it was “untrue” that senior civil servants wanted to have weak ministers whom they could “run rings around”, as portrayed in the 1980s BBC political satire Yes Minister, where the mandarins have their own policy agenda.

“What actually the best civil servants really appreciate is strong ministers who give them clear direction, who have a strong voice in Cabinet, who can communicate the policy well, who can handle Parliament and the public, and who focus on the big issues and are decisive,” he said.

“And I know there are ministers in Labour governments, in Conservative governments who are good at that and ministers who aren’t. It comes down in the end to the quality of the individual and then they’ll get the best out of the best civil servants.”

Lord Sedwill also shares his “James Bond” moments, working in some of the most intense regions for the Foreign Office including Egypt, Afghanistan and Iraq.

He also acted as a UN weapons inspector, and was held at gunpoint by a young man when trying to gain access to one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces.