When the new British prime minister, Keir Starmer, invited Wes Streeting into Downing Street to appoint him health secretary on Friday 5 July, the exchanges behind closed doors were entirely cordial.
But things rarely run 100% smoothly in the first days of a new administration as a complete government jigsaw is put together, piece by piece.
According to a well-placed source, when Streeting left the prime minister’s office, Bridget Phillipson was waiting her turn outside. A very senior civil servant was helping to oversee the process and, ushering Streeting out and Phillipson in, is said to have mistakenly referred to the former as “education secretary”.
“Not surprisingly, it did not go down well [with Phillipson], until he corrected himself,” said the source. “Bridget got the job she expected, but for a second or two, things were apparently a bit tense, to say the least.”
Broadly speaking, however, the transition from Tory to a Labour administration has gone as smoothly as anyone could have hoped for. In some instances, it has gone rather too well.
When Ed Miliband walked into the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and addressed civil servants for the first time, there was so much cheering and “whooping” that a senior mandarin in the department had to tell those making the noise to pipe down, fearing it sounded more like a political rally than a respectful welcome from an entirely neutral Whitehall machine.
“I think the intended message was that you can’t, as civil servants, make it sound too much like you are thrilled to have the Tories out, even though it felt like everyone was,” said an insider.
Similarly rapturous welcomes were given to other new ministers: Liz Kendall at work and pensions, Phillipson at education and Shabana Mahmood at justice.
On Monday afternoon, when Streeting addressed staff assembled in the canteen at the Department of Health and Social Care, the place was stuffed to overflowing. Streeting had invited NHS England employees to be there too, to show that he wanted everyone to work together to mend what he has called a “broken” service.
Streeting told them he wanted to be challenged and presented with hard truths. “There was an incredible atmosphere,” said one person who was there. Another said: “It was like a massive, massive relief and change of mood.”
This weekend, the new government is enjoying, and feeding off, a wave of positivity, not just in Westminster and Whitehall but across the country.
Somewhat fortunately for Starmer and his ministers, their moment – and the arrival of 334 new MPs in Westminster – has coincided with a patriotic frenzy caused by England reaching the final of Euro 2024 and some better economic news. Friday’s Financial Times led with the headline: “Sterling surges as GDP data buoys Labour growth agenda” – wrapping the themes of political and economic optimism into one.
Members of the new government seemed genuinely excited and encouraged last week by the public response to Westminster’s changing of the guard. “The most striking thing for me,” said one front-rank Labour minister, “is how many people have just come up to me in the street or on the train and said: ‘So glad you are there, good luck – so pleased to have seen the back of the Tories.’”
In parliament, the new intake arrived on Monday and Tuesday in massed ranks, symbols of a new political era, many of them youthful, wide-eyed and in awe.
Vikki Slade, the new Liberal Democrat MP for Mid Dorset and North Poole, could not believe how her workplace functioned and the reverence with which she was treated from the off. “I was walking towards the members’ lobby [outside the chamber] and two officials just opened the doors for me, on either side, to let me through. I couldn’t believe it,” she said.
Her colleague James MacCleary, who won Lewes for the Lib Dems, felt he was suffering from “impostor syndrome” when he was shown a round the Commons chamber. “I said I presumed I was not allowed to sit down on the green benches yet and they said: ‘You are an MP now – of course you are allowed to sit there.’”
Some long-serving MPs, veterans of the previous parliament, said they felt a little left out, as if tainted by association with discredited political times. “The new intake is getting all the attention. We have to do something to show it is not just about them,” said one. “It is all a bit weird.”
Recently appointed Labour ministers who had worked for their moment for years struggled to sum up their feelings. Speaking to the Observer after a day in post, one said: “I have gone from a pokey office in Portcullis House to a floor of a major department with the civil servants all around. It is quite extraordinary. Suddenly, I feel like we have this massive opportunity to get things done.”
But will they succeed? Behind the euphoria, there is trepidation. Labour ministers and MPs know full well that the honeymoon will not last.
They are asking themselves how, given the dire state of public services – overcrowded prisons, an overburdened and understaffed NHS, schools with crumbling buildings and a shortage of teachers – and the lack of money in Treasury coffers, can they turn things around before the public mood sours again?
Another new minister said there was absolutely no time to waste. “I would say we have two and a half years to make an impression before the nerves set in again,” he said. His point was after that juncture, his party, which secured just under 34% of the vote on 4 July despite gaining a huge majority, would be too fearful of threats from the left and right to do bold things and would start worrying about the next election.
Over recent days, a good start has been made. The new chancellor, Rachel Reeves, has pledged a return to compulsory housebuilding targets and Miliband has revoked the Tories’ de facto ban on onshore windfarms.
Very deliberately, however, much of the emphasis has been on demonstrating the extent of the mess left by the Conservatives. Streeting’s remarks about the broken NHS, and Starmer and Mahmood’s decision to approve the release of thousands of prisoners to prevent a total breakdown in law and order, were not only designed to discredit the past regime but also to buy Labour time.
“The more we can show how badly they left everything, the more people will realise it is not easy to fix and how important responsible government now is,” said a Labour strategist.
In a column for Friday’s Guardian on his first week running the country, Starmer wrote of the Tory record: “Like a Downing Street party, they’ve left a mountain of mess for this government to clean up.”
Confidence among the new team of Labour ministers and MPs has been bolstered by the way Starmer has settled in so fast, seeming at ease with so much power and responsibility at his fingertips.
As opposition leader and throughout the election campaign, the adjectives “dull” and “wooden” stuck to him like glue. “Now he looks like he was absolutely made to be prime minister,” said one of his senior ministers.
On his first overseas trip as the nation’s leader, to a Nato summit in Washington DC, Starmer looked and sounded the part, appearing centre stage in team photos, easefully handling a meeting with the increasingly frail US president, Joe Biden, joking about the football and, afterwards, effortlessly batting away questions about the president’s mental state.
On the way to Washington, Starmer had oozed confidence, risking a comment about England never having missed a single penalty under this Labour government. He and his wife, Victoria, have also received positive photo spreads in the pages of the Daily Mail, the Times and the Daily Telegraph. On Saturday, in an article in the Daily Mail, the rightwing columnist Leo McKinstry wrote: “As an unwavering opponent of Labour I was dreading Labour’s socialist new dawn. But even I am reassured by Starmer’s promising first week after years of chaos and division.”
This week, King Charles will unveil the new government’s legislative programme for the forthcoming session of parliament. Amid great pageantry, Starmer and Rishi Sunak will walk side by side from the House of Commons to the Lords before the speech is read out. What they will discuss on the short journey will be the subject of much speculation among the commentators.
The king’s speech will contain a range of important bills on the NHS, standards in schools, mental health, energy and the environment. The message will be one of continued momentum, improving the nation’s key public services and the pursuit above all of economic growth.
The following day, Starmer will host more than 45 European leaders at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire for a meeting of the European Political Community.
Much of the emphasis will be on closer defence cooperation between the UK and EU. But it is also expected that Starmer will use the occasion to start rebuilding relations with our European neighbours in a broader sense, both economically and politically, post-Brexit.
One minister with some knowledge of the brief remarked: “I don’t think you will hear anything dramatic but there will be a change of tone. It will be another indication that this government wants to show it is serious about changing the country for the better.”
