Keir Starmer has hit back at accusations of cronyism at the heart of the Labour government, insisting he is simply getting “the best people into the best jobs”.
Speaking for the first time since his government was hit by a string of accusations that it had appointed Labour loyalists to senior civil service posts, the prime minister said he had followed procedure throughout.
He refused to comment on why he had chosen to overturn the appointment of Gwyn Jenkins, formerly the number two in the armed forces, as the new national security adviser, a decision that has caused unrest in Whitehall.
Starmer said: “We are going to fix the foundations. We’ve got to do it at speed, and I’m determined to have the right people in the right places to allow us to get on with that job.
“I’m enormously aware of how big a task this is and how we have to move at pace, and that’s why we’re getting the best people into the best jobs.”
He hit back at Conservative criticism of his appointments, saying: “I’m not really going to take lectures on this from the people who dragged our country so far down in the last few years.”
He refused to say why he had cancelled Jenkins’ appointment as his security adviser, a move revealed by the Guardian this week. “There will be an open and transparent process [to find a new security adviser], and no I’m not going to publicly discuss individual appointments,” he said.
The prime minister was speaking from Downing Street for the first time since the cronyism allegations began. The government has been criticised for a number of appointments, including giving the Labour donor Ian Corfield a temporary role as director at the Treasury and handing a No 10 pass to another donor, Waheed Alli.
Lord Alli, one of Labour’s biggest fundraisers, hosted a party for other donors in the Downing Street garden after the election, prompting accusations he had used government property for party political reasons.
Corfield has now converted his role into that of an unpaid adviser, while Alli no longer has a pass.
Starmer addressed Alli’s position on Tuesday, saying: “He is a long-term donor and contributor to the Labour party. He was doing some transition work with us. He had a pass for a short-term time to do that work. The work finished, and he hasn’t got a pass. That’s the state of affairs.”
