Sir John Major on Monday said public perceptions of government had been harmed by the actions of some of his Conservative successors as Prime Minister.
The Tory former PM issued a veiled swipe at Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda policy and Liz Truss’s sacking of top civil servant Sir Tom Scholar at the start of her brief time in No10, as he addressed the Institute for Government think tank for an event about reform of central policymaking.
Sir John, who succeeded Margaret Thatcher before winning a surprise victory in the 1992 General Election, noted that he had been out of Government for more than a quarter of a century, “so I may be out of date”.
“And I belong to that strand of Conservatism that prefers evolutionary change to radical disruption - and so I may be out of fashion as well,” he added.
“Let me be clear about this: Three prime ministers in one Parliament, with a few malcontents seeking a fourth, does not help the perception of the centre of government.
“Nor does a Supreme Court ruling that the Government has broken the law,” he said, after the top judges rejected Mr Sunak’s policy of sending migrants to Rwanda.
“Nor is it a good optic when ministers indulge in public arguments, openly blame or, in one or two occasions, insult their civil servants.
“Or when they favour the advice of often inexperienced political advisers over that of civil servants with years of specialist experience and knowledge. Or when they sack senior civil servants who offer candid advice, which simply did not suit the Government’s thinking.”
Sir John added: “None of that conduct is conducive to high morale or good government. Politics needs changes to create and project a far more effective and trusted system.”
Labour’s former PM Gordon Brown meanwhile said at the event that he was “shocked” by reports that Sir Keir Starmer is looking at proposals to form a new “executive cabinet” comprising four people, if he beats Mr Sunak in an election later this year.
The so-called gang of four steering a Labour government would include shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, deputy leader Angela Rayner and campaign coordinator Pat McFadden, according to The Times.
“The suggestion is an inner cabinet of four, which I think (Sir) John and I would both be quite shocked and surprised if that could ever work,” Mr Brown said.
A “quadrumvirate” would be “very difficult” and has an “inauspicious” past, he said, pointing to King Herod in Roman-ruled Judea and the Gang of Four that tried to control Communist China after the death of Mao Zedong.
“So I think the inner cabinet idea may need some further work,” the former Labour leader said. “I doubt, as John said, if the other 20 members of the cabinet would be very happy if they were told that they were outside this inner circle.”
