The golden triangle: Can 3 top officials save the British establishment from itself?

They run Keir Starmer’s office, the king’s business, and the civil service. In moments of crisis when the politicians can’t cope, they run Britain, too.

By TIM ROSS
in London

Illustration by Natália Delgado/ POLITICO

In the heart of historic Westminster, where kings and queens have been crowned in the same way for 1,000 years and 57 prime ministers have come and gone, the most venerable pillars of the British establishment are under unusual strain.

The swirling international scandal over sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s network of wealth and influence detonated violently in the heart of the U.K. government, rocking both the center of power in Number 10 Downing Street and the British royal family.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer is clinging onto his job amid dire polling, wretched election results and an outcry over his decision to appoint Epstein’s friend Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. The scandal already forced his closest aide to resign.

And King Charles III is trying to prevent his disgraced brother Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s friendship with Epstein from trashing the British monarchy itself.

Behind the scenes, three dutiful civil servants now find themselves in pivotal roles, trying to guide the prime minister, the king, and hundreds of thousands of public officials through an unprecedented storm. Together, this trio forms what is known as the “golden triangle” at the top of the British state — and if they can’t keep the establishment afloat, no one can.

The three are: Dan York-Smith, Starmer’s principal private secretary, who runs the PM’s Downing Street office; Clive Alderton, the king’s principal private secretary, who is the main link between the monarch and the government; and Antonia Romeo, who recently took up her post as Cabinet secretary — the most powerful civil servant in the country.

Each of these jobs is intense at the best of times. With fresh Epstein revelations expected to compound the pressure from the Middle East war, they’re all likely about to get even harder.

Peter Mandelson has promised to cooperate with the police and vowed to clear his name. | Jordan Pettitt/PA Images via Getty Images

In the coming days, the government is preparing to publish a vast trove of internal documents detailing all the private conversations and messages between officials, diplomats and ministers that led up to Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador to Washington, in December 2024. After that, at some point, every internal file relating to Mountbatten-Windsor’s appointment as a U.K. trade envoy more than 20 years ago will also be put into the public domain.

“The most challenging thing will be the release of information — and what that reveals,” said Alex Thomas, a former senior government official and now executive director of the Institute for Government think tank in London. “That’s the moment of jeopardy for the government, for the royal family, and for the civil service.”

At stake, potentially, is the credibility of the British establishment. Mandelson and Mountbatten-Windsor have each separately been arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office. If either were to be charged and put on trial, the resulting publicity could be hugely damaging for the monarchy and the government.

Mandelson has promised to cooperate with the police and vowed to clear his name. He has previously said he was wrong to have continued his association with Epstein, who died in 2019, and apologized “unequivocally” to Epstein’s victims. Mountbatten-Windsor has not commented on his arrest but has previously denied any wrongdoing.

“Much of the stability in our political system comes from a strong civil service and a strong monarchy,” said Cameron Brown, a former special adviser in the previous Conservative government. “If people lose faith in either institution, then god knows what will happen.”

York-Smith: One crisis…

It’s a good job, then, that each one of the three members of the golden triangle has been blooded in crises, and survived — even if their bosses at the time did not.

York-Smith rose to seniority in the Treasury as the top official in charge of writing the government’s annual budget, an exercise in balancing highly contentious and competing demands, and then keeping them secret until they are announced.

While his background in fiscal policy will no doubt have helped make York-Smith an attractive hire for Starmer, who has sought to prioritize tackling the cost of living, what may ultimately prove more valuable is the official’s experience in one of the worst self-inflicted economic crises to hit the British government in recent memory: Liz Truss’s infamous “mini-budget” of 2022.

“Dan played a key role in the stabilization phase,” said Brown, a special advisor in the Treasury at the time. “He was quite frank about what we needed to do.” That meant scrapping key parts of Truss’s tax-cutting program, which had sent the markets into meltdown and forced her to fire her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng. His replacement as the U.K.’s top finance minister, Jeremy Hunt, listened closely to York-Smith and other officials and took their advice, Brown said.

That was typical for York-Smith, whose natural authority, intelligence and composure gave him influence.

“I always found him to be exceptionally calm, cool-headed, personable and ultimately an intelligent guy. He’s more than capable and is very good at identifying problems — not just policy problems but his view of the political problems as well,” Brown said.

Romeo: Breaking some eggs

There was an unusually stormy and public debate about whether Romeo was the right person to take over as Cabinet secretary. But Starmer went ahead and appointed her last month, in the hope that a dynamic new leader would kickstart the civil service machine to deliver on his aims — and rescue his flagging premiership.

“The U.K. is in a mess — there’s a lot going on, and it kind of needs someone who’s going to get the bloody job done,” one former colleague of Romeo’s said, speaking on condition of anonymity, like others, to discuss sensitive matters. “Breaking a few eggs might not be a bad thing.”

Romeo has grappled with major political crises in her previous roles, too.

In her time as the top official in the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), she had to deal with bullying allegations against the minister in charge, Justice Secretary Dominic Raab, in the previous Tory government.

Keir Starmer appointed Romeo last month, in the hope that a dynamic new leader would kickstart the civil service machine to deliver on his aims — and rescue his flagging premiership. | Kin Cheung/Getty Images

Romeo’s allies point to her determination to stand up for more junior officials who felt badly treated under Raab. She kept a crucial record of conversations in which she had warned Raab about his behavior, which ultimately contributed to an inquiry finding the minister guilty of “aggressive” and “intimidating” behavior toward officials, prompting him to resign.

Romeo also had to handle a prison crisis, when the country’s jails were so full that ministers released about 3,000 prisoners early in September and October 2024 to avoid running out of places.

“Antonia has always done incredibly demanding and challenging jobs — from overseeing national security at the Home Office to dealing with the prison crisis at MoJ,” one government official said. “So while this is in at the deep end — alongside the war in Iran and rapidly re-wiring the state — this is what she does.”

Alderton: The king’s man

Romeo also has experience of working with Buckingham Palace, which is a key relationship for the Cabinet secretary. In her previous role as clerk of the Crown in Chancery, she compiled the official state record of Charles’s coronation in 2023, known as the coronation roll. It’s a tradition dating back over 700 years.

Then there is the adviser to the king. Alderton is the monarch’s closest and most influential aide, a former ambassador who has been by Charles’ side since 2015. Those who know him describe him as the kind of classic British official who will always offer you a cup of tea and has perfected the art of chatting amiably for hours without saying much of substance. In other words, he is studiously loyal and determinedly safe.

Media reports identified him as Prince Harry’s nemesis, referred to as “the wasp.” Harry’s supporters are reported to blame Alderton for the rift between the king and his son. What is certainly true is that it will have fallen to Alderton to help Charles navigate that painful relationship and the fallout from Harry’s decision to step back from his royal duties and live overseas.

Alderton is the monarch’s closest and most influential aide, a former ambassador who has been by Charles’ side since 2015. | Aaron Chown/Getty Images

These three top officials — Alderton, Romeo and York-Smith — do not comprise a formal group but are in contact whenever necessary, senior officials said. In a real crisis, or when preparing for one, they will speak to each other continuously.

For example, when a hung parliament was expected ahead of the 2015 general election, the then Cabinet Secretary Jeremy Heywood booked office space inside the Cabinet Office for the late queen Elizabeth’s private secretary, Christopher Geidt, so he could be permanently available to discuss constitutional questions during coalition talks between the political parties. (In the end the Conservatives won a clear majority and no talks were needed.)

Heywood also consulted with the palace in June 2017, when Theresa May suffered a humiliating election failure in which she lost her party’s majority. He had to tell her she should stay on as prime minister and seek to form a majority of MPs in Parliament who would back her government, as she was still leader of the largest party, even though her Conservatives had lost seats.

Thomas, from the Institute for Government, remembers working alongside Heywood at that intense time in 2017, helping prepare the first cabinet meeting and trying to work out an appropriate seating plan when emotions were running high. “Part of that value of the permanent civil service is you can have someone, when the politics has collapsed around you, who can come in and say: ‘This is the defensible, correct thing to do,’” Thomas said. “In the end it’s about keeping your head, if you’re cabinet secretary.”

Protecting ‘the system’

The three officials’ objectives vary and there is sometimes room for tension, especially when the personal desires of the royals clash with the political requirements of the government.

York-Smith focuses on the day-to-day business of running Downing Street as smoothly as possible. Alderton, meanwhile, prioritizes the monarch’s interests, which may be more personal — the royal family is still a family — as well as constitutional.

Romeo takes a view on longer-term government strategy, delivering for the prime minister, and preserving constitutional conventions — which require the civil service she runs to make sure the king is never dragged into party politics.

“That relationship between the Cabinet secretary, the prime minister’s PPS and Buckingham Palace is critical and I’m sure there’s a constant line of communication between the three power-brokers,” said Brown, who was a political adviser rather than a permanent civil servant.

“It’s not something they ever want to show to politicians: It’s a steady constant that keeps the cogs of government going … Much of the civil service is designed to keep the system operating and to preserve the status quo and to prevent embarrassment to the system itself — and their loyalty is to the system.”

Whatever the advice of officials, the big decisions remain for the elected politicians to take. And that means the prime minister, who is, constitutionally, the monarch’s first and most senior adviser. According to Thomas, the “golden triangle” name risks inflating the significance of the group. “These are people doing difficult jobs and trying to get through the day,” he said.

“But that’s not to downplay the importance of any of those jobs, or the relationship working well,” said Thomas. “There are very rare but important moments when it’s not so much for those three people to decide what to do, but it is for them almost to be the keepers of the legitimate process of getting from A to B.”

When times are good and the government, royal family and prime minister are secure in their positions, the members of the golden triangle offer their advice and leave it to their leaders to decide.

But in the hardest moments, they must be ready to step up, on behalf of the long-established way in which things in Britain are done. So far, at least, that has been enough to keep the system alive.

Esther Webber contributed reporting.