5 times Keir Starmer blamed the deep state

LONDON — Keir Starmer was meant to be the bureaucrats’ prime minister. Now he’s dumping on them.

Under fire over multiple missteps since taking office in 2024, Starmer, the former chief prosecutor for England and Wales, has been blaming his top officials.

He has already parted company with a cabinet secretary, and is now having a bitter public spat with the ex-Foreign Office chief whom he ousted last Thursday over revelations that Peter Mandelson failed security vetting.

The most legalistic of British prime ministers — once a top public official himself —  appears to have fully joined the club of leaders who went to war with the civil service.

POLITICO runs through the five occasions when Starmer and his team turned their fire on the Whitehall machine … and he’s not even two years into office.

1. Mandelson mistakes

No political figure has caused the PM as much trouble as Peter Mandelson.

Starmer’s decision to appoint the scandal-prone former Labour operator as U.K. ambassador to Washington has sparked months of damaging headlines for his government.

Before sacking Mandelson last September over new revelations about the ex-ambassador’s long-standing association with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Starmer told parliament that “full due process was followed” in his appointment.

The Guardian newspaper last week reported that Mandelson was actually appointed despite failing security vetting. The PM insists he was not aware of this crucial detail and dismissed Olly Robbins as head of the Foreign Office, which was responsible for approving vetting, the same day.

“That I wasn’t told that he had failed security vetting when I was telling parliament that due process had been followed is unforgivable. Not only was I not told, no minister was told, and I’m absolutely furious about that,” Starmer told broadcasters hours after ousting Robbins.

Starmer’s close ally Morgan McSweeney had already resigned as his chief of staff in February, taking “full responsibility” for personally advising the PM to pick Mandelson.

And a tranche of documents into the appointment released in March show Starmer was warned about the “reputational risks”… but went ahead anyway.

No political figure has caused the PM as much trouble as Peter Mandelson. | James Manning/PA Images via Getty Images

2. Cabinet secretary wobbles

Robbins’ sacking comes hot on the heels of the departure of his old boss Chris Wormald, who was ousted as cabinet secretary in February after just over a year in post.

His exit followed a spate of negative briefings from Starmer’s top team about his ability to shake up Whitehall.

Wormald stepped down “by mutual agreement,” and had no notice period. POLITICO reported Wormald is likely to receive an even higher payout than the widely reported £260,000, which Starmer had to personally approve as civil servants could not reassure him it would be good value for the taxpayer.

3. ‘Tepid bath of managed decline’

Just five months after walking into No. 10 Downing Street with a landslide majority, the PM lambasted longstanding civil servants for being relaxed about Britain’s reduced influence.

“Too many people in Whitehall are comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline,” Starmer said in December 2024 as he set out his plan to change the country.

As metaphors go, it was a striking image.

He urged staff to undergo “a profound cultural shift away from a declinist mentality” that encourages employees to follow a mentality of “don’t say anything, don’t try anything too ambitious.” 

Unsurprisingly, the speech didn’t land brilliantly with, erm, civil servants. Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA union, called the PM’s comments “astonishing” and “really damaging.” Not exactly team-building rhetoric.

4. ‘Pull a lever’

A year after that speech, Starmer was still moaning about the Whitehall machine.

In a session with parliament’s Liaison Committee last December, the PM whined that delivering change is much harder than it looks.

“My experience now as prime minister is of frustration that every time I go to pull a lever there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations, arm’s-length bodies,” he told senior MPs quizzing him about his record in office. “The action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be.”

Starmer said he was trying to take action by reducing regulation, but “it takes time to take it down.”

Just five months after walking into No. 10 Downing Street with a landslide majority, the PM lambasted longstanding civil servants for being relaxed about Britain’s reduced influence. | Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images

Whether the public will be quite so forgiving is unclear.

5. Military moaning

Military chiefs don’t appear to have escaped the ire of Starmer’s operation either.

Under fire over Britain’s flat-footed response to U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, The Spectator magazine was briefed that U.K. Chief of the Defense Staff Richard Knighton argued at a private meeting that Britain didn’t need to send an aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean — enraging Cyprus, Jordan, and the UAE.

The piece then quoted a “well-placed source” suggesting Knighton had lost the confidence of No. 10.

Downing Street strongly hit back at the idea, insisting that the suggestion “couldn’t be further from the truth.”

It didn’t stop the PM’s opponents seizing on the briefings, accusing No. 10 of undermining a commanding officer in the course of a military conflict.