Another day, another drama. The spotlight is back on Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour lot as accusations of cronyism continue to fly in. Now it transpires that yet another civil service appointee has rather strong political links to Starmer’s army. Ex-Labour Together campaigner Jess Sargeant has been appointed to a top civil service job, with Politico suggesting she will play a leading part on the issue of Lords reform. Alright for some…
As revealed by Guido Fawkes, Labour-sympathetic Sargeant has bagged a deputy director role with the Cabinet Office’s Propriety and Constitution group only eight months after she moved to ‘Starmerite central’ Labour Together. Before that, Sargeant was an Institute for Government think tanker, working as an associate director at the centre-left organisation. Rather interestingly, the Propriety and Constitution group happens to be the former workplace of, er, one Sue Gray – who moved in the opposite direction to become Sir Keir’s chief of staff – and prides itself on ‘ensuring the highest standards of propriety and ethics across all government departments’. How curious…
The news of Sargeant’s job follows growing unease over choices for civil service jobs. The appointment of Labour donors Ian Corfield and Emily Middleton – to the Treasury and the Department for Science and Technology respectively – has raised ‘cash for jobs’ concerns. Meanwhile the selections of former Labour aide Hayden Etherington to the Minister of Housing and Oliver Newton to the Treasury have also raised eyebrows…
Tory leadership contender James Cleverly has blasted ‘Labour’s very questionable civil service recruitment practices’ while shadow paymaster general John Glen suggested there is ‘overwhelming evidence’ that Starmer’s army had been ‘undermining the integrity and impartiality of the civil service’. In fact, Glen went so far as to point the finger at Sue Gray personally – who Starmer rather abruptly defended this week – and accused Starmer’s staffer of ‘personally’ blocking special adviser appointments. The shadow paymaster general suggests this may in turn have forced ministers to ‘circumvent’ rules and hire would-be SpAds to civil service roles. IfG’s Jill Rutter has waved away cronyism fears, instead describing Labour as having made a ‘presentational mess’ of its appointments. For its part, the Cabinet Office has said it will ‘not comment on individual staffing matters’ and called Glen’s claims ‘untrue’. But that doesn’t quite answer all the questions raised over these rather interesting appointments. Talk about smoke and mirrors…
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