Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Josquius]

I would imagine if reform is to happen it would have to be with somebody who understands the current system.
Though whether its this guy....his CV certainly suggests not.

[Sheilbh]

I think this Wormald fellow sounds like a perfect fit with the current government. He can help Starmer relabel the levers of government and polish their brass work whilst failing to notice that half of them are no longer connected to anything.

Yeah - I think a lot is Starmer's lack of politics. I'm not really sure he knows what he wants to be in power to do. Just manage it better and make sure proper process is followed.

I think this was always the weakness of reading the previous government as Trump and focusing on the need to protect our institutions when for a long time now the warning lights have been flashing on the health and capacity of Britain's institutions.

It does feel of a part though. Appointing a very Sir Humphrey figure for a "complete rewiring of the British state", while on Labour's key pledges there appears to be a big gap. Centre for Cities today saying Labour's proposed plans will still lead it several hundred thousand homes short of their 1.5 million target. Everyone in the sector says Ed Miliband's targets on decarbonisation of the grid are unattainable (or, for the people directly reporting to Miliband, "stretching") - and the Guardian and others have pointed out that his pledge that it will save the average person money only works if you assume best case scenario on his renewables plans and worst case scenario for everything else.
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Meanwhile I think so far ten new "independent" bodies have been set up to advise government. Similarly this cabinet is now the first all state educated, I think it's also the first where no-one has a background of running their own business or working on the commercial side of a business (not totally sure but I think that's right) - and I feel that is showing a bit. Then just today a piece on our Northern European (Netherlands, Nordics and Baltics) allies despairing because apparently on defence we've just become very dithery - the government says pending a new strategic defence review. And I saw one of the authors of that saying that we need to focus more on new threats like cyber and not trying to "plug gaps" in the forces we had during the Cold War - which feels very mid-2010s given there's a hot war in Europe and the Americans are getting cold feet.

I think the positive case is that Starmer is very good at course correcting pretty ruthlessly. The challenge with that is I think it's a lot easier to do when you're leader of the opposition and nothing really matters - when you're PM you'll have sunk political costs, policy mistakes/dithers will only come clear later (at the point they're failing to public annoyance) and I can't think of a PM using the "re-launch" narrative successfully as opposed to it just locking in the perception that it's all going wrong. And I think we're already on the second re-launch

They need to get a grip and start governing soon - and their proposals need to start matching the radicalism of their promises. Not least because I think Badenoch is underrated by Labour (and was the best choice for the Tories) - plus elections in Wales next year and one poll this week showing Reform level-pegging with Labour

[Sheilbh]

I would imagine if reform is to happen it would have to be with somebody who understands the current system.
Though whether its this guy....his CV certainly suggests not.

You hear this a lot, but I can't off the top of my head think of many cases where it's actually true. I feel like the reformers tend to be people who have a very clear idea of what they want to do/where they want to go rather than consummate insiders who know how things currently work (not least because, and I think this goes for every private company too, most people hate change ).

Edit: And worth adding one particular concern with this guy is that I've seen some people praising him as very much in the model of Sir Jeremy Heywood. Heywood is hugely admired but I think the consensus now is that he was basically a very, very good civil servant with ministers - the model of the type of person at the British civil service pyramid. Creative, clever etc - perfect advisor for the PM. But he was, reportedly, basically not great (at best, outright neglectful at worst) at the other bit of his job which is running the civil service and make sure it's functioning well. I think there is something to Maude's idea of separating out those roles so you have a CEO who actually runs the civil service and then Cabinet Secretary who is supporting the PM/Cabinet. But that would basically be a demotion and involve giving up power accrued over many years so seems very, very unlikely.

[Josquius]

I would imagine if reform is to happen it would have to be with somebody who understands the current system.
Though whether its this guy....his CV certainly suggests not.

You hear this a lot, but I can't off the top of my head think of many cases where it's actually true. I feel like the reformers tend to be people who have a very clear idea of what they want to do/where they want to go rather than consummate insiders who know how things currently work (not least because, and I think this goes for every private company too, most people hate change ).

If its an outsider who knows nothing then they fail to do anything or they don't reform, they completely destroy and replace.

[Tamas]

In my professional career in big organisations, I have experienced both insiders trying to reform and outsiders coming in with clear ideas of what needs doing, neither worked out well.  Although the worst example I experienced was an outsider coming in put in charge and their complete lack of understanding of the nuances becoming very apparent fast as they rammed their shiny square peg into the organisation's round hole without a moment's hesitation.