Labour is accused of ‘recklessly’ eroding civil service impartiality by hiring host of Whitehall officials
- Labour was accused of eroding the civil service by headhunting top officials
- At least a dozen have jumped to the party in the last 18 months
- Top Tory Greg Hands said Labour’s hiring drive was ‘reckless’
Labour was accused last night of ‘recklessly’ eroding civil service impartiality by hiring a host of Whitehall officials.
In the latest sign of ‘the Blob’ moving to the opposition party, it emerged that Sir Keir Starmer has recruited civil servants from No 10, the Treasury and other departments.
But his bid to bolster Labour’s preparation for government was lambasted by Greg Hands, the Conservative Party chairman, who said last night: ‘First it was Sue Gray. Now it looks like Labour are trying to recruit impartial civil servants to their cause.
‘I have been a strong defender of civil service impartiality, and for Labour to recklessly seek to erode that is deeply irresponsible.’
At least a dozen Whitehall officials have jumped to the party in the past 18 months, analysis by The Guardian found.
Kier Starmer has been accused of destabilising the civil service by headhunting top civil servants
At least a dozen Whitehall officials have jumped ship and joined the Labour party in the last 18 months
Among Labour’s new recruits is Nick Williams, who spent almost six years at the Treasury, before joining the party as its head of economic policy earlier this year. His LinkedIn profile showed he worked on ‘growth strategy’ and as a policy adviser on science and innovation at the Treasury before taking up the party job in April.
At least three more ex-Treasury policy advisers have joined Labour, while a data scientist working in No 10 has also moved.
A Downing Street official, who The Guardian said worked on parliamentary briefings, started a job with the party last September.
A source said two others had moved from the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. It comes after ex-Partygate inquisitor Ms Gray – a former Whitehall mandarin – sparked fury when she defected to Labour earlier this year.
Ms Gray took up the role as Sir Keir’s chief of staff earlier this month. The Cabinet Office had pushed for her to be barred for at least 18 months because of the access she had to government secrets in her highly sensitive job.
But she was cleared to start working by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which recommended she serve a cooling-off period of only six months. However, a Tory source said yesterday they were pleased ‘Labour sympathisers’ would ‘no longer’ be ‘blocking Government policy’ in the civil service.
‘We always knew that a surprisingly large amount of Whitehall’s so-called “impartial” civil servants were actually Labour sympathisers,’ they said. ‘They should have left a long time ago.’
Another Conservative source added: ‘It’s a disgrace.’
Alex Thomas, a programme director at the Institute for Government, said the hires suggested Labour wanted people who ‘speak the language’ of Whitehall.
‘It reflects where we are… around a year out from the election,’ he told The Guardian.
‘The benefit of hiring ex-civil servants is they are people who understand the institutional architecture of Whitehall, so know how to get things done in government, which is a different skill from the campaigning skills of opposition.
‘It’s also helpful to have people who speak the language. There is actually a whole language of officialdom that it’s useful to be able to translate. Thirdly, it gives Labour a network of relationships.
‘The party have some shadow ministers who’ve been in government before, but the civil service is another source of expertise regarding how to translate a political idea into reality.
‘It’s helpful to have people who know where the power lies and how the sausage gets made.’
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