Labour’s swamp: Keir Starmer resets
Daily Politics from the New Statesman
The New Statesman
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2024
⏱️ 33 minutes
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Summary
Former Labour strategist and architect of the Labour missions, Peter Hyman, joins the New Statesman podcast to discuss Keir Starmer’s “plan for change” speech on Thursday.
Hyman discusses the difficulties Labour will face in implementing their missions and is scathing about Whitehall, saying resistance from staffers is stifling innovation:
“Three permanent secretaries I've heard in the last month have been resisting having outsiders come in to help,” he says.
“I don't blame civil servants, particularly individual civil servants… What I do blame is the system. At the moment, there is a culture that is not geared towards innovation. It is geared to business as usual… a lot of civil servants are incredibly paranoid about taking any risks because they fear they'll be called in front of a select committee.”
Read: Starmer’s pledges leave his government exposed, by Rachel Cunliffe; Keir Starmer must remember his mission, by Peter Hyman
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| 1:34.2 | The New Statesman. |
| 1:38.4 | Hello, I'm Hannah Barnes and this is Politics from the New Statesman, |
| 1:42.2 | where every Thursday we bring you the latest news from Westminster and beyond. |
| 1:47.5 | Today I'm joined by our Associate Political Editor Rachel Cunliff and special guest Peter Hyman. |
| 1:53.4 | And Peter worked as a strategist and speechwriter for Tony Blair for nine years before moving into education and becoming a head |
| 2:01.5 | teacher. He was also a senior advisor to Keir Sarmar from 2022 until the Labour victory at the |
| 2:08.8 | election this year. And so for the purposes of today, you should know that during that time, |
| 2:13.9 | he played a key role in setting Labor's five national missions. |
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