‘Get a grip’ of No 10 briefings, Starmer told after cabinet secretary forced out

Sir Keir Starmer has been told by a former cabinet secretary that he must “get a grip” of “shabby” negative briefings against civil servants, after Sir Chris Wormald became the latest member of the prime minister’s top team to step down.

Sir Chris stood down as Britain’s top civil servant after just 14 months on Thursday evening, days after the resignations of chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and communications chief, Tim Allan.

Opposition leaders have accused Sir Keir of throwing his outgoing cabinet secretary “under the bus” to “save his own skin”, as he seeks to reset his Downing Street operation following the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal.

Gus O’Donnell, who served as cabinet secretary under three prime ministers, said Sir Keir must “take responsibility” for the pattern of briefings, which he called one of the current Labour government’s “biggest failings”.

“Where it’s shabby is the fact that we’ve got to this place and that they have briefed anonymously against the cabinet secretary, saying it’s not working,” Lord O’Donnell told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

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“They’ve been doing this for a long time. This is a process that this government – I’m afraid it’s one of their biggest failings.”

Referring to the resignation of Sue Gray, who quit as Labour’s chief of staff in 2024 following briefings against her, he added: “This is the fundamental problem and that is something the prime minister can solve by getting a grip on his special advisers.”

Asked whether special advisers (Spads) had become too active, Lord O’Donnell said “really good Spads are really useful,” but added: “Bad special advisers turn out to be second-rate PR people – [they] can be disastrous.”

He cited the pre-Budget operations as another example of poor government briefings, describing the run-up to the autumn statement last year as a “complete omnishambles from a comms point of view”.

“The prime minister must take responsibility and get a grip,” Lord O’Donnell, who led the civil service during the premierships of Sir Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron, said.

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The Cabinet Office said on Thursday that Sir Chris had come to a “mutual” agreement with the prime minister to step down as cabinet secretary with immediate effect.

It follows a string of negative reports in the media suggesting his performance was being called into question after he was appointed by Sir Keir just 14 months ago.

After 35 years in the civil service, Sir Chris is now the shortest-serving cabinet secretary in history, lasting less than the 23 months Sir Mark Sedwill held the position for under Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

Sir Chris is said to have received a £260,000 payout as part of the agreement that saw him leave the role, with No 10 declining to comment on reports that the payment had to be signed off by the prime minister as it did not meet Whitehall’s value-for-money rules.

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In a series of broadcast interviews on Friday morning, water minister Emma Hardy rejected suggestions Sir Chris had been blamed for Sir Keir’s own failings.

She dismissed accusations from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch that the senior official had been “thrown under the bus” by the prime minister as “the usual political knockabout”.

He is widely expected to be replaced by Home Office permanent secretary Dame Antonia Romeo, viewed by Downing Street as a “disrupter”, despite warnings from her former boss at the Foreign Office.

Dame Antonia previously faced allegations of bullying related to her time as consul-general in New York, but she was later cleared by the Cabinet Office.