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Sir Keir Starmer will on Thursday seek to revitalise his faltering government by setting targets intended to convince disgruntled voters he is making progress on their priorities, and to spur Whitehall into action.
Starmer’s “plan for change” will include milestones such as boosting living standards or making streets safer.
But the upcoming announcement was on Wednesday branded “an emergency reset five months into his premiership” by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch.
Although Starmer will claim the new milestones align with voters’ priorities, Labour insiders say they are also aimed squarely at a dysfunctional Whitehall machine.
“At least 50 per cent of this is aimed at Whitehall,” said one Labour official. “If we don’t change the way things work, we will fail.”
Number 10 said Starmer wants to “galvanise the government machine to focus its resources to deliver on the milestones he will set out”.
The much-trailed “Plan for Change” was conceived by Pat McFadden, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff, as a means of convincing voters that the government is delivering. Starmer’s poll ratings have slumped since the party’s July 4 election win.
McFadden is expected to make another major speech on public sector reform before Christmas, an intervention that some government insiders are billing as “part two” to Starmer’s relaunch.
That speech will explain in greater detail how the state will reform and evolve to meet the challenges, including by using data and algorithms in a smarter way.
Thursday’s speech by Starmer is also intended to clarify to voters specific targets, after a carousel of past initiatives that include “five missions” promised in the party’s manifesto, and “six commitments” outlined in May.
Badenoch on Wednesday noted Starmer’s “mission” to make Britain the fastest-growing economy in the G7 is rarely mentioned, leading her to ask whether it had been ditched.
Labour officials say his “milestone” for measuring growth will focus on household living standards instead.
“We’ve got a bit lost,” one Labour MP said. “In the real world people want to see results and don’t care about missions or milestones. It all feels like an internal exercise.”
Starmer’s milestones, including a promise of 13,000 additional neighbourhood police officers, will also cover the economy, health, children’s readiness for school and secure energy.
One Whitehall insider said they felt it was a mis-step by Starmer to place so much focus on the “technocratic” targets, and to tee up the speech as a big political moment. “It’s a tactical error. If you want to be judged on delivery, it’s better to show not tell.”
Another Whitehall figure accused Labour of having conducted too little thinking about public service reform before entering office. “They’ve got the end game figured out — the outcome they want — but still not the ‘how’.
The person also warned there was too much government emphasis on artificial intelligence reforming public services, while most trials at present involve AI replacing only basic administrative tasks.
“There’s no sense of a big silver bullet,” they added. “A lot of public services are about human interaction. But AI could still be useful in freeing up resources on the margins. Never mind improving things, even standing still is a challenge for some services. So even a bit of efficiency is useful.”
John McTernan, political secretary to Tony Blair in No 10, said: “Voters have been demanding a change to the way Britain is run since the Brexit referendum. Business as usual has to end if Labour are to deliver a radical change if people are to feel their services and their standard of living has improved.”
