Tim Allan says he’s leaving Downing Avenue ‘to permit new No 10 staff to be constructed’
Tim Allan stated he was standing down to permit Keir Starmer the chance to construct a brand new staff.
In an announcement, he stated:
I’ve determined to face down to permit a brand new No 10 staff to be constructed.
I want the PM and his staff each success.
Key occasions
Starmer tells No 10 employees politics will be ‘power for good’ and says authorities shifting ahead ‘with confidence’
Keir Starmer has delivered a message to Downing Avenue employees telling them that he believes politics generally is a “power for good” and that he needs the federal government to go ahead “with confidence”.
From the extracts launched by Labour, Starmer gave no indication that he intends to resign. However he didn’t appear to have a placing new message both, and he didn’t point out the departure of Tim Allan.
Listed here are the important thing quotes, from the briefing equipped to journalists.
The factor that makes me most offended is the undermining of the assumption that politics generally is a power for good and might change lives.
I’ve been completely clear that I remorse the choice that I made to nominate Peter Mandelson. And I’ve apologised to the victims which is the appropriate factor to do.
Starmer additionally advised employees that they have been united in having “public obligation” as their “driving objective”.
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Starmer paid tribute to Morgan McSweeney, saying he wouldn’t have been in a position to change Labour and win the election with out his former chief of employees. He stated:
I’ve recognized Morgan for eight years as a colleague and as a buddy. We have now run up and down each political soccer pitch that’s throughout the nation. We’ve been in each battle that we wanted to be in collectively. Combating that battle.
We modified the Labour social gathering collectively. We gained a common election collectively. And none of that may have been doable with out Morgan McSweeney.
His dedication, his dedication and his loyalty to our social gathering and our nation was second to none. And I wish to thank him for his service.
In only a few months, we begin the work of lifting half 1,000,000 youngsters out of poverty. An enormous factor to do on this nation as a result of that implies that lives might be modified.
For many years to return, youngsters who in any other case wouldn’t have honest probability and honest alternative. Poverty holds youngsters again like nothing else on earth. And so eliminating youngster poverty opens up alternatives for therefore many.
We should show that politics generally is a power for good. I imagine it may possibly. I imagine it’s. We go ahead from right here. We go together with confidence as we proceed altering the nation.
Right here is our story, by Peter Walker and Pippa Crerar, about Tim Allan’s resignation.
Allan’s resignation leaves Starmer in want of his fifth No 10 communications chief since election
Keir Starmer now has to search out his fifth No 10 communications director since he turned prime minister. Earlier than Tim Allan, he additionally had: Matthew Doyle, who’s now a peer, however embroiled in an issue about his support for a Labour friend who had been charged with having indecent pictures of younger women; James Lyons, a former journalist who had labored in comms jobs for NHS England and for TikTok; and Stephanie Driver.
The communications director job at No 10 is a political publish, held by Labour determine.
Starmer additionally has a civil service spokespeson who briefs the foyer on daily basis. And final yr Starmer appointed the previous Solar editor David Dinsmore as head of government communications, one other civil service publish.
Tim Allan says he’s leaving Downing Avenue ‘to permit new No 10 staff to be constructed’
Tim Allan stated he was standing down to permit Keir Starmer the chance to construct a brand new staff.
In an announcement, he stated:
I’ve determined to face down to permit a brand new No 10 staff to be constructed.
I want the PM and his staff each success.
Tim Allan, who labored as Alastair Campbell’s deputy when Tony Blair was in opposition and after he first turned PM, solely joined Downing Avenue in September final yr. It was a shock appointment as a result of Allan had been out of presidency for greater than 25 years, largely working his personal PR and company affairs firm.
Here’s a profile about him that Rowena Mason wrote in September.
Clearly, in his 5 months in No 10, Allan was unable to realize any decisive enchancment in Keir Starmer’s rankings.
Starmer’s communications chief Tim Allan quits No 10
Tim Allan has left his publish as director of communications at No 10, Pippa Crerar reports.
EXCL: Tim Allan, Keir Starmer’s director of communications, steps down from Downing Avenue position. “I’ve determined to face down to permit a brand new No 10 staff to be constructed. I want the PM and his staff each success,” he stated.
Tim Allan is Starmer’s fourth director of comms to go since taking workplace 19 months in the past. Suggests the issue isn’t the communications staff…
Robert Jenrick, the previous shadow justice secretary who just lately defected to Reform UK, told Sky News this morning that he thought the Labour authorities underneath Keir Starmer was changing into as dysfunctional because the final Tory authorities was. He stated:
The federal government seems to be collapsing into chaos. Now the prime minister has no authority. There’s an outright revolt towards him from his personal members of parliament and the cupboard.
Nothing goes to occur now. Authorities might be dropped at a standstill. I’ve seen this up shut in earlier Conservative governments. There’ll be no agenda. The problems that individuals are going through of their every day lives – whether or not it’s wages, power payments, crime, immigration, the NHS – are all simply going to enter stasis now and the general public are going to be let down very badly within the weeks and the months to return.
Emily Thornberry welcomes McSweeney’s resignation, saying it creates ‘alternative’ for Starmer
Emily Thornberry, the Labour chair of the Commons international affairs committee, advised the At the moment programme this morning that she was glad that Morgan McSweeney had resigned. She stated:
I’m glad to see that the one who was the architect of Peter Mandelson’s appointment has taken accountability and has gone … Morgan had develop into fairly a divisive determine.
There have been a few issues that everybody agreed on, one was that he was good, however I feel the opposite one was that individuals felt he was within the unsuitable job, so I feel it’s proper that he’s gone, and I feel it’s a chance.
Thornberry stated that Keir Starmer was a “respectable man”, however that he wanted to “step up a bit greater than he has” and that he neeed a “reset” providing “clear management”.
John Swinney, Scotland’s first minister, has stated that he thinks Keir Starmer is ready of “full weak point” as PM. Talking on BBC Radio Scotland, Swinney stated:
All that’s occurred in latest days demonstrates an appalling judgment by the prime minister in appointing Peter Mandelson because the ambassador to the US.
Though Morgan McSweeney may need resigned, the individual that took the choice to nominate Peter Mandelson was the prime minister and his place is an illustration of his full weak point as prime minister within the aftermath of this horrible choice.
Labour MP Andy McDonald says will probably be ‘finish’ for Starmer if he doesn’t ‘personal the error he is made’
The Labour MP Andy McDonald advised the At the moment programme this morning that it will be “the top” for Keir Starmer’s management if he failed to influence backbenchers that he’ll change the best way he operates for the higher.
McDonald stated:
If [Starmer] doesn’t personal the error he’s made, and recognise the issue in entrance of it and articulate it and inform us how he’s going to take care of it, then I’m afraid it’s coming to an finish – if not in the present day, however actually within the weeks and months forward.
He’s obtained to persuade the PLP tonight that he’s obtained it and a change is critical.
And the change that he promoted was no apart from to purge the left, and it’s obtained us on this horrible mess that we’re in now.
McDonald stated he wished to see a change to a “extra pluralist, democratic socialist agenda”.
McDonald, who served in shadow cupboard underneath Jeremy Corbyn, has been one of many MPs most crucial in public of method Labour has been led by Starmer and Morgan McSweeney. Partially he feels aggrieved as a result of he was suspended from the party for five months for utilizing phrases “the river and the ocean” at a pro-Palestine rally, supposedly on the grounds that this was anti-Israel (it has echoes of a chant criticised as antisemitic), despite the fact that McDonald particularly stated he wished to see “Israelis and Palestinians, between the river and the ocean … [living] in peaceable liberty”. Labour’s choice to droop McDonald was criticised as extreme, and that’s partly why he’s so crucial of the purges of the left overseen by McSweeney.
Badenoch says Starmer’s place now ‘untenable’
Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative chief, has stated that Keir Starmer ought to resign given his choice to nominate Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington.
In an interview on the At the moment programme this morning, Badenoch stated:
[Claiming] ‘I used to be badly suggested’ will not be a very good excuse for a pacesetter. Advisers advise, leaders resolve. He made a foul choice, he ought to take accountability for that … this man stated that he was the chief prosecutor for the nation, when did he begin believing all the pieces that individuals advised him?
Peter Mandelson had been sacked twice for unethical behaviour. [Starmer] is permitting another person to hold the can for a call that he selected to make. However the true drawback is that this nation will not be being ruled.
Keir Starmer promised a authorities that may be whiter than white. His place now could be untenable, as a result of if he thinks that dangerous recommendation is sufficient for Morgan McSweeney to go, then, sure, I feel that makes his place untenable.
Abilities minister Jacqui Smith says she is bound Starmer will not resign
In interviews this morning Jacqui Smith, the talents minister, insisted that Keir Starmer will keep on as PM.
She advised Occasions Radio:
I feel that the prime minister completely is decided to [carry on]. He’s decided and has taken accountability for the errors made in appointing Peter Mandelson.
On the At the moment programme Nick Robinson advised Smith that Pat McFadden, the work and pensions secretary, gave an interview yesterday morning saying it will be pointless for Morgan McSweeeny to resign. Just a few hours later McSweeney did simply that. He requested Smith if she might ensure that Starmer too wasn’t about to resign.
Smith replied: “I’m positive, sure.”
However when Robinson requested her if Starmer had advised her that personally, Smith stated she had not spoken to him instantly. “I don’t imagine he’ll [resign], I don’t assume he ought to,” she stated.
Good morning. One of many staples of political journalism as of late (for higher or for worse) is the “how damaging?” query. With Westminster preoccupied with the query of how lengthy Keir Starmer can final as prime minister following the resignation of Morgan McSweeney, his chief of employees, yesterday within the mild of the Peter Mandelson/Jeffrey Epstein scandal, here’s a abstract of how lengthy different prime ministers have been in a position to keep on after key advisers give up.
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Margaret Thatcher stayed in workplace, after the resignation of Alan Walters, for one yr and one month.
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Tony Blair stayed in workplace, after the resignation of Alastair Campbell, for three years and 10 months.
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Theresa Could stayed in workplace, after the resignation of Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, for two years and one and a half months.
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Boris Johnson stayed in workplace, after the resignation of Dominic Cummings, for one yr and 10 months.
None of those are precise parallels. Most of those advisers have been pressured out due to stress from MPs within the PM’s social gathering, at the very least one (Mirza) was admired and her departure was a shock, however with McSweeney the image is combined. Many Labour MPs are glad to see him gone, however others credit score him with profitable them their seats and fear how the PM will handle with out him.
The Cummings precedent is analogous in some methods, as a result of Cummings was the mastermind behind Johnson’s 2019 common election victory. McSweeney additionally will get credit score for the Labour’s 2024 landslide. However solely final evening Prof Jane Inexperienced, who runs the British Election Examine undertaking, said “the most important components that contributed to the distinctive seats-votes final result have been outdoors Labour’s direct management” and the declare that McSweeney’s choice to concentrate on interesting to former Tories was an important issue has been proven by election analysis to be unsuitable. Moreover, not like Cummings, McSweeney stays hinged.
In some respects McSweeney is extra much like Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill. They have been decisive in enabling Theresa Could to develop into PM, simply as McSweeney was instrumental in displaying Starmer how he might win the Labour management. However Timothy and Hill have been much more dominant in No 10 than McSweeney ever was. And so they have been pressured out as a result of they wrote a manifesto that misplaced an election, whereas McSweeney did the other.
In brief, there isn’t a method of realizing how this can prove. However earlier expertise means that even a dangerous resignation like McSweeney’s doesn’t make the PM’s resignation imminent.
However we have now obtained an inkling of what may occur in the present day. Starmer is because of deal with Labour MPs this night and Jacqui Smith, the previous Labour house secretary who’s now a peer and abilities minister, has been giving interviews this morning. Talking on Occasions Radio this morning, she stated Starmer deserved credit score for “taking accountability” for the Mandelson appointment.
The prime minister is taking accountability. He took accountability for the choice that was made about Peter Mandelson, though to be clear right here it was in fact Peter Mandelson that, in constant mendacity and engagement with Jeffrey Epstein, let down the social gathering and the federal government and the nation. And I feel that may develop into clearer as the knowledge across the appointment is put out into the general public area.
In accordance with Sam Blewett and Bethany Dawson of their London Playbook briefing for Politico, Labour First, the right-leaning Labour group that helps Starmer, has been urging its MPs allies to make this level at tonight’s PLP assembly. They are saying:
One riled MP forwarded Playbook a message the right-leaning Labour First faction has despatched to backbenchers it reckons are loyal to Starmer, urging them to talk up in assist on the PLP assembly. Speaking factors embrace how the PM “accepts his errors and apologises,” in comparison with the carousel of Tory leaders pressured from workplace … and the way the federal government is delivering on “many areas of incremental change.”
Right here is our in a single day story by Pippa Crerar summing up all yesterday’s developments.
And right here is an evaluation by Kiran Stacey.
At the moment we might be focusing totally on this disaster. Right here is the agenda.
Morning: Kemi Badenoch is on a go to in Surrey.
11.30am: Downing Avenue holds a foyer briefing.
2.30pm: Shabana Mahmood, the house secretary, takes questions within the Commons.
3pm: Nigel Farage, the Reform UK chief, offers a speech in Birmingham.
6pm: Keir Starmer addresses Labour MPs at a non-public assembly of the PLP in Westminster.
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