The Guardian view on blaming the civil service: the predictable refuge of failing governments | Editorial

Whitehall has its flaws, but reform can only be successful in a climate of trust, not fear

The announcement of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador ensures that 20 December 2024 will be recorded as a fateful day in Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. Less remarked on, but relevant in hindsight, is a speech that the prime minister made earlier that month to launch a “plan for change”. Sir Keir set out ambitions to improve public services and lamented caution in the civil service. Whitehall, he said, was too often comfortable “in the tepid bath of managed decline”.

The prime minister was feeling thwarted by the machinery of government. In that context, it is easy to see how he might have been persuaded that Lord Mandelson would make a better emissary to the US than the long-serving professional diplomat in post at the time. Impatience with a slow-moving apparatus is conveyed also in the account given by Sir Olly Robbins, the former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, of a department under “constant pressure” to complete Lord Mandelson’s security vetting. The prime minister told the Commons on Wednesday that no such pressure existed.

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