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EDITOR'S PICK
Afternoon from the Editor-in-Chief, William Cash
What does Antonia think?
As Cabinet Secretary, Dame Antonia Romeo is reported by The Times to be asserting her influence on Downing Street and Whitehall by being the first Cabinet Secretary in a decade to publish her “personal objectives”.
Her decision to set out her goals has led to comparisons with the last permanent secretary to do so, the late Lord Heywood, who was made a life peer – taking the appropriate title Baron Heywood of Whitehall – just 11 days before he died in November 2018.
In our very first issue of The Mace, back in January 2020, our then-editor Christopher Jackson, a distinguished poet, wrote a moving eulogy to the idiosyncratic and intellectually rigorous Heywood – the most powerful man in British politics unknown beyond the Westminster Tunnel.
Unlike Dame Antonia, Heywood was famously undomestic. His wife called him “the most impractical man I ever met”. Despite being the top civil servant for years, he never passed his driving test or owned a car. On a rare trip to the countryside, he once pointed out a “giant rat” in a field – it was actually a rabbit.
The Heywoods lived in Balham, south London, where he built a bunker-like wine cellar. Married to his equally formidable former civil servant wife Suzanne, a former Oxford zoologist, the Heywoods were exactly the sort of Westminster power couple that would have topped our annual survey of romantic “special relationships” that ran the country. You can read our 2026 Westminster Power Couples report here.
Heywood cut his teeth in Westminster crisis management during Black Wednesday, in October 1987. As a 30-year-old principal private secretary to Norman Lamont, just a month into the job, he found himself in the thick of the sterling crisis when the UK had to bail out of the ERM. This experience led him to help Gordon Brown steer the government ship during the financial crisis of 2007/8 when the UK’s banks nearly crashed. Heywood became something of a legend in Whitehall during his 30-plus years as a fast-track mandarin
The poem, ‘In Memoriam Jeremy Heywood, 1961-2018’, is our From the Archive choice today. I hope Dame Antonia gets to read it – or a Westminster Wire reader forwards it to her – as it offers some chiaroscuro truths about the art of being a successful permanent secretary. Nobody can say The Mace isn’t full of surprises.
Heywood was the top civil servant to both David Cameron and Theresa May and also served as PPS to prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown from 1999 to 2003. All four prime ministers gave glowing eulogies at his funeral, and no doubt Dame Antonia will have read the revealing memoir that his widow, Lady Heywood, wrote after her husband’s untimely death. Its title, What Does Jeremy Think?, was the phrase invariably asked when a critical piece of legislation, No 10 policy or government crisis was being discussed.
Wherefore art thou, Romeo?
How long it will be until Whitehall and Downing Street advisers ask the same of Dame Antonia remains to be seen, but she looks to have got off to a flying start after the departure of Sir Chris Wormald. He was regarded as out of his depth and not someone who saw his top civil servant job to be either public-facing or as a top-cat ambassador-at-large for the service.
The challenge for being an effective top civil servant, such as Sir Alex Chisholm, former permanent secretary of the Cabinet Office (2020-24), now non-executive chair of EDF and a board member at BT Group, is to strike the right balance between being a consigliere to the PM’s Downing Street court and being an agile and ruthless civil service ringmaster, unafraid to crack the whip. One has to be a political high-wire tightrope walker who can perform this difficult double act. As Christopher Jackson opens his Mace poem:
Almost unknown; scaling uprights:
the circus’ seasoned acrobat
who knew the balancing routines –
the huddled faces low, upturning.
Unfinished Business
The Westminster consensus is that publishing her objectives seems to be a good departure point from her predecessor for Dame Antonia. Alex Thomas, executive director at the Institute for Government, who served as principal private secretary to Heywood, told The Times that publishing her objectives would help to “cement” Romeo’s authority within Whitehall and No 10 even if it may look like the PM’s chief political enforcer, the well regarded Rt Hon Darren Jones, Chief Secretary to the PM – and the ‘first Darren’ ever to be an MP, as he revealed in his maiden speech - was happy to step back as Romeo asserted her grip on Downing Street.
In his recent Cabinet profile and Mace Questionnaire, Jones revealed that the book that most revealed his personality was The Unfinished Revolution by Philip Gould which, he says, ‘reveals my New Labour approach’. He also revealed that he charges up his political batteries by listening to D: Ream’s “Things Can Only Get Better.”
Alas, they only look likely to get worse after May 7th. Let’s hope that if Labour get truly wiped out in the local elections that Jones doesn’t get caught up in the post-election fallout when Labour’s Left may call for Angela Rayner to take over the sinking Labour ship. We’re hearing that the former deputy leader is about to embark on a campaigning blitzkrieg – with full social media roll out – that will also serve as a form of national hustings to get the support of the 80 Labour MPs required to take on Keir Starmer and occupy Downing Street.
Should the PM crown come into play after May 7th – and the betting money is that Starmer is probably safe until the summer – Jones himself may also have a shot at grabbing the keys to No 10. He’s done well in his role as Starmer’s Mr Fix-It, a position that was required to counter Wormald’s lack of hands-on management and PR skills. But with Romeo now taking the lead in having a tighter grip on Downing Street, Jones can now shine elsewhere. Alex Thomas said: “One of the things that’s struck me for quite a few years now is that successive prime ministers haven’t known how to use the role of Cabinet Secretary and almost haven’t known what they’ve missed.”
Specialist Subjects
Romeo, who was appointed in February, said this week that she plans to rewrite the civil service code. She might also consider looking into how the Civil Service Fast Stream recruitment process can be reformed. In our next print issue, The Mace’s new Whitehall reporter, Lucy Carrier-Pilkington, writes a brilliant, originally sourced exposé asking why some mainstream and even ex-Fast Stream civil servants believe the so-called “top talent” entering Whitehall are simply not up to the job.
The Civil Service Fast Stream is one of the most sought-after job programmes on the graduate market, attracting over 70,000 applications in 2025 and maintaining the top spot in The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers for 2025–2026.
This past year was a record for Fast Stream applications, with a 64% increase from the 44,000 applicants in 2024, and a 170% uptick from the 26,000 who applied in 2023, according to Civil Service World. Due to the high volume of applicants, the chances of success are exceptionally narrow – usually at 1%, but even as low as 0.2% for competitive opportunities such as in the Diplomatic Fast Stream.
The problem, which Lucy’s piece get to the nub of, is that in their recruitment, the service is largely ignoring hard-earned specialist skills – from languages to cyber-training – meaning that even at the most “cut-throat’ and competitive stage of the recruitment process, “no applicant has their CV looked at”.
Hypothetically, this means that for a role at the Foreign Office, someone who has a degree in Mandarin and Arabic but fails the workplace scenario test could be cut in favour of someone who passes the test but does not have a linguistics background. Neil Golborne, economist and former European Fast Streamer, told The Mace: “During the course of my career, interviews changed to become less about technical skills and more about soft skills like leadership – which is a mistake for the specialisms.”
Linking Up
As we have reported, former PM Liz Truss is awaiting planning news from Westminster Council about her ambitious new “power broker” leaders club. As of early 2026, Truss faced a backlash from Mayfair neighbours and scrutiny from Westminster Council regarding a proposed £500,000 “private members” club, The Leconfield, at the former MI5 headquarters. Residents have warned of noise and chaos, with concerns over a 1am drinking license. The project, involving developer Robert Tchenguiz, has experienced licensing delays.
Anyone for Lunch?
Thankfully, there are no such issues with The Mace’s public affairs and business leaders’ VIP lunch on Wednesday 10 June at The UnHerd private members’ club in Westminster, featuring guest speakers Jann Martin Schwarz, Senior Director of Thought Leadership and Strategy at LinkedIn, and his UK-based colleague Mimi Turner, Head of Marketplace Innovation.
Jann is flying in from New York for our event where he will speak on “The corporate value of corporate reputation in an AI age”, as well as telling the story of how LinkedIn has transformed the world of corporate communication and networking. Not sure if Jeremy Heywood, as head of the civil service, ever had a LinkedIn profile, but I think it’s fair to say he would have approved of the wine list at the club which is also where the Spectator host fine wine blind tastings.
Book now
Invitations for the three-course lunch, including wine, are extended to all Mace subscribers and corporate members. At £125 per head, including lashings of Provence rose, seats are flying. We are also offering an opportunity for a corporate sponsor to headline sponsor the VIP lunch and invite a table of six guests.
Please email wendy.coumantaros@macemagazine.com for more information and an invitation.
The Advocate: Andreas Bohrer, Lonza Group
In his Leader in Public Affairs profile, the head of legal and corporate affairs at the multi-billion Swiss-based pharma and biotech group, founded in 1897, reveals his passions range from fencing to Sir Ernest Shackleton. And, as Monty Python said: ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’. Read more >
From the Archive: Jeremy Heywood, In Memoriam (1961-2018)
Christopher Jackson pens a eulogy to the last head of the civil service to publish their “objectives” before Dame Antonia Romeo this week. Read more >
Op-ed of the week
With London’s music festival scene in the headlines, Sophie Brownlee of the Lord Mayor’s Nightlife Task Force argues that the capital’s after-hours economy has been neglected. Read more >
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Credits: copy editor Piers Martin, digital editor Oliver Dean, associate publisher Wendy Coumantaros, captain of IT Dan Colburn Smith, designer Cath Mackenzie, managing editor Emelia Wild and editorial assistant Madeline Dabbah.
