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EDITOR'S PICK
Good afternoon from William Cash, the Mace Editor-in-chief
The Recruiting Officer
Originally, as I wrote last week, I thought Kemi Badenoch and Clare Hambro’s new candidate purge – including former party co-chairman and home secretary Sir Grant Shapps – was designed to get rid of non-Tory candidates, but now I wonder if it’s a savvy chess move calculated to put her stamp on the party and make clear she is prepared to be ruthless.
As one veteran former Tory MP put it to me: “This move has got not only ex-MPs worried but also sitting MPs. What’s stopping her saying next that there will be a new process for CCHQ clearance for all current MP’s before they are re-adopted for their existing seats before the next election. Of the 120 MPs left, there will be some she would like to purge in the name of her New Conservative Party.”
Indeed, after James Heale broke the story of Shapps’s candidate board snubbing, Kemi came out fighting, telling a Sky news press conference: “What I will say is that we’re going to be announcing candidates shortly and you will see that this is a very different party from the one that was removed from government in 2024. That is what I want people to see: that this is a new and different Conservative Party.”
A former Tory MP I spoke to, who has already subjected himself to the candidate list re-selection process, says that he estimates that around 20% of the 175 Tories who lost their seats in 2024 were reapplying. A little like the French Revolution, when aristocrats were allowed the dignity of being guillotined by rank together, former Tory MPs have been permitted to sit the new competence and selection tests before other Tory candidate list hopefuls. The big difference from 15 years ago is that it is mostly being done digitally.
While the official explanation is that the Tory party is blocking candidates who do not back its human rights and net zero pledges, the truth seems to be that this candidate purge may have wider ambitions. What’s strange, talking to some candidates who have been through the process, is that Sir Philip May – husband of former PM Theresa May – was one of those interviewing would-be candidates.
CCHQ net-zero hero
Since May’s government was the first major economy to legally commit to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050, having Sir Philip as being part of Badenoch’s anti-net zero pogrom seems surprising; it certainly was to the candidate who was interviewed by him. His wife’s landmark policy amended the 2008 Climate Change Act in her final days in office.
But a senior source close to Badenoch defends Sir Philip being used as a selection gatekeeper, saying: “It is a testament to Kemi’s trust that Philip is being involved in the candidate process. It shows that she is not being factional.”
Such discrimination against anybody Kemi doesn’t much care for does raise questions about whether the Conservative Party is striking the right note in claiming to be the party of meritocracy and equal opportunity. The Tory party has always been a fairly broad church, tolerating whiggish Tories (now called wets) as much as more right-wing traditional types like Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg (whether he has applied for reselection is unknown).
Exactly why Grant Shapps has been axed as a candidate is not clear. But it cannot have helped that he was appointed in February 2023 by Rishi Sunak as the first Cabinet minister for the newly created portfolio of Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, although he only lasted six months.
Yet when a former political colleague rang to commiserate Shapps after the news broke of his candidate humiliation, he told me: “Grant was surprised. He thought the interview had gone well enough. There was no blow-up or argument during the selection board process.”
Hapless Shapps
One CCHQ insider tells The Mace that Shapps may have been made an example of, having held so many offices of state – including transport secretary, business secretary, energy secretary, defence secretary and, briefly, home secretary – that he became something of a poster boy for the Tory brand that Kemi is keen to distance herself from.
He also had a habit of appearing in the press in various mishaps that didn’t reflect well on his day Job as a constituent MP or minister. Among other things, he was revealed to use various business pseudonyms including Michael Green, Corinne Stockheath and Sebastian Fox, attracting unwelcome media attention in 2012.
“Kemi is determined that there is to be visible change in the personnel in the Conservative parliamentary party” says The Mace‘s CCHQ source. “She is showing a streak of ruthlessness which many in the parliamentary party welcome. Nobody is trying to stand in her way. She has been clear that only those committed to her new policies will be allowed back in, particularly if they have a history of factionalism.”
Speak to former parliamentary colleagues of Shapps and they will note that he was always manoeuvring to be on the winning team and lived by the example of George Osborne’s Westminster career advice: “Always back the leadership candidate most likely to win.” In Shapps’s case, he first jumped on the Theresa May bandwagon and then leapt onto the Boris and Rishi express trains. No wonder CCHQ pulled the ripcord.
On the whole, I favour Kemi’s candidate pogrom. Labour and Conservative candidate selection has long been a rotten racket. To read why, read my full article here.
Labour’s nepo problem
You have to hand it to the Telegraph’s Camilla Tominey. She knows how to go for the political jugular, such as her excoriating piece on how Andy Burnham has promised radical change and rewiring of the Labour ranks. Yet his latest appointments only show how Labour’s political nepotism is more entrenched than ever.
As our Westminster reporter Lucy Carrier-Pilkington argues in her insightful piece on Labour’s political favouritism, Burnham should be wary of allowing these political cliques to dominate the highest offices as it is destined to cause upset among the long-suffering Labour backbenchers – backbenchers that have proven to be politically lethal, as Burnham’s predecessor is well aware of.
As Tominey put it in her Telegraph article: “Far from changing the guard, Burnham’s opening move has been to reassemble the same tired, insular ecosystem that has dominated the Labour apparatus for generations.”
She added, twisting the knife: “What we are witnessing isn’t a political revolution; it is the grand reunion of Labour’s own establishment – a tightly woven web of power couples, political dynasties and factional gatekeepers.”
Tominey points to the promotion of Westminster’s infamous inner circle: the “Bridesmaid Gang”. This title was coined when Ellie Reeves posed for a photo last year on the House of Commons terrace alongside her A-lister bridesmaids Rachel Reeves, culture minister Stephanie Peacock and deputy chief whip Vicky Foxcroft. Now Ellie Reeves, whose time managing campaign operations was marred by accusations of heavy-handedness, has retained her position as attorney general.
Unfortunately for the backbenchers, this government will prioritise alignment with the elite network over competence and experience. Loyalty will trump merit, as Carrier-Pilkington explains.
Father and Son
Burnham’s front bench continues to harbour the Labour political dynasties, which date back decades, demonstrating the influence of familial nepotism networks as well as friendships. Stephen Kinnock, son of former leader Neil Kinnock and former minister Glenys Kinnock, is now Secretary of State for Wales. Furthermore, Hamish Falconer, son of Tony Blair’s Lord Chancellor Charlie Falconer, has just been promoted in the Foreign Office despite having just two years of parliamentary experience.
Alongside this is the appointment of Georgia Gould as Minister of State in the Department for Education. Georgia, whose father is Philip Gould – Baron Gould of Brookwood and former adviser to the Labour Party – spent her childhood holidays with Alastair Campbell, Tessa Jowell and the family of Tony Blair. As a baby, Georgia was featured on the cover of Private Eye being held by Neil Kinnock in the run-up to the 1987 general election. Despite being the party of ordinary people, many of the biggest players in government have had far from ordinary lives.
In his Mace article on how Labour’s ruling political families operate, Mark Leftly writes: “Mapping Labour is an art rather than a science” as the connections, loyalties and rivalries are less obvious than those in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties. Indeed, the tension between David Cameron and Boris Johnson can clearly be traced to their time at Eton. Yet one of the strongest networks in Labour is what some have dubbed the “Roses set”, made up of Burnham admirers based in Yorkshire and Lancashire such as Angela Rayner and Louise Haigh. Both have now returned to cabinet.
Nepotism has caused frustration in the Labour ranks before, leading to resignations and public calls for change. In September 2024, Labour MP Rosie Duffield resigned the Labour whip, accusing the then prime minister Keir Starmer and his inner circle of “sleaze, nepotism and apparent avarice” and “never regularly engaging” with his backbench MPs.
To read Lucy’s article, click here.
Burnham should reform, not reorganise
Andy Burnham is shaking up Whitehall with more change than any incoming prime minister in memory. But does he really understand why the political machinery has failed for previous PMs?
This is the question tackled by Mace columnist Sir Bernard Jenkin MP in his next column for the September issue of the magazine.
Yes, there is positive action to address the issues of “Government Recruitment Service, Pensions, Shared Services, Government Car Service, and Security Vetting”, but, as Sir Bernard notes, this almost certainly reflects the new cabinet secretary’s agenda, rather than Burnham’s. This looks like part of Dame Antonio Romeo’s own, and welcome, Review of the Organisation, Performance and Transformation of the Permanent Civil Service, which is becoming more mindful of itself, but Burnham’s changes look like a “shuffling of deckchairs” rather than transformation. It does not report until early 2027, so Burnham has started his rewiring before the work that might have told him what to rewire.
Cult or culture?
Transformation requires a comprehensive plan. An outline plan is already set out by the Effective Governance Forum in Restoring Public Confidence in Government, co-authored by Prof Nada Kakabadse of Henley Business School and Jenkin. Restructurings and reorganisations have little if any effect on organisational effectiveness, which is determined by the way people believe, feel, think and behave, not what their job titles are. If they move to new departments or into or out of the Cabinet Office, they will still reflect and re-embed the same culture: the same attitudes and behavioural norms that are holding things back.
What would work, say the authors, is a plan to change the attitudes and behaviours reorganisation leaves untouched. In Restoring Public Confidence in Government, Kakabadse and Sir Bernard propose a State Effectiveness Council. This is not another rewiring: there is no new department to build and no boxes to move. Chaired by the prime minister and modelled on the National Security Council, it would meet regularly and hold permanent secretaries to account for the culture and capability of their departments, not merely for in-year spending.
Their research found 17 or 18 attempts at reform since the 1968 Fulton Committee lamented the cult of the generalist in Whitehall. Today that cult is more in the ascendancy than ever. The culture assumes that any permanent secretary can run any department or agency. Little value is attached to domain knowledge or subject expertise. Tenures are far shorter than for CEOs in companies.
Churn, baby, churn
The churn of officials is universally lamented, yet it carries on. Competency-based interviews, open recruitment, uncompetitive salaries and no real performance management leave little reward for staying long enough to do a job well.
Except in a crisis like Covid, caution and process are rewarded more than experimentation and bold decisions. Defence procurement shows how risk aversion costs money and delay. The disillusioned stay to build a CV that earns them more in the private sector. The “slow horses” stay for the inflation-protected final salary pension. Machinery changes will not fix this and probably make it worse, because every reorganisation sets off another round of churn.
The column makes for fascinating reading and I cannot reveal all before publication in September. But its key point is that Burnham is silent on the two words that matter: culture and leadership
He is reorganising Whitehall because he can look in charge by announcing this in his first week. He should beware Peter Drucker’s adage: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” Without leadership to change culture, Sir Bernard gloomily concludes, this government “will fail in the face of the big challenges”: debt, an ageing population, immigration, security, Russia, China and, above all, economic sclerosis.
The Advocate: Joe Chapman
Joe Chapman, Head of Public Affairs, Manchester Airports Group, “I love being an advocate”. Read more >
The Strategist: Sonia Khan
Senior partner, H/Advisors. “Those of us who’ve spent a good amount of time in government understand how government operates”. Read more >
The Mace Questionnaire: Rt Hon Darren Jones MP
With Andy Burnham purging Starmer loyalists, his politically savvy fixer-in-chief Darren Jones is now on the backbenches. In his Mace Q & A, the former Chief Secretary to the PM reveals that when the political going gets tough, he plays the D:Ream anthem “Things Can Only Get Better”. Read more >
From the Archive
With Andy Burnham hoping to fix Whitehall, we look back to when Dom Cummings tried his own revolution back in our first issue of 2021. Read more >
Op-ed of the Week
Lucy Carrier-Pilkington argues that Burnham’s surprise appointment of John Healey as Chancellor of the Exchequer proves that Westminster politics is an unpredictable game of thrones. Read more >
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