No 10 regrets choice of ‘insipid’ new cabinet secretary, sources say
Keir Starmer’s No 10 increasingly has “buyer’s remorse” about the new cabinet secretary, Chris Wormald, who has only been running the civil service for six months, Downing Street and Whitehall sources have told the Guardian.Wormald, who was the permanent secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care during the Covid pandemic, was chosen by the prime minister from a shortlist of four names.Starmer made his pick in consultation with the head of the civil service and the first civil service commissioner, saying at the time that Wormald “brings a wealth of experience to this role at a critical moment in the work of change this new government has begun”.However, multiple sources said some people around Starmer were growing to view the choice of Wormald as “disastrous” for the prospects of radical reform of the civil service and had begun to explore options for how to work around him.One said Wormald was viewed as “insipid” and prone to wringing his hands about problems rather than coming up with solutions, and too entrenched in the status quo.
The Spectator reported on Thursday that Starmer had picked Wormald despite others being looked on more favourably by the expert panel that had shortlisted the candidates.It quoted a cabinet minister as saying: “If you want to do drastic reform of the state, you don’t appoint someone whose grandfather and father were both civil servants.”It is understood the panel did not rank the candidates, so there was no preferred choice, but gave four “appointable” names who would do the job well and assessments of each one.The shortlist of four also included Antonia Romeo, now permanent secretary at the Home Office, Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office permanent secretary, and Tamara Finkelstein, the permanent secretary at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.A government spokesperson said: “The appointment decision was made in line with the usual procedures for appointing permanent secretaries.
Under this process, a panel proposes a shortlist of appointable candidates for a final decision by the prime minister.“The cabinet secretary is leading the work to rewire the way government operates, driving efficiency and reducing bureaucracy as part of prime minister’s plan for change to renew our country.”The doubts about the choice of Wormald as cabinet secretary are not new but it has been a difficult few weeks for Starmer on domestic policy, with questions over why he became distracted by foreign affairs and missed the implications of a looming rebellion on welfare cuts.The cabinet secretary is the prime minister’s most senior policy adviser and also responsible for running the civil service.In the past, prime ministers have attempted to solve problems with how No 10 and the government is run by splitting the role into a cabinet secretary, a Cabinet Office permanent secretary and a separate head of the civil service, as happened under David Cameron.
These were merged back into a single cabinet secretary in 2014 after a three-year experiment in dividing power,The Times reported in April that No 10 was considering greater changes to the machinery of government to create more executive power at the centre, with fewer procedural demands on officials’ time, a higher bar for public inquiries, and a civil service that better reflects Britain’s class diversity,On his appointment, Wormald told civil servants they would have to “do things differently” and promised a “rewiring of the way the government works”,His position is likely to come under further scrutiny when the next stage of Covid inquiry reports are published in the autumn on core political and administrative decision-making,The first report found there had been “a lack of adequate leadership” in Britain’s pandemic preparation, saying the civil service and governments “failed their citizens”.
Kae Tempest: Self Titled review – the rhythms in his lyrics are still so distinct
On a track called Bless the Bold Future, Kae Tempest wrestles with the urge to bring children into a world beset by catastrophe; the landscape of the 39-year-old’s fifth album Self Titled is indeed characterised by pain, anxiety and suffering. On Hyperdistillation, a man dies sleeping rough outside uninhabited penthouses as NHS backlogs threaten lives, and the ravey Diagnoses presents mental health issues as “the right response to a world gone wrong,” while Statue in the Square’s doomy grime reckons with a climate of transphobia (Tempest came out as non-binary in 2020 and earlier this year revealed his gender transition).And yet, there is something irrepressibly joyous about this album, which is essentially a collection of love letters: to the trans community, to the Londoner’s home town, to his partner. Tempest’s ability to imbue societal decay and personal torment with strange beauty, via lyricism honed on the performance poetry scene, is unparalleled, and his roots in the art form are still very much evident in his earnest, rhythmic delivery.Sometimes, the actual music struggles to keep up and fit in
Mark Gatiss: ‘What does Benedict Cumberbatch smell like? Strawberries’
As the writer and actor unveils his new detective show Bookish, he sits down for a chat about famous sleuths, the odds of a return to Royston Vasey and what it’s like working with Tom CruiseMark Gatiss arrived on our screens playing a variety of grotesques in The League of Gentlemen: mysterious butcher Hilary Briss; palm-reader Mama Lazarou; the buck-toothed, mullet-sporting job-seeker Mickey Michaels; and many more. He co-founded and co-wrote the BBC comedy with Steve Pemberton, Reece Shearsmith and Jeremy Dyson after meeting them at college, and has teamed up with Doctor Who showrunner Steven Moffat to write and cameo in numerous episodes of the Time Lord drama, before the pair created the smash-hit update of Sherlock, in which Gatiss also appeared as Holmes’s brother Mycroft, and another BBC series, Dracula. If that weren’t enough, Gatiss has also popped up in Game of Thrones, Operation Mincemeat and the last two Mission: Impossible films.Now he’s back in a new detective drama Bookish, in which he plays a crime-solving book emporium owner. We caught up to chat about why he loves the 1940s; whether there will be more Sherlock, Dracula or League of Gentlemen; and what he’d like to do with Tom Cruise
To Kill a Mockingbird: a call to compassion that’s more urgent than ever
It’s impossible to watch Robert Mulligan’s 1962 adaptation of Harper Lee’s great novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and not be moved by Gregory Peck’s performance as Atticus Finch, a small-town American lawyer with an unfailing moral compass. Light years from the archetypal legal eagle, he radiates good old-fashioned decency, espousing tolerance and compassion that sadly feels almost passe amid the Sturm und Drang of the current world.“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view,” goes one of Finch’s great lines, sourced from Lee’s book. In perhaps the film’s most memorable scene, Peck deliverers a grand courtroom monologue, declaring that “all men are created equal”, imploring the jury to “in the name of God, believe Tom Robinson,” the black man accused of raping a white woman – a crime he didn’t commit.When I think about this film, my mind recalls that monologue in vivid colour – even though it’s shot in monochrome
My night at the museum … for an ‘adult sleepover’, with lots of dinosaurs and no kids allowed
Museums around the world are opening up for grownups wanting to explore by torchlight and sleep among exhibits. Clem Bastow heads to Melbourne Museum to try one outGet our weekend culture and lifestyle emailIt’s about 1.30am and I’ve just heard a spooky noise – the sort of noise that would usually send me shooting out of bed with a torch and baseball bat to investigate my no doubt impending doom. Fortunately, on this occasion I am not alone in my flat but surrounded by 39 other nerds sleeping (relatively) soundly in the Dinosaur Walk at Melbourne Museum. The source of the noise is a nearby tawny frogmouth
‘Someone compared it to Bohemian Rhapsody’: Wookie on making UK garage classic Battle
‘We added a level of sophistication to garage. When we were trying to get it on the radio, one station said it was too intelligent and they wouldn’t play it’People say Battle reminds them of some really good years for Britain as a country. We were entering a new millennium, everyone was running their own business, making money and the underground record industry was thriving. I wanted to do a UK garage version of Southern Freeez, by the 80s UK funk band Freeez. Initially, Battle was going to be another instrumental, and then Lain, the singer, came in the room and goes: “Let me put something on this
Manchester Museum asks visitors if Egyptian woman’s body should be taken off display
One of Europe’s leading museums is asking visitors if it should continue to display the body of an ancient Egyptian woman 200 years after it was brought to the UK by cotton merchants, as it “decolonises” some of its most famous exhibits.Manchester Museum, which in May was named 2025’s European museum of the year, is running a consultation on the future of Asru, a woman who lived in Thebes, the ancient city in the location of modern-day Luxor, 2,700 years ago.A plaque at the museum asks: “Should we continue to display the body of Asru?”, inviting visitors to submit answers in a postbox underneath.It adds: “Asru’s mummified body was unwrapped at the Manchester Natural History Society in April 1825. She has regularly been on display for the two centuries since
There’s more to Italian sparkling wine than prosecco
Rachel Roddy’s recipe for folded flatbreads with tomato, onion and cheese (scacce) | A kitchen in Rome
Blood oranges, beets and brussels sprouts: Australia’s best-value fruit and veg for July
How can I use leftover pickle brine in day-to-day cooking? | Kitchen aide
How to turn veg scraps into a delicious dip – recipe | Waste not
Frittata, ‘egg and chips’ and a bean feast: Sami Tamimi’s brunch recipes from Palestine