The stock takes put pressure on departments to get their ducks in a row, said people with knowledge of them, and give Cabinet ministers face-time with Starmer to press their most urgent requests \u2014 including getting No. 10 to lean on other departments. \u201cThe prime minister wants\u201d are still among the most powerful words in Whitehall.<\/p>\n
There is continuity, too. Supporters of the PM point out that the missions themselves still stand, two and a half years after Starmer unveiled them. The Cabinet ministers leading them have all remained in their jobs. Starmer\u2019s \u201cPlan for Change\u201d \u2014 which attached \u201cmilestones\u201d to the missions \u2014 is mentioned constantly in government press releases (under orders from No. 10), and the missions govern the structure of the \u201cgrid,\u201d the weekly news planner circulated to senior communications officials.<\/p>\n
While roles as \u201cbusiness champions\u201d for loyal, fresh-faced Labour backbenchers to sell the message were quietly scrapped in July, similar \u201cmission champions\u201d still exist. There are regional champions, as well as mission-specific ones \u2014 Rosie Wrighting on health, Dan Tomlinson on growth, Tom Hayes on net zero, and Sarah Smith on opportunity. Fellow new MP Linsey Farnsworth was the champion for tackling crime, but her role ended in the summer after she spoke out against planned welfare cuts and she has not yet been replaced, said one person with knowledge of the move.<\/p>\n
Some other Labour MPs, though, have long complained that Starmer\u2019s overlapping missions, milestones and steps blur the message they are meant to send to the public. Events and crises can knock these long-term goals off course, too. A second former government official said: \u201cThey\u2019ve been talking about nothing but small boats all summer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It takes time<\/strong><\/p>\n These struggles should surprise no one, according to Michelle Clement, a lecturer at King\u2019s College London who wrote \u201cThe Art of Delivery,\u201d a study of Blair\u2019s first delivery unit.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re in the equivalent of 1998,\u201d she told POLITICO. Blair, frustrated by the pace of change on key domestic priorities, only set up his unit in 2001. Whitehall is still getting over life under five Conservative PMs in 14 years. \u201cAll of the change and churn that we saw in recent years of prime ministers does have an impact on the capacity of the state,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The stock takes put pressure on departments to get their ducks in a row, said people with knowledge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":388299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[9311,802,748,1194,5177,2001,2438,5293,32,2266,33,1312,30561,34,35,393,474,36,1945,4884,1195,2348,476,6084,1302,1197,36778,807,134652,12337,3739,384,1144,5111,46636,6738,47,17471,619,48,712,1199,479,1200,27005,16,657,15,1764,771,12340,1202,98158],"class_list":{"0":"post-388298","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-angela-rayner","11":"tag-brexit","12":"tag-britain","13":"tag-budget","14":"tag-columbia","15":"tag-communications","16":"tag-department","17":"tag-diplomacy","18":"tag-donald-trump","19":"tag-education","20":"tag-elections","21":"tag-electricity","22":"tag-electricity-grid","23":"tag-emmanuel-macron","24":"tag-energy","25":"tag-england","26":"tag-finance","27":"tag-france","28":"tag-friedrich-merz","29":"tag-great-britain","30":"tag-growth","31":"tag-history","32":"tag-inflation","33":"tag-infrastructure","34":"tag-innovation","35":"tag-investment","36":"tag-john-f-kennedy","37":"tag-keir-starmer","38":"tag-mariana-mazzucato","39":"tag-missions","40":"tag-net-zero","41":"tag-nigel-farage","42":"tag-northern-ireland","43":"tag-parliament","44":"tag-pat-mcfadden","45":"tag-patients","46":"tag-poll","47":"tag-private-investment","48":"tag-rachel-reeves","49":"tag-rights","50":"tag-scotland","51":"tag-services","52":"tag-tariffs","53":"tag-tax","54":"tag-tony-blair","55":"tag-uk","56":"tag-ukraine","57":"tag-united-kingdom","58":"tag-wales","59":"tag-war","60":"tag-welfare","61":"tag-westminster-bubble","62":"tag-westminster-insider"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=388298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/388299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=388298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=388298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=388298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}