PM must ‘get a grip’ of briefings after Chris Wormald forced out, O’Donnell says

Sir Keir Starmer needs to “get a grip” of negative briefings in Government after the head of the civil service was forced out of his job, a former cabinet secretary has said.

Lord Gus O’Donnell urged the Prime Minister to “take responsibility” for a pattern of anonymous criticism targeting senior figures, which he described as one of the Labour administration’s “biggest failings”.

Opposition critics have accused Sir Keir of scapegoating top mandarin Sir Chris Wormald to “save his own skin” following weeks of political turbulence amid the Mandelson scandal.

The Cabinet Office said on Thursday that Sir Chris had come to a “mutual” agreement with the Prime Minister to step down as cabinet secretary with immediate effect.

But it follows a string of negative reports in the media suggesting his performance was being called into question after he was appointed by Sir Keir just 14 months ago.

Lord O’Donnell, who served as cabinet secretary under three prime ministers, drew parallels with the previous resignation of former mandarin Sue Gray, who quit as Labour’s chief of staff in 2024 following a slew of briefings against her.

“Where it’s shabby is the fact that we’ve got to this place and that they have briefed anonymously against the cabinet secretary saying it’s not working,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“They’ve been doing this for a long time. This is a process that this Government – I’m afraid it’s one of their biggest failings.”

He added: “This is the fundamental problem, and that is something the Prime Minister can solve by getting a grip on his special advisers.”

Asked whether spads had become too active, the peer, who led the civil service during the premierships of Sir Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Lord David Cameron, said: “Really good spads are really useful.

“I’ve worked with Ed Balls, Alastair Campbell, Jonathan Powell. If they’re good, they understand their subject, they can make the relationship between ministers and civil servants work a lot better.

“Bad special advisers turn out to be second-rate PR people – can be disastrous.”

He cited pre-budget briefings as another example, describing the run-up to the autumn statement last year as a “complete omnishambles from a comms point of view”.

A leak inquiry was launched following the reporting, which ministers say was unauthorised and included a story in the Financial Times that plans to increase income tax had been dropped, but the source has not been identified.

“The Prime Minister must take responsibility and get a grip,” Lord O’Donnell added.

In a series of broadcast interviews on Friday morning, water minister Emma Hardy rejected suggestions Sir Chris had been blamed for Sir Keir’s own failings.

She dismissed Tory accusations that the senior official had been “thrown under the bus” as “the usual political knockabout,” though other figures in Whitehall are also unhappy about his departure.

Sir Chris is the third senior figure to quit the Government in the past week, following Sir Keir’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and communications director Tim Allan.

He is widely expected to be replaced by Home Office permanent secretary Dame Antonia Romeo, viewed by Downing Street as a “disrupter”, despite warnings from her former boss at the Foreign Office.

Ex-permanent secretary Lord Simon McDonald urged the Prime Minister to start the recruitment process “from scratch” to ensure there was proper “due diligence”.

Dame Antonia previously faced allegations of bullying related to her time as consul-general in New York, but she was later cleared by the Cabinet Office.

Government sources have dismissed Lord McDonald’s claims, saying there was “absolutely no basis for this criticism” and calling him “a senior male official whose time has passed”.

Dame Antonia is one of the three civil servants filling in as cabinet secretary in the interim following Sir Chris’s departure, alongside Cabinet Office permanent secretary Cat Little and Treasury permanent secretary James Bowler.

After 35 years in the civil service, Sir Chris is now the shortest-serving cabinet secretary in history, lasting less than the 23 months Sir Mark Sedwill held the position for under Theresa May and Boris Johnson.

Sir Chris is said to have received a £260,000 payout as part of the agreement that saw him leave the role, with The Times reporting the payment had to be signed off by the Prime Minister as it did not meet Whitehall’s value-for-money rules.

A similar payment of almost £250,000 previously had to be approved by Mr Johnson when the now Lord Sedwill stood down as cabinet secretary in 2020.

However, Lord O’Donnell said Sir Keir had “every right” to get rid of the official and suggested that the Prime Minister could be asked to approve the pay-off to avoid a “potential conflict of interest” because the amount is determined by an official reporting to Sir Chris.

He added that the Government still had a “three plus years with a great big majority,” meaning now “could be a great time to move on.”

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the Prime Minister’s judgment was “as woeful as it is lacking in backbone” and described the handling of Sir Chris’ departure as “preposterous”.

She had previously urged the Civil Service Commission to advise Sir Keir not to dismiss the official until the disclosure of Government files relating to Lord Mandelson – overseen by the Cabinet Office – is complete.

The probe led by the top civil servant into the former UK ambassador to Washington’s contact with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein while he was a Government minister should also be concluded first, she said.

On Friday, she said: “If another country was paying off a senior official in the middle of a scandal involving the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer would be calling it corruption.

“In this case, that senior official was literally running the investigation into the Mandelson scandal.

“Once again, the Prime Minister’s judgment is found wanting. For a man who has played holier than thou all his life, the latest series of blunders shows someone who is at best unsuited to the role or at worst morally bankrupt.”

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey: “Very worried about who Keir Starmer will blame when there is literally no-one else left in Number 10.”

He told the Press Association that recent “instability” was “undermining our economy, undermining his Government, undermining their ability to sort problems out – in the health service for example”.

“I think that Keir Starmer is very weak, and I don’t think he’s out of the woods yet,” Sir Ed said.