Politicians have given away too much power to lawyers, activists and regulators, and cannot deliver their promises, an ex-aide to the prime minister has said.
Writing in The Times, Paul Ovenden, who quit as Keir Starmer’s director of political strategy last September after offensive messages he had sent in 2017 surfaced, said the British state had got “bigger and bigger while simultaneously and systematically emasculating itself”.
He also said the case of the British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd El Fattah “revealed the sheer weirdness of how Whitehall spends its time”.
Speaking to the BBC, he said with a “stiffening resolve” politicians could “take back control” of the levers of democracy.
Mr Ovenden told Radio 4’s Today programme, that he believed Sir Keir was “exactly the right person” to make changes adding: “He does feel those frustrations very acutely.”
Separately, Chris Powell – who worked on four Labour general elections and the brother of the PM’s adviser Jonathan Powell – has said the Labour government needs a “fundamental reset” in order to fight off the electoral threat posed by Reform UK.
Writing in The Guardian, he said voters were “fed up, think nothing works – and some are simply angry and feel ignored”.
Their comments come at the start of a potentially difficult year for the prime minister which includes local elections in May and the threat of a leadership challenge from those in the Labour Party unhappy with his performance so far.
Mr Abd El Fattah was imprisoned in an Egyptian jail for more than a decade after being convicted of “spreading fake news” about torture in the country.
He was released in September following lobbying by successive British governments and arrived in the UK last week.
His arrival was initially welcomed by the prime minister who said he was “delighted” and that his case had been “a top priority for my government”.
However, Sir Keir faced criticism when social media posts emerged in which Mr Abd El Fattah called for the killing of Zionists and police officers.
Sir Keir said he had been unaware of the “absolutely abhorrent” posts, which Mr Abd El Fattah has since apologised for, and that the government was reviewing the “information failures in this case”.
Reflecting on the case, Mr Ovenden told Radio 4’s Today programme: “We’d be having long meetings on the priorities of the government and they would be railroaded by any other business into discussions about this gentleman.
“Most of us on the political side of government weren’t that aware of it, weren’t that tuned into it because it didn’t impact us on a day-to-day basis.
“It actually became a kind of running joke within government that people would always find a way to bring it back to this conversation.”
He said the case “became sort of totemic of the distraction of issues that it felt like a different part of government were fascinated by”.
Asked why politicians could not ignore these subjects, Mr Ovenden said they had “effectively handed away power”.
“What they’re really trying to do is hand away risk but they’ve handed away power to arm’s length bodies, to quangos, to activists, to lawyers, to regulatory framework, to well-networked organisations… who are able to basically stop the machinery of government doing things.”
He said examples of subjects he considered to be distractions included paying colonial reparations or banning vaping in pub gardens.
He added that it was “no surprise the public are fed up with politicians’ ability to get things done” but that he believed that “we can change this and change quite quickly”.
He argued that the government should start by scaling back some of the government’s legal obligations such as environmental obligations for building and the right to launch legal challenges against government policies through judicial reviews.
His comments echoed a sentiment previously expressed by others in government, including the prime minister.
Before Christmas, when asked by the parliamentary Liaison Committee what he had found most difficult in government, Sir Keir replied: “Speed and ability to get things done in Parliament.
“We have so many checks and balances and consultations and regulations and arm’s length bodies.
“My own sense, after 12 to 18 months in the job – and this is a fault of governments of all political colours – is that every time something has gone wrong in the past, successive governments have put in place another procedure, another body or another consultation to try to stop ourselves ever making a mistake again.
“My experience as prime minister is of frustration that every time I go to pull a lever, there are a whole bunch of regulations, consultations and arm’s length bodies that mean the action from pulling the lever to delivery is longer than I think it ought to be, which is among the reasons I want to cut down on regulation generally and within government.”
