Downing Street Spads Nervous as McSweeney Plots Clear Out – Guido Fawkes

EXC: Downing Street Spads Nervous as McSweeney Plots Clear Out

mdi-fullscreen

The focus is on Downing Street personnel instead of ministers ahead of a reshuffle penned in for Monday, Guido is told. SpAds are braced for a Morgan McSweeney autumn clean out…

Multiple sources say Political Director Claire Reynolds is up for the chop. Guido hears that other Downing Street political staff are feeling nervy. Insider sources say numerous personnel in the Policy Unit as well as Director of Communications (Delivery) Steph Driver are privately worried about being shuffled on…

Guido hears the feeling among some political staff is that Nin Pandit’s departure – which has bolstered the hated pen-pusher Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald – is not seen as enough. One Downing Street source tells Guido there are “no plans to tackle Wormald” and someone additional will be brought in – but that it “doesn’t seem likely that will be landed by Monday.”

With regard to that tongues are wagging in SW1 about the potential incoming appointment of Helen “Karaoke” MacNamara. Co-conspirators may remember MacNamara – former Propriety and Ethics director and subsequent deputy Cabinet Secretary. She has been personally pushing for the formation of a new Downing Street department with its own permanent secretary. A widely held view is that partygate has tarred her excessively. Guido hears Helen still has fans inside government…

The shuffle is being managed by numerous staff with competing recommendations to Starmer, hence the stop-and-start announcements. This is life with “the grown ups back in charge”…