Keir Starmer was facing fresh questions about his judgment last night after removing a third senior aide in a bid to turn round Labour’s dire poll ratings.
Downing Street sources confirmed that the Prime Minister’s principal private secretary Nin Pandit is leaving the role just 10 months after being appointed by Sir Keir as his gatekeeper.
Her departure follows the sacking of former chief of staff Sue Gray last October and the departure of former No 10 communications chief Matthew Doyle in March.
Whitehall sources said she is set to be replaced by the senior Treasury official Dan York-Smith in a bid to ensure No 10 has greater oversight of the Budget.
One insider said the move was designed to prevent the PM being ‘blindsided’ by the Treasury again, following complaints that there was too little consideration of controversial moves by Rachel Reeves, such as scrapping the winter fuel allowance and slashing disability benefits, both of which had to be dropped.
Sir Keir is also poised to implement a major reshuffle of his junior ministerial team when he returns from holiday next week in a bid to revive his flagging government.
Some ministers are also pushing for the removal of Cabinet Secretary Chris Wormald, who was appointed by Sir Keir in December last year. One cabinet source described Sir Chris as ‘a plodder, when we need a radical’.
Kemi Badenoch said the ongoing chaos in No 10 resulted from the PM having ‘no plan’ for the country.
The Tory leader said: ‘Keir Starmer keeps sacking advisers, losing ministers, and briefing against his own team in the papers. Another reset won’t hide the truth: he has no plan, no direction, and needs his Red Folder to remind him what he stands for.’
Sources briefed the BBC that Ms Pandit was being removed because she was ‘ineffective’ in the role as the PM’s most senior official.
The brutal briefing triggered a backlash among senior officials.
One Whitehall source told the Daily Mail that Ms Pandit had been ‘treated appallingly’.
‘She is a brilliant, dedicated civil servant,’ the source said. ‘She has never courted a public profile so to brief against her publicly in this way is just appalling.’
Ms Pandit was head of the No 10 policy unit under Rishi Sunak and previously served in senior roles at NHS England. During the Covid pandemic she was singled out by Dominic Cummings as ‘one of the brilliant women around the table’.
Downing Street said Ms Pandit would be taking up a new role leading on the delivery of Labour’s five ‘missions’ and reporting directly to Sir Keir.
A No 10 source insisted she retained the PM’s ‘full trust and backing’. The source said her new role was being created because the PM ‘wants to take direct oversight of how the government’s priorities are being delivered.’
The role of principal private secretary is one of the most powerful behind the scenes jobs in government, controlling access to the PM and his diary and effectively running the civil service operation in No 10. Previous incumbents include Lord Case and the late Sir Jeremy Heywood, who both went on to run the civil service as cabinet secretary.
The shake up comes as polling suggests support for Labour has reached a new low, following a summer in which the government allowed Nigel Farage’s Reform party to dominate the news agenda with a series of eye-catching announcements.
A YouGov poll this week put support for Labour on just 20 per cent – the lowest since the election, and far behind Reform on 28 per cent. The slump follows a series of embarrassing U-turns and failure to end the cost of living crisis.
John McTernan, a former No 10 aide to Tony Blair, yesterday said the PM was right to reshuffle his team as there had ‘not been a grip on domestic policy’.
He told BBC Radio Four’s World at One show: ‘There’s a thing about Keir where if you look across his career as party leader, he doesn’t always get it right first (time) but when he decides he needs to change, he moves quickly..’