Who could fill key No 10 vacancies – and win the battle for Starmer’s ear?

 

Analysis

Who could fill key No 10 vacancies – and win the battle for Starmer’s ear?

Rowena Mason and Kiran Stacey

Everyone around PM agrees ‘chaos’ at No 10 has to be sorted, but there are competing factions trying to gain upper hand

 

Tue 10 Feb 2026 19.01 GMT

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/10/who-could-fill-key-no-10-vacancies-keir-starmer-ear

 

With three vacancies opening up at the very top of Keir Starmer’s operation, there is already a battle over who will win the war for his ear – and the direction of the government.

 

The departure of Starmer’s most important political advisers – his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who was focused on the fight against Reform in Labour’s working-class heartlands; and Tim Allan, the director of communication, considered a Blairite – has immediately raised hopes on Labour’s soft left of a shift in their favour.

 

At the same time, Starmer’s decision to get rid of the bureaucratic Chris Wormald as cabinet secretary has opened the door for a more radical replacement to drive through some of the Whitehall reforms and policy changes the prime minister has been calling for.

 

The frontrunner for cabinet secretary is understood to be Antonia Romeo, the dynamic permanent secretary of the Home Office, who has impressed Shabana Mahmood, but other possible names floated include Minouche Shafik, Starmer’s economic adviser, and Louise Casey, the lead non-executive director for the government, who has previously said she would not be suited to the job.

 

The one thing that everyone around Starmer agrees on is that the current void in Downing Street cannot be allowed to continue for long. But there are now competing factions who want to stamp their mark on the largely blank canvas of his leadership.

 

A “let Starmer be Starmer” wing would like the prime minister to be more authentic, which they think can only arise if he is truer to his own instincts – more pro-EU and internationalist, less hardline on immigration and more radical on issues such as net zero and the economy. This would push a Starmer premiership closer to the politics of his friend and ally Richard Hermer, the attorney general, and help deal with the threat of the Greens and Your Party on the left eating into Labour’s vote.

 

Others believe the best course of action is sticking to McSweeney’s plan: relentless focus on the cost of living, fighting for swing voters tempted by Reform, dealing with public concerns about immigration and hoping that leftwing supporters return to Labour at the election when faced with the prospect of Nigel Farage.

 

While weighing up whether to change political course, Starmer has a major decision to make over the structure and makeup of his team. However, there is scepticism within No 10 that changing the cabinet secretary will make a difference to Starmer’s ability to achieve his political goals. “The cabinet secretary is just one person,” one Downing Street source said. “The whole place needs completely overhauling.” Another person in No 10 described it as “completely dysfunctional”.

 

Whitehall sources said Starmer would aim to avoid the presence of a single svengali – such as McSweeney and his predecessor, Sue Gray – who dominated attention with endless media speculation about their activities.

 

This has led to discussions about splitting responsibilities among a bigger team, but a big outside appointment has still not been ruled out. One idea that some in No 10 are promoting is appointing a “chief executive” figure who could oversee cross-departmental delivery while others deal with the politics.

 

Casey’s name crops up repeatedly in the context of an external choice for chief of staff, despite the risk that she could become a new lightning rod for media attention as a tough and practical enforcer with a reputation for banging heads together to get things done.

 

In the interim, Starmer has appointed two lower-profile co-chiefs of staff, Vidhya Alakeson, a former director of external affairs for Labour, and Jill Cuthbertson, who has a background in events and logistics.

 

For those who want Starmer to put his own stamp on his premiership more wholeheartedly, this “safe pair of hands” temporary team could allow him to assert himself outside the shadow of a supposedly genius single strategist.

 

Tom Baldwin, Starmer’s biographer, who has also been tipped for a No 10 communications or strategy job, says: “The answer to this government’s problems is to face outward to the country rather than inwards into a leadership battle or another round of celebrification of what should be anonymous advisers.”

 

Others are tipping Amy Richards, Starmer’s political director, or Varun Chandra, his business adviser and a former Hakluyt executive, for possible elevation to a chief of staff-type role. Richards, who formerly worked for Yvette Cooper, is well liked by MPs and has played a part in improving Starmer’s relations with the parliamentary party.

 

Chandra is another big figure in Downing Street who is charming and diplomatic, but critics say he has insufficient political experience and is not in touch with MPs enough to take on a chief of staff job. Jonathan Powell, Starmer’s veteran foreign policy adviser who was chief of staff to Blair, is said to be too effective in his current role to be moved.

 

As for the director of communications role, Starmer had cycled through the media aides Ben Nunn, Matthew Doyle, Steph Driver and James Lyons before Allan arrived just six months ago. There now appears appetite for the return of Driver, who was respected by the media and a calm operator who knew Starmer’s mind. One Labour source: “If they had any sense, Number 10 would go cap in hand to Steph Driver this afternoon and beg her to come back on whatever terms she wants.”

 

Others point to the presence of Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the prime minister, who already performs some elements of No 10 enforcer, without previously having had responsibility for strategy or team management. He would not get the title of chief of staff, given his cabinet role, but is already a powerful presence in No 10 who spent the day with the prime minister on Monday and will be supporting him to create the right team for phase two of the government.

 

Most of all, MPs appear to want Starmer to make the cabinet and the party feel part of a coherent team again, which some say they have not felt since July 2024.

 

“You need the cabinet to feel they are all part of the same project and it should be the prime minister that should bind them together and narrate that story,” said one Labour insider. “He spends far too much time doing policy and not storytelling and facing the public.