The Labour mantra in public, and in private has been not just to win, but to be ready to get things done. In their mind are what they see as the lessons of New Labour and Tony Blair’s frustration with the slow pace of change. One new minister tells of a meeting where they briefed the former PM about their plans and he warned them: “I so deeply regret that we didn’t hit the ground running on reform.”
“Keir has taken this incredibly seriously,” the minister told me.
Appointing the cabinet’s been done, but there are dozens of other MPs to receive government jobs, with advisers and new members of the House of Lords. They include the former Chief Scientific Adviser Sir Patrick Vallance who has been appointed as a minister of state at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
I’m told the former health secretary, Alan Milburn, is likely to take a senior, though not ministerial, role at the Department of Health to help drive waiting lists down. Other departments and other appointments might throw up some interesting names.
But for all the preparation and experience, the receipt of power and responsibility is huge.
One official said of incoming prime ministers: “They come in exhausted from this now-seemingly endless campaign, they come in elated, they appoint their cabinet – that is a great moment for them. And then sour-faced people like me say, ‘now, can I talk to you about the end of the world!’”
Sir Keir is in a hurry not just to show the public that his government can actually get things done after years of visible political shambles. But he’s also been counselled to make the most of the early goodwill from his vast ranks of new victors, before, inevitably in time, however long, the Parliamentary Labour Party starts to flex its muscles.
One former Labour adviser told me, he should “Go quick! Go Fast, before they find the loos!”
It is true that his team has tried very hard to control the quality of candidates, and many loyalists will be picking up their pass for the first day in the big palace soon. But as former prime ministers have found, bright-eyed new recruits don’t stay eager forever.
