Starmer's Government Is Collapsing In Real Time

Three months into what should be a honeymoon period, Keir Starmer’s government looks like it’s held together with duct tape and wishful thinking.

Let’s start with the obvious problem: people around the prime minister keep getting caught doing things that require explanations. Matthew Doyle, Starmer’s ex-communications chief, got bounced from Downing Street in March 2025, then got a cushy Labour peerage. Sounds fine until this February he got suspended from the parliamentary party over links with a convicted sex offender. Now Starmer’s having to admit—publicly, mind you—that No 10 actually asked about a job for this guy. That’s not how any of this is supposed to work. You don’t ask about jobs for people who are about to become scandals.

Photo by Rostyslav / Pexels

Then there’s Lord Mandelson, the political fixer who’s supposedly coming in to sort things out. Except his appointment is drowning in controversy too. The PM’s former chief of staff is being called to give evidence about how Mandelson got his security clearance. And here’s the kicker: Sir Olly Robbins, the civil servant who approved it, has been fired by Starmer—publicly humiliated, essentially—over his “dismissive attitude” toward the vetting process. So now the guy who approved the clearance is defending his decision while unemployed, and the PM looks either incompetent or vindictive. Pick your poison.

This is where it gets interesting for anyone watching UK politics.

The civil service union boss is openly saying Starmer has sent a “chill” through Whitehall. That’s not business as usual tension between elected ministers and permanent officials. That’s the equivalent of your entire support staff getting nervous around you. When civil servants start moving cautiously, things slow down. Things get bureaucratic in ways that kill governments.

Compare this to 2010, when David Cameron came in and had to rebuild trust with the civil service after thirteen years of Labour rule. He managed it. He didn’t fire people and then have them testify against his own appointments. He didn’t create the impression that you could get fired for doing your actual job properly.

The economic backdrop makes this worse. UK inflation just ticked up because of the Iran war pushing fuel prices higher. We’re not talking recession-level chaos yet, but we’re talking about cost-of-living pressure hitting households right when Starmer’s government is supposed to be stabilizing things. That’s the moment when people stop caring about managerial competence and start caring about whether you can actually govern.

Here’s my read: Starmer’s government has a competence problem that’s creating a trust problem that’s creating a control problem. They’re not in freefall yet. But the trajectory is concerning.

Photo by Andrew Neel / Pexels

The Mandelson Gamble That’s Backfiring

Let me be direct about this. Bringing in Lord Mandelson was supposed to be the adult-in-the-room move. The guy who’s navigated countless political crises, who knows where all the bodies are buried, who could supposedly impose order. Instead, his appointment has become a symbol of exactly the kind of insider wheeling-and-dealing that voters already distrust about politics.

The problem isn’t that Mandelson got a security clearance. The problem is that the process looks rotten. An ex-official approved it with what the headlines describe as a “dismissive attitude” toward proper vetting. Then that official gets fired—apparently as punishment for not being dismissive enough about security concerns. The whole thing reads like: we wanted Mandelson in, so we made it happen, and anyone who got in the way got removed.

That’s not how you rebuild public confidence in government. That’s how you prove every cynical thing people already believe.

What really gets me is the Matthew Doyle piece. If No 10 was actively asking about jobs for someone, that means they weren’t just passively accepting appointments. They were reaching out, advocating, making things happen. And now that person’s suspended from the party. So the government looked out for someone, got him a peerage, and he blew up anyway. That’s not just bad luck. That suggests a vetting problem at the top.

The Civil Service Is Scared

When career bureaucrats get “chilled,” things stop working.

The Foreign Office’s lead civil servant got sacked by the prime minister. Publicly. The message this sends isn’t subtle: disagree with us, slow-walk our priorities, or question our judgment, and you’re out. The career civil service has seen three prime ministers in two years already. Now they’re watching the fourth one fire people who raise concerns about process.

I’d bet good money that by summer 2025, we see evidence of departments moving slower, requesting more written documentation, creating more layers of review. Not because civil servants are being malicious. Because they’re protecting themselves. When you work in an environment where the boss fires people for not being deferential enough, you document everything and move carefully.

That’s death for a government. You need your civil service moving fast, taking calculated risks, trusting that the political leadership has their back. That relationship is broken right now.

The Iran War Is Coming Home

The inflation number is a warning shot.

War is expensive. Disrupted fuel supplies are expensive. Both hit ordinary people in their wallets. Starmer’s government didn’t choose the Iran war—that escalated geopolitically—but they’re about to inherit the economic consequences. Gas prices, heating bills, transport costs. All trending up.

This matters because Starmer came to office promising stable, competent governance after years of chaos. Chaos is now being inflicted on him by factors mostly outside his control. But voters don’t care about your excuses. They care that their bills are rising while their government’s internal processes look messy.

The Real Question

I’m genuinely uncertain about one thing: Can Starmer stabilize this before the damage becomes permanent?

If he can show real wins in the next six weeks—if he can get ahead of the inflation story, if he can make the Mandelson appointment actually work and deliver something valuable, if he can repair the civil service relationship with clear gestures of respect—maybe this is just a bad month. Maybe it’s recoverable.

But if we’re still talking about vetting scandals and civil service churn in June? If the inflation keeps creeping up? Then what looked like teething problems start looking like structural rot.

Photo by Tara Winstead / Pexels

What I’m Watching

• DHS payroll crisis in May: If the Homeland Security shutdown isn’t resolved and the department runs out of money for paychecks in May as the secretary warned, airports start melting down again. Watch for whether Congress treats this as an actual crisis or more theater. This tells you how serious the political system is about avoiding repeat chaos.

• Civil service hiring freezes or departures by June: Monitor whether experienced officials start taking early retirement or moving to the private sector. If the “chill” Starmer created actually starts costing him institutional knowledge, that’s the moment you know the relationship damage is real.

• Mandelson’s first major appointment or decision: When he actually makes something happen—fires someone, launches a policy, fixes a problem—that’ll tell you whether bringing him in was genius or a disaster. If his first big move creates another scandal, Starmer’s credibility takes another hit he can’t afford.

• Inflation trending in July CPI data: The Iran war’s full impact on UK prices isn’t priced in yet. Watch for whether the July numbers show the cost-of-living pinch tightening or stabilizing. If it’s still rising, Starmer’s in real trouble heading into summer.

The government’s got maybe three months to stop looking like a startup and start looking like it knows what it’s doing. The clock’s ticking.