{"id":89993,"date":"2026-02-13T07:24:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T07:24:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=89993"},"modified":"2026-02-13T09:00:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T09:00:09","slug":"even-the-civil-service-are-pushing-back-against-starmer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/02\/13\/even-the-civil-service-are-pushing-back-against-starmer\/","title":{"rendered":"Even the civil service are pushing back against Starmer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Ministers can usually expect a high level of support from their civil servants. Until they alienate them, that is. And it looks as if that is what Starmer has succeeded in doing. I <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/steven_swinford\/status\/2022073705510096952?s=43\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">share this Tweet<\/a> from Steven Swinford of The Times as evidence of that.<\/p>\n<p>I post it in full, because it summarises the latest farcical mess that Starnmer has created for himself, wholly unnecessarily and over a remarkably short period of time, rather well:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-89994\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-07.19.38-550x635.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"635\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-07.19.38-550x635.png 550w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-07.19.38-260x300.png 260w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-07.19.38-768x887.png 768w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-07.19.38-346x400.png 346w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Screenshot-2026-02-13-at-07.19.38.png 1176w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>What else is there to say? Only that Laurel and Hardy could not have created as many fine messes as Starmer has. That is how absurd this is, and the cost will be high.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Ministers can usually expect a high level of support from their civil servants. Until they alienate them, that is. And it looks as if<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2026\/02\/13\/even-the-civil-service-are-pushing-back-against-starmer\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-labour","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89993"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":90015,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89993\/revisions\/90015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}