Keir Starmer’s cruel civil service blitz is a cynical gift to the right
Labour’s plan to cut civil service jobs and replace them with AI flies in the face of what the party claims to represent
Today, the Labour government has announced plans to radically reshape the state, promising that a digital revolution will deliver billions in savings, partly by slimming down the civil service and replacing administrative tasks with AI. The Prime Minister saved his announcement for the Telegraph, declaring that a new target to cut the administrative costs of regulation by 25 per cent would remedy the “overcautious, flabby state” that he claims has been blocking infrastructure projects.
I emphasise the Labour part of this Labour government because the irony is hard to miss: a party supposedly representing the interests of working people is now targeting working people — announcing vague but brutal job cuts in a right-wing media outlet that has spent years waging a campaign of vitriol against public servants.
This narrative isn’t new. Civil servants have long been the government’s go-to scapegoat. From former home secretary Amber Rudd’s attempts to blame civil servants for failures in the Windrush policy to former cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg’s “sorry you were out” desk notes during the pandemic, politicians have repeatedly used the civil service as a convenient punchbag when things don’t go to plan. Over the last five years, the civil service has faced repeated threats of cuts — only for those threats to fade once ministers realise not only the value civil servants bring but also the deep institutional knowledge they hold about the complexity of Whitehall.
That’s not to say there aren’t efficiencies to be found. Any large, bureaucratic organisation that has seen record growth in staff — often in response to real crises like Brexit and Covid — is bound to have some surplus capacity once those emergencies pass. The civil service can’t compete with the private sector on wages, but it offers other benefits to attract and retain talent: job security, strong unions, and generous pensions. That’s why so many civil servants are long-term employees — drawn not just by financial stability but also by a work culture that accommodates parents, carers, and those seeking flexible working arrangements. That loyalty is a strength, but it also makes it harder to cut projects and personnel without damaging morale and institutional memory.
But the problem isn’t the idea of improving the efficiency of the civil service — it’s the cynicism with which these cuts are being announced. Implying, bluntly, ruthlessly, that thousands of civil servants should prepare to lose their jobs — and calling the service “overstretched, unfocused and unable to deliver the security people need today” — feels like an intentional provocation, designed to provide right-wing news fodder and distract from bigger issues at hand.
The government has backed itself into a fiscal corner. Labour’s pre-election pledges to stick to rigid fiscal rules — no borrowing to fund day-to-day spending and no increases in taxes — were always naïve. Now, faced with the reality of those constraints, ministers are tinkering at the edges to find cost savings that will allow them to meet their growth promises in an increasingly dangerous and unstable world. Civil servants are an easy target. Blaming the state is politically convenient when right-wing populists across the globe are literally and figuratively taking a chainsaw to their public institutions.
But Starmer should tread carefully. According to The Guardian, these plans are being dubbed by insiders as “Project Chainsaw,” a reference to Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and its ruthless cuts to US federal bodies — after Musk famously — and embarrassingly — wielded a chainsaw on stage. Following Trump and Musk’s libertarian playbook would be reckless. The UK and the US have different instincts when it comes to the state. British voters have a deep allegiance to the NHS and believe in the value of a strong welfare state. Most voters want to see more investment in public services, not less. Even in the US — a country historically more suspicious of big government — there are signs that the initial appeal of Musk-style libertarianism is wearing thin. Markets are starting to panic, and approval ratings are dipping as voters realise that cuts to Medicare or Medicaid — or the withdrawal of life-saving programmes like PEPFAR — will have real and immediate consequences.
Starmer is right to think about how the state can work better for its people. But reform requires upfront investment — not simply withdrawing employment or support from voiceless or vulnerable groups. You can’t successfully reform the benefits system without investing in helping people find work or addressing the underlying health inequalities that austerity has worsened over the last two decades. Digitisation and AI could improve the efficiency and user experience of public services — but framing it as a zero-sum game, where technology replaces people, will only deepen public cynicism and enrage unions fearful for their members’ futures. But ultimately, no good can come through cynical briefings to the right-wing press in the hope of courting their favour. Labour risks alienating its core vote, and leaving the country more politically and socially fragile.
Starmer promised to govern with competence and compassion. Slashing civil service jobs to score political points with the right achieves neither — and risks alienating the very workers Labour will need to deliver its agenda.
See more of our Westminster Editor Zoë Grünewald writing on a range of political topics, from the inevitable fracturing of Reform, to the short-sighted cutting of international aid budgets to the political and economic inequality faced by the North of England. Consider becoming a paid supporter of The Lead to receive exclusive additional stories and content from Zoë.