Tag Archives: Keir Starmer

Sir Keir Rodney Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 2024.

Paws, Peers and Poor Processes

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The Chief Mouser

Tomorrow will be a significant anniversary in British politics: It will be fifteen years since Larry, the cat pictured above, was appointed Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office. If he makes it another three years he will be the hold the record in that office. Already he is on a record six Prime Ministers and will soon greet his sixth Cabinet Secretary as well (see next paragraph). Actually, it would be interesting to do a census of the human officials currently working in Downing Street to see how many predate him. Larry, who was adopted by the Camerons just as the government’s modern web presence was being established, is the first to officially hold the title, but culturally it goes back just over a century to Rufus (or Treasury Bill), who performed the role during the premiership of Ramsay MacDonald. Larry is now well-established as an international celebrity in his own right, to the point that the government is rumoured to have made special plans for the announcement of his eventual death (he’s 19 years old). Despite this, there have also been reports that he is rather lazy and incompetent in his actual job of killing vermin. Yesterday Larry’s own Twitter account acknowledged the passing of his former colleague Palmerston, who was Chief Mouser to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office from 2016 to 2020.

The Cabinet Secretary

Sir Chris Wormald succeeded Simon Case as Cabinet Secretary and Head of the Home Civil Service fourteen months ago, having previously been Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health & Social Care since 2016. Whereas his tenure in that job was on the long side, his time as Cabinet Secretary is the shortest in the history of that post. Last summer there were already leaks from Number 10 suggesting that the government regretted his appointment and wanted him out. Two days ago it was announced that he would step down “by mutual consent”. Before the announcement had even been made there was speculation in the press that Sir Keir Starmer intended to choose Dame Antonia Romeo as his replacement. Romeo has spent the last ten months as Permanent Secretary at the Home Office, and for four years before that she was at the Ministry of Justice, where she concurrently held the ancient office of Clerk of the Crown in Chancery which among other perks gave her a prominent seat at the coronation. While she is a favourite among constitutional scholars (such as Elijah Granet of Legal Style Blog), there were also briefings against her by some former colleagues. So far, Starmer has not named a successor to Wormald, but has said that Romeo will form a troika with Catherine Little and James Bowler while the position lies vacant.

The Lord Doyle

Matthew Doyle is, like Peter Mandelson, a figure from the Blair years brought back to help Starmer’s government only to quickly bring the regime into serious disrepute (and for very similar yet unrelated reasons). Doyle was appointed Downing Street Director of Communications (a role created in 2000 for Alastair Campbell and later satirised with the fictional Malcolm Tucker) after the 2024 general election and stayed until 28th March last year. On 10th December it was announced that he had been nominated for a life peerage. He was created Baron Doyle on 8th January and took his seat in the upper house four days later. Four weeks after that he was suspended from the Labour Party. Given that the government was already embroiled in the Mandelson scandal, this was particularly embarrassing for Starmer. Conservative backbencher Lord Harper pointed out that Doyle’s letters patent were not sealed until after the revelations came out and thus it would have been possible for the Prime Minister to postpone or withdraw his ennoblement. This was confirmed by House of Lords authorities.

Discussing this on the Parliament Matters podcast, Mark D’Arcy made an observation that I have long held:

Even though the House of Lords is half of the legislative process in Parliament, it’s remarkable how little most people in the House of Commons actually know about how it works. It’s another country from whose bourne no traveller returns as far as the Commons is concerned. Not quite true actually. A couple of them have. But it is this very strange feature of Westminster life that there is so much ignorance in the Commons about the workings of the Lords and very little inclination to learn much about it either.

He had earlier brought up a speech made in the Commons by Darren Jones, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, about proposed legislation to allow disgraced peers to be deprived of their baronies. I’m a little surprised D’Arcy didn’t highlight what the minister actually said, because at one point while bringing up the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 he managed to get World War One and World War Two confused. Worse still, nobody else in the chamber at the time pointed this out.

The Next State Visit

Nothing about Their Majesties’ outbound diplomacy has yet been confirmed for this year, but already we have one inbound state visit on the cards: The President & First Lady of Nigeria will be coming to Windsor Castle on 18th March. This is unusually early in the year for such an event (as they normally don’t start until the autumn) and is only the second time in the present reign that a Commonwealth president has been received in such a way. President Tinubu last had a royal audience in September 2024, and before that was visited in his home country by James Cleverly in 2023.

The Palace of Westminster

It has been over six years since the Parliamentary Buildings (Restoration & Renewal) Act was passed, yet progress on the actual restoration has been negligible. The House of Commons and House of Lords Commissions recently put out a joint report predicting that the work could take up to sixty-one years and cost up to £39 billion. This naturally has caused widespread outrage and been held up as the perfect symbol of the British state’s incapability of getting anything done in the modern age.

The R&R Programme in its current state was savaged in The Critic by Nicholas Boys Smith, Founding Director of Create Streets. Smith’s article seems to have been taken up by Parliamentarians themselves, with Lord Hannan of Kingsclere in particular claiming

Rarely have I seen an article taken up by politicians as swiftly and as thoroughly as this one. Every MP and peer is talking about it.

although of course that will be hard to objectively verify. Although Smith himself does not mention it directly (despite the article name), I have seen a few commentators bring up the possibility of Charles III personally taking charge of the project. While that may seem outlandish by the conventions of modern politics, there is a logic to it: Charles has been dedicated to the cause of traditional architecture for many decades, and has arranged the construction of two entire towns (Poundbury and Nansledan) in less time than the Westminster restoration is expected to take. Given that the Palace is technically a royal residence, it is also worth bringing up restoration works on other royal residences which the royal family still occupy: The rebuilding of Windsor Castle after the 1992 fire was completed in five years without a government grant, and the refurbishment of Buckingham Palace is expected to be completed next year with relatively little disruption along the way. It may solve a different problem, too: It has been known for a long time that the royals themselves are not all that keen on Buck House and have long wished to shift the emphasis to Windsor as the main residence. Elizabeth II & Philip Mountbatten were happily embedded at Clarence House before the death of George VI and would have continued living there had Churchill not insisted they move. As the 2020 pandemic seized the nation, the late sovereign decamped to Windsor for the duration of the lockdown, and as restrictions eased she decided not to move back. Charles & Camilla are likewise still at Clarence House, even continuing to use it for their private social functions and all the charities they founded as Duke & Duchess of Cornwall. The refurbishment has given them the perfect excuse not to move, as well as to redirect state visits to Windsor. As the building returns to an available state next year it could be a canny strategic move for him to graciously offer it to MPs and peers while he takes back control of Westminster. Caroline Shenton’s book Mr Barry’s War details the reconstruction of the Palace in the nineteenth century following the great fire. It mentions that Parliament turned down an offer from William IV to move to Buckingham Palace. This time around it may prove harder to refuse. Furthermore, a lot of the delay in the current project is due to some MPs’ and peers’ reluctance to commit to a full decamp, understandably fearful that once they take their foot out of the door they may never get it back in again, or that by the time they do their old home will have changed beyond all recognition. The King’s own hand at the tiller may be just the reassurance they need.

UPDATE (15th February)

Professor Norton has put out an article on the matter of peerage nominations and their opportunities for withdrawal.

The Dark Lord Falls

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He won’t be smiling much anymore.

Peter Mandelson is no stranger to scandal-induced resignations: He resigned from Blair’s cabinet twice in the space of three years and lately he resigned as Britain’s Ambassador to the United States after a tenure of just seven months. He was dismissed from the ceremonial office of High Sheriff of Hull at the same time.

Today he announced his intention to retire from the House of Lords, having already taken leave of absence on Saturday. He additionally resigned from the Labour Party on Sunday, meaning he briefly had the designation of non-affiliated peer.

His departure from the upper house will not make much practical difference as he had long ceased to be a regular contributor to proceedings — he spoke in the House just five times in the past five years and thirteen times in the five years before that. In a break from normal procedure, the Lord Speaker announced Mandelson’s gave advanced notice of his retirement, “given the public interest”. This, incidentally, was the first retirement announcement of Michael Forsyth’s speakership, which only began yesterday. On the woolsack he must obviously remain studiously neutral in such matters, but I can’t help wondering what his personal feelings are, given that he lost his seat in the House of Commons in the 1997 New Labour landslide in which Mandelson played such an important role.

The retirement is obviously a case of jumping before he was pushed, as many of his political enemies (always a sizeable group, now an enormous one) had been threatening that if he did not leave of his own accord then they would take measures to force him out.

The House of Lords Reform Act 2014 (by which he retired) allows peers to be expelled if sentenced to prison terms of at least one year while the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015 allows the House to evict members who breach the code of conduct, but the necessary investigations — both by Parliament itself and by the Metropolitan Police — would have taken too long to satisfy the public’s bloodlust. In any case the former act only applies to convictions for crimes committed after its own commencement, whereas most of Mandelson’s alleged offences are from well before.

Even after this announcement, there are still some calling for him to lose his title. As with the former Prince Andrew (and for many of the same reasons), this could most quickly achieved by him writing to the Lord Chancellor to request his name by omitted from the Roll of the Peerage. This may not satisfy his opponents, some of whom are explicitly calling for an Act of Parliament to formally revoke the letters patent of 2008 by which his peerage was created. Perhaps the old-fashioned Bill of Attainder will come back into fashion after all.

UPDATE (4th February)

Mandelson’s retirement was announced properly today. I note that the words “On behalf of the House, I should like to thank the noble Lord for his valued service to the House.” which normally accompany such announcements were omitted on this occasion.

It was also reported today that the Prime Minister wishes to remove him from the Privy Council. It appears he came to this decision just after yesterday’s meeting as nothing to that effect is listed in the agenda or the minutes. Either the enactment of Mandelson’s expulsion will wait until next month’s meeting or a special session will shortly be convened for this purpose.

Notes on the German State Visit

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Last week Windsor Castle hosted the last of three state visits this year, featuring Frank-Walter Steinmeier & Elke Büdenbender, President & First Lady of the Federal Republic of Germany.

This one made the news far less (most likely because it was far less controversial) than that of Donald Trump in September. Unlike Trump, Steinmeier was able to partake in the public-facing elements of a state visit, such as the carriage ride through the streets of Windsor and an address in the royal gallery of the House of Lords.

This was in some ways the reciprocation of the state visit which our King & Queen made to Germany in 2023. In his state banquet speech Steinmeier said to Charles

“the fact that your very first trip abroad as King brought you to Germany was a special symbol of the German-British friendship, a gesture of appreciation which meant a great deal to me and to us Germans.”

This is not strictly true as Their Majesties had been planning to visit France first, but that visit was postponed a few months as Macron dealt with protests over state pensions.

The King’s speech at the same event included this quip

“our languages, English and German, [ ] share such deep common roots, but now do sound a little different. It is undoubtedly true, that your language contains a very large number of very long words. As someone who has spent some time trying to learn a little Welsh, I have some sympathy for the proposition that needless gaps between words are a dreadfully inefficient use of paper… “

There was no exchange of honours this time, as Steinmeier had already been appointed an honorary GCB during the aforementioned 2023 visit. He and Charles both wore their red sashes to dinner. The Prime Minister, a KCB, notably continues not to wear his badge.

The Duke of Kent did not attend the state banquet but he later separately met the Bundespräsident at a service at Coventry Cathedral, to commemorate its bombing during the Second World War. It is worth remembering that the Duke is now the only living British prince to have been born before that war started. We got a rare glimpse of his royal cypher on a wreath lain at the old altar.

Steinmeier also had a meeting with Sir Keir Starmer at 10 Downing Street. While his state visit was still going on Starmer also had an unrelated meeting with the Prime Minister of Norway, and already since the President’s departure he has held another “Coalition of the Willing” meeting including Chancellor Merz.

From a ceremonial perspective there is little innovation here (bar a lot of stories about tiaras), as the proceedings stuck closely to the template established by recent precedents. The most interesting parts are His Majesty’s and His Excellency’s speeches, which I think, well, speak for themselves.

Recent state visits have been good opportunities for uploading free-licence photographs to Wikimedia Commons but sadly on this occasion the pickings have been very limited as the government Flickr accounts’ only pictures of Steinmeier are of his visit to Downing Street, leaving out anything involving the royals. Those on the Parliamentary accounts are not released under the correct licence, and it doesn’t look as if the German government has the same attitude to copyright that the British one does so finding anything from their end is also unlikely.

Royals and Remembrance

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Once Halloween and Guy Fawkes Night have passed, poppy season is all that remains to block Christmas from achieving total domination for the rest of the year. There are, of course, two separate dates for this occasion — Armistice Day (always 11th November, the exact anniversary of the end of the First World War) and Remembrance Sunday (second Sunday in November, a broader commemoration of war dead). Both of these events involve two-minute national silences… assuming, of course, that a silence actually falls. Due to the logistics and practicalities of the working week, some organisations have to hold subsidiary events outside the universal dates. Silences here can be hard to regulate if everyone around isn’t coordinated with it. I remember quite a few occasions from childhood when a reverent, contemplative peace was anything but. Even the highest are not immune to this: The Queen attended a service at Westminster Abbey last Thursday, but it was immediately outside rather than inside the main building. As you would expect from an open-air event in central London on a weekday, the “silence” was actually filled with a lot of traffic noise as well as two different emergency sirens. The only blessing was that at least there were no dogs barking. I’m actually a little surprised that this phenomenon hasn’t been the subject of a Family Guy cutaway by now, given that it would be an easy way to get two minutes of padding with minimal animation.

Another big event in November is the United Nations Climate Change Conference, now taking place in Belém, Brazil. The Prince of Wales flew down some days in advance to present his Earthshot Prize, which Sir Keir Starmer also attended, though neither stayed for COP30 itself. This is the latest in a long line of solo overseas engagements undertaken by the heir apparent since his wife’s cancer diagnosis last year*. William was back in time for the Sunday cenotaph service but he missed the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall on Saturday night. Prince George attended for the first time, in his father’s place. The festival includes the religious and patriotic music expected for a solemn occasion, but also a handful of modern entries. One of these was a cover of Avicii’s The Nights. I can’t work out whether it adds to or detracts from the spirit of the event to know that Avicii himself, err, left this world behind some years ago, his life clearly remembered but tragically brief, and predeceased his father. He was from Sweden, a country formally neutral in both world wars. The festival featured multiple performances from Sir Rod Stewart, who sported the unusual sartorial combination of a knight bachelor’s badge hung from an open shirt.

The cenotaph ceremony in Whitehall traditionally involves the laying of wreaths by senior royals, senior servicemen, cabinet ministers, diplomats, various officials representing the British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, and leaders of the significant political parties in the House of Commons. This has always been a bugbear for Nigel Farage, because his parties have so far never met the threshold of six MPs needed to qualify. UKIP in 2015 got 12.6% of the popular vote but only one seat. Douglas Carswell, as the party’s sole representative in the Commons, was regarded for procedural purposes as an independent rather than a leader. Reform in 2024 got 14.3% of the vote and five seats. The cruel twist here is that since the election the Reform caucus has gained two members (one from defection, one from by-election) but also lost two of the originals, so that when November came they were back as they started. It should be noted that the six-member rule, introduced in 1984, has exceptions for the Northern Ireland parties to avoid the appearance of sectarian bias. It is also possible for two or more parties to coalesce for this purpose, as Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National Party have done since 2001**.

The Princess Royal was also absent from the London commemorations, having gone on a royal tour of Australia. She instead paid her respects at the ANZAC memorial in Sydney. It is a little extraordinary for two royal overseas visits to take place at the same time, especially when both of those away from the United Kingdom are counsellors of state. Recently I have been constructing a Wikipedia page listing all of Anne’s official overseas travel (similar to those which already exist for other senior royals) but it has quickly become a little overwhelming to see just how busy she is, with twenty such journeys listed in the Court Circular just for the last two years.

One ought probably to discuss heraldic matters now. In some of the photographs of Anne’s visit I can see her two crosses and a heart flying in various places. I didn’t see William or Camilla flying theirs in the outings aforementioned. Close-up shots of the wreaths laid and crosses planted also show royal symbols. The Queen’s monogram appeared on hers, complete with the Tudor crown. William’s, even now, still uses the pre-Carolean design (note the oak leaves and lack of arch on the coronet). The King’s wreath did not use his monogram, but instead the full royal achievement with BUCKINGHAM PALACE underneath. Once again it was the old-style illustration with St Edward’s crown.

Sir Lindsay Hoyle is something of a vexillophile and has taken to Tweeting whenever a new flag is flown from New Palace Yard. In 2021 he began making a point of raising the flags of the Overseas Territories. His most recent example was the flag of the British Indian Ocean Territory, allegedly celebrating its national day. I can’t find photographic evidence (including on Parliament.UK) of the flag actually flying in the yard, so I can only go on the image shown in the Tweet itself. The BIOT flag includes the Imperial crown, sometimes with a cap of maintenance and sometimes without, but always in the St Edward form. Hoyle’s picture had a Tudor crown. I cannot find this version on the territory’s website or any other source. Is it a custom make? The BIOT is currently the subject of a slow-moving but high-stakes political controversy as Starmer’s government intends to cede sovereignty of the landmasses to Mauritius. This would mean that the territory as a political entity ceases to exist, hence no point updating the flag. I notice that there was not a representative of the BIOT among all the other BOT representatives laying wreaths at the cenotaph. The flag of the BIOT has been widely used in the campaign against the handover, including by the displaced islanders themselves. The bill to ratify the handover passed the House of Commons and recently had its second reading in the Lords, but then there were reports that the government has paused its progress due to public resistance. In this context it is tempting to read Mr Speaker’s Tweet as a not-so-subtle dig at the Prime Minister.

Finally, a point about Flickr: The cenotaph ceremony and the Earthshot prize both produced plenty of government photographs which can be moved onto Wikimedia Commons. The former had two photographers: Simon Dawson for the Prime Minister’s Office and Gunter Hofer for the DCMS. After migrating both albums across I quickly realised that the time stamps given in the metadata were wrong. Dawson’s were one hour too late (probably not adjusted for daylight savings) while the DCMS ones were in some cases out by a whole year! This feels like an elementary mistake for a professional photographer. Sadly there are not likely to be many photographs of Anne’s excursion to Sydney for the reasons I explained last year.

FOOTNOTES

*The Princess of Wales appears not to have gone abroad on official business since 15 October 2023.
**The SNP alone has won at least six seats in every subsequent general election, so in practice the utility of this alliance is one-sided.

Balancing the Ball

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Almost from birth I have had a strong aversion to even thinking about rugby and this was not assuaged during the few terms at secondary school when I had to learn to play it. This article is not about the sport, but about the peculiarity of a Buckingham Palace Tweet.

The text of the Tweet says:

A message from His Majesty The King to @RedRosesRugby and Women's @RugbyCanada Team following today’s #RWC2025 final.
The use of “following” here is a bit strange, since the message was put out eight hours before the game had even started. The King’s message is shown as an attached image, depicted against the backdrop of a rugby pitch with the England flag at the top and the Canadian flag at the bottom.
My wife and I send our warmest good wishes to both the
England Red Roses and Canada Women's Rugby Team as
you prepare for your World Cup final.

What a remarkable achievement for both teams to have
reached this pinnacle of the sport. I know that supporters
on both sides of the Atlantic will be cheering with equal
and tremendous pride.

May the best team win, and may you both play with the
spirit of sportsmanship, determination and true grit that
makes rugby such a wonderful game to watch. Whatever
the result, you have already done your countries proud.

Good luck to you all.

Charles R.
The message, of course, has to congratulate both teams equally for getting to the final and then be studiously neutral as to which of them will win it. I would plaintively suggest that including the Canadian coat of arms alongside the British one would have helped in this regard.
The King acted in a third capacity today when he held an audience at Balmoral Castle with Anthony Albanese, whom I think he last met in person at CHOGM in Samoa. Albanese had already been in Britain for bilateral discussions with Sir Keir Starmer at Downing Street.
Earlier this year Their Majesties made a state visit on Britain’s behalf to the Italian Republic. The trip was supposed to include a state visit to the Holy See in Vatican City as well, but things went awry when Pope Francis fell seriously ill. Eventually they managed to get a low-key private meeting on their anniversary, but anything grander was beyond His Holiness’s health. He died twelve days later. About a week ago, a few newspapers were reporting was going ahead with Leo XIV as host. Today the Palace confirmed it. The exact date has not been given yet, only “late October”. This will be the fourth British royal visit to the Vatican this year, as the Prince of Wales attended Francis’s funeral and the Duke of Edinburgh attended Leo’s inaugural mass. Those aforementioned news articles said it would be Charles III’s final overseas journey for 2025. That is very disappointing as it means there won’t be a royal tour of New Zealand this year. Given that 2026 is a general election year — in which royal tours are conventionally avoided — and that the sovereign is already expected to fly to Canada, the United States and Antigua & Barbuda at various points, it might not happen now until 2027, a full three years after it was originally planned.

Accession Day 2025

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Today marks three years since the passing of Elizabeth II and thus the commencement of the fourth year of the New Carolean era. Here is a quick round-up of recent developments.

New Royal Biographies

The stream of these is continuous and too large to notice all of them, but three in particular have generated news coverage:

  • Entitled: The Rise and Fall of the House of York by Andrew Lownie (14th August, HarperCollins). The title alludes to the Wars of the Roses, but really it’s about the personal, professional and financial lives of the most recent Duke & Duchess. The book is overwhelmingly derogatory and might have been considered scandalous had not most of the topics therein been raised already some years ago (while the other claims are usually less-than-credible). Many reviewers and columnists have said words to the effect that it would be devastating to its targets’ reputations if only they had reputations left to devastate. The people who didn’t already believe the things Downie asserts here probably won’t read this book anyway so despite a few sensational headlines I doubt in the long run it will really change anyone’s position.
  • Power and the Palace: The Inside Story of the Monarchy and 10 Downing Street by Valentine Low (11th September, Headline). Low has already written Courtiers in 2022, which I have in my collection but have not gotten around to reading yet. I’m not sure I’ll ever read this one either since, as is often the case with this kind of book, the newspapers have already spent weeks running headlines explaining all the important bits. The book is about the relationship between senior members of the royal family and senior members of successive governments. The most outlandish part is the attempt to lift the lid on Schrödinger’s box regarding Elizabeth II’s political beliefs, long a source of speculation to all and sundry. Low, quite remarkably, claims that Her Late Majesty was much more candid than formerly thought and that everyone else around her was more studiously discreet. The most prominent assertion (in terms of news coverage) concerns her views on the 2016 EU referendum. Private Eye has this amusing summary:
GALLAGHER’S GALL
ORDERED by press watchdog Ipso to print a correction to his pre-referendum front-page headline “QUEEN BACKS BREXIT”, which was found to breach its accuracy rules since there was nothing in the story to show it was true, then-Sun editor Tony Gallagher was defiant.
“I don’t accept that we made an error at all,” he huffed to the BBC. “We made a judgement that the headline was right and that it was backed up by the story. We knew more than we put into the public domain. The sources were so impeccable that we had no choice but to run the story in the way that we did.”
Nine years on, Gallacher has been promoted to edit almost-as-respectable sister sheet the Times, which is serialising Power and the Palace, the new book by the paper’s retired royal-watcher Valentine Low. And what headline appeared on Saturday’s front page flagging the first revelations from the impeccably sourced tome? “The Queen was a Remainer.” (Eye 1657 page 7)
  • Charles III: New King. New Court. The Inside Story by Robert Hardman (Pan Macmillan). It actually made most of its headlines last year but apparently he has a new edition coming out soon. I’m not sure if this is the second edition or if there’s already been one in the interim that I’ve missed, as I found a version on Google Books which claims to have been published on 7th November 2024 yet includes photographs of events from 2025. It has three extra chapters compared to the one I borrowed from Hull Central Library, and these cover the two royal cancer crises as well as the D-Day Commemorations and the general election. This latest version is obviously too early to include Trump’s state visit or the Duchess of Kent’s funeral, so probably yet another version will be needed next year. Pan Macmillan ought to have a trade-in scheme so people who already bought the old edition can get discounts off the new one. In an interview with journalist Patricia Treble he said Charles is “just the King” now as opposed to “the new king” so perhaps the very name of the book is now redundant and it would be better in the long run to wait until he has enough extra material for a full-length sequel instead of endless retroactive add-ons.

The Tudor Crown

Yes, that old chestnut again. I note that HM Goverment is still not entirely consistent here: When Rushanara Ali resigned last month the Prime Minister’s typed response had the new Noad illustration on its letterhead but when Angela Rayner resigned last week Starmer’s handwritten reply was topped by the old image, as was the letter from the Standards Adviser. Recently Charles wrote a letter to King Mswati III of Eswatini (formerly Swaziland) congratulating his country on fifty-seven years of independence. That letter was Tweeted by the British High Commission in Mbabane, showing the new emblazonment. It uses the “lesser” version of the arms in blue instead of the greater version in red, so it perhaps it should be understood as an FCDO letterhead instead of a royal one.

State Visits

Britain has already received a state visit from France this year and is about to host one for America also. As far as outbound visits go, there doesn’t seem to be anything scheduled for the rest of this year. In 2026 Their Majesties are expected to travel to Canada again (for an extended royal tour), to the United States (for a British state visit) and to Antigua & Barbuda (for CHOGM). There is still no announcement as to when they will visit New Zealand, which must be frustrating to those who’ve been waiting well over a year now!

Another Condolence Note

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Yesterday the Prime Minister and the Mayor of London attended the memorial at Hyde Park commemorating the London bombings of 7th July 2005.

As with the Auschwitz memorial earlier this year, Sir Keir left a wreath of flowers with a card attached. The card uses the old version of the government arms. I’m guessing the pile of these cards printed during the previous reign has still not been exhausted.

A mere four days earlier, the Prime Minister, Secretary of State for Health & Social Care and Chancellor of the Exchequer had visited the Sir Ludwig Guttmann Health Centre, where they spoke from a lectern clearly adorned with the new, Tudor crown, illustration.

I’m afraid I don’t have anything profound to say about the bombing attacks themselves. I had yet to ever visit London in person at the time and my main memory of that month is that of a school assembly in which our headmistress asked pupils what they’d seen on the news and a few had followed the story enough to relay it. I also remember a CBBC drama being made about the event a year later, but that’s about it.

Starmer’s Sunday Surprise

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I wonder how long it took to get those signs printed.

International affairs continue to move at a dizzying pace. Far from being able to write comprehensive essays about events, it’s as much as I can do to keep up with the photographs being uploaded.

Shortly after meeting President Trump individually, Starmer, Macron, Zelenskyy and many other heads of government met at Lancaster House for an emergency summit on the Russia-Ukraine war. This was sometimes described in the press as a European leaders meeting, but that was not strictly true as it also included Justin Trudeau, a North American.

Back in D.C., Ambassador Mandelson has already caused a minor diplomatic row by airing a view on the Trump-Zelenskyy negotiations which contradicted British government policy.

The Downing Street Flickr account uploaded many photographs of Starmer’s bilateral meeting with Trump as well as of the conference he hosted. The White House also released photographs of the former and the European Commission of the latter. This presented a challenge for me when organising the files on Wikimedia Commons. For the scenes at the White House I decided to use “Trump-Starmer bilateral” for the American photographs and “Starmer-Trump bilateral” for the British ones. For the summit I put (UK pic) and (EC pic) in brackets. Further complicating matters is that London, Brussells and D.C. all sit in different time zones so that the meta-data on different cameras are inconsistent.

Following the meeting, Zelenskyy flew to the Sandringham estate for a meeting with His Majesty. Today Trudeau did the same. The choice of Sandringham for this part was confusing for three reasons:

  1. Sandringham is a privately-owned property, yet clearly matters of state were being conducted.
  2. The King’s main London residence at Clarence House is only a minute’s walk from where the summit took place, whereas the journey to Sandringham is over a hundred miles.
  3. Sandringham is normally only used by the royal family from Christmas to early February, not into March.

Sadly, no government photographs of the royal meetings were taken, only commercial ones. Although this could be considered a private rather than an official visit (and certainly not a state one) I was a little disappointed that the Ukrainian president was not appointed an honorary GCB.

The presence of the Prime Minister of Canada at an otherwise-European conference may seem a little strange, but of course Canada is a nation directly adjacent at the opposite end of the main adversary, as well as bordering the United States. Among the proximate causes of this summit is that the latter, long considered the keystone of any global military policy, may now me as much an antagonist as Russia is.

Given the great affection in which Canada is held by the British public, as well as the long-standing cultural and constitutional links between the United Kingdom and its former dominion, many viewers expressed disappointment that Starmer, whether in his meeting with Trump or at the subsequent summit, did not explicitly push back against Trump’s threats of both economic and actual warfare against Canada, which they interpreted as indifference to attack on a senior Commonwealth partner. That our shared monarch did not comment on the matter either was also of grave concern.

The King, of course, can only make an official statement on such a politically-charged issue on the formal advice of his Canadian government. It is yet to be confirmed if any such advice was given at today’s meeting. I can only hope that when such a statement is made, it comes with the correct coat of arms to hammer the point home!

Then again, it is also worth remembering that we are only a week from Commonwealth Day, and with it the annual Commonwealth Message. As the position of Head of the Commonwealth is one which has no formal powers even in reserve, it is one from which His Majesty can speak without ministerial advice. While a dedicated diatribe in such an instance would be inappropriate, a coded reference or two would not go amiss.

A Look at Some Letterheads

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In the past five days President Trump has in rapid succession hosted bilateral meetings at the White House with Emmanuel Macron, Sir Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I have not watched any of these events in full in order to write a proper political analysis – frankly, the small snippets I did see were already enough to leave me rocking in a corner – so am instead simply focusing on some aspects of government heraldry.

During a meeting in the oval office, Starmer gave Trump a letter from Charles III inviting him on a second state visit to the United Kingdom. The letter was marked “Private and Confidential”, yet presenting it in this way meant nearly all the words were caught on camera. I have copied out the text below (keeping the line breaks and punctuation the same) with equals signs representing the words that got obscured:

Dear Donald,

I just wanted to write and thank you for receiving====
in Washington so soon after your Inauguration. Given the====
breadth of challenges across the world, I can only think that====
of our two countries has a vital role to play in promoting and====
the values which matter so much to us all.

I remember with great fondness your visits to the United Kingdom
during your previous Presidency, and recall our nascent plan for you to
visit Dumfries House, in Scotland, as the global pandemic began and all
bets – and flights! – were off… I can only say that it would be a great
pleasure to extend that invitation once again, in the hope that you might at
some stage be visiting Turnberry and a detour to a relatively near
neighbour might not cause you too much inconvenience. An alternative
might perhaps be for you to visit Balmoral, if you are calling in at Menie.
There us much on both Estates which I think you might find interesting
and enjoy – particularly as my Foundation at Dumfries House provides
hospitality skills-training for young people who often end up as staff in
your own establishments!

Quite apart from this presenting an opportunity to discuss a wide
range of issues of mutual interest, it would also offer a valuable chance to
plan a historic second State Visit to the United Kingdom. As you will
====, this is unprecedented by a U.S. President. That is why I would find
it helpful for us to be able to discuss, together, a range of options for

location and programme content. In so doing, working together, I know
we will further enhance the special relationship between our two countries,
of which we are both so proud.

Yours Most Sincerely

Charles R

The letter is described as emanating from Buckingham Palace, and is topped by the familiar red outline of the British royal arms, still the old version with St Edward’s Crown.

On a related note, Starmer recently announced that, owing to the escalation of international military tensions, his government would be redirecting funds from international aid to defence. Anneliese Dodds, Minister of State for Development, resigned from the government in protest. The Prime Minister’s response to her resignation is published on Gov.UK as a PDF. His letterhead is the lesser version of the arms, again still using St Edward’s Crown.

One place (or rather a great many places) where the Tudor crown can now be seen in use is in the arms of Queen Camilla, as used by companies to which her royal warrant was granted late last year. The first example I’ve actually seen (through other heraldists pointing it out online, rather than in person) is Heaven Skincare, which proudly displays the warrant in the navigation bar of its website. Deborah Mitchell, the owner, Tweeted a photograph of the coat of arms on her branded packaging earlier today.

Notes on the Transition

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In the eight years and two weeks since the EU referendum, Sir Keir Starmer is the fifth person to be appointed Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. This means we have a lot of recent precedents against which to compare the events of the last few days.

The Palace

Up to and including 2010 it was the norm for the invitation of a new premier to form a government to take place entirely off-camera, with the politicians only being seen as they came in and out of the door and the monarch not to be seen at all.

Beginning in 2016 it became custom for the monarch and the new prime minister to be photographed at the start of their meeting and for this photograph to be shared with the press (May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak). Starmer’s appointment goes a little further by even having a short video clip of His Majesty speaking to him. I’m not familiar enough with internal layout of Buckingham Palace to know precisely where each meeting takes place (and the photographs themselves are not labelled in that way) but it’s clear that May, Johnson and Starmer all met the sovereign in the same room while Sunak was in a different part of the palace. Truss’s, of course, took place at Balmoral Castle and is famous as the last time Elizabeth II was photographed before she died. The sight of the two men in adjacent armchairs is reminiscent of scenes with outgoing and incoming Presidents of the United States in the Oval Office.

The Cars

From Thatcher until Johnson the cars used by Prime Ministers were various generations of Jaguar XJs. During Johnson’s tenure the government began phasing these out in favour of Range Rover Sentinels and then Audi A8Ls. In this instance Sunak arrived at the Palace in an Audi (KN23 XFE). Starmer arrived in a Range Rover (0Y20 CFU), then left in the same Audi. It is not clear where the limousine was hiding between Sunak’s meeting and Starmer’s, or which type of car was used to drive the Conservative leader away as his departure was apparently by a rear exit, off-camera. At some point I may do another post comparing the vehicles used in all these moments.

The Cabinet

At this point the full extent of Starmer’s first cabinet is known, though there is still some way to go with the appointment of all the junior ministers. New cabinet ministers overwhelmingly occupy the same post they had been shadowing before the election, with exceptions few enough to list individually:

  • Thangam Debbonaire (Culture, Media & Sport) and Jonathan Ashworth (Paymaster General) lost their seats, replaced by Lisa Nandy and Nick Thomas-Symonds respectively.
  • Anneliese Dodds (Women & Equalities) was a Shadow Secretary of State but is now only a Minister of State (both for that portfolio and at the FCDO).
  • Emily Thornberry (Attorney General) was dropped from the frontbench and replaced by Richard Hermer. She doesn’t seem to have been offered Debbonaire’s or Ashworth’s place either, and now sits as a backbencher.

Some of those who were full members of the shadow cabinet have been demoted to “also attending” the real one. Starmer has followed David Cameron’s example from 2010 in avoiding immediate changes to the machinery of government – while new ministers have been appointed, the ministerial departments themselves are as the previous government left them.

Whereas Blair’s cabinet of 1997 was desperately short of prior ministerial experience (the late Lord Morris of Aberavon being the only veteran of the Wilson-Callaghan years), Starmer’s cabinet of 2024 has quite a few people who served under Blair and Brown. The most prominent example is Ed Miliband, who returns to his old job as energy secretary. Home Secretary Yvette Cooper was previously Chief Secretary to the Treasury and then head of the DWP, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn formerly headed DfID and DEFRA while a few others held multiple junior roles.

Some other New Labour grandees have returned to Parliament after a long absence to serve as lesser ministers e.g. Douglas Alexander (Business & Trade) back in the Commons, (although not for the same constituency) and Jacqui Smith (Education) to be appointed to the Lords.

Smith’s is not the only peerage required to facilitate a ministerial appointment – Hermer is not currently in Parliament either, nor are Sir Patrick Vallance (Minister of State for Science, Research & Innovation) or James Timpson (Minister of State for Prisons, Parole & Probation). It is not clear if these last three are expected to actually join the Labour Party as they were not in political roles before. Vallance in particular (famous from the COVID-era press conferences) has spent five years as a civil servant in the position of Government Chief Scientific Adviser. It is also not clear if these peerages will be created before or after those already announced in the dissolution honours.

The Council

Secretaries of State and some other officeholders are appointed at plenary sessions of the privy council. This time, unusually, the installation of the new cabinet seems to have been spread over two meetings.

The first meeting, on Saturday 6th July, saw Lucy Powell declared Lord President of the Council, then Rayner, Lammy, Cooper, Healey, Mahmood, Kendal and Nandy appointed secretaries of state. Lady Smith of Basildon was appointed Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal. The contents page preceding the actual orders in council (an innovation since the last government) splits the secretaries of state into four sections rather than as one bloc so as to have Rayner (the Deputy Prime Minister) above Reeves (the Chancellor of the Exchequer), with Mahmood given her own section due to her distinction of also being Lord High Chancellor. The contents page (though not the actual order in council) also bizarrely describes the Chancellor of the Exchequer as being a Secretary of State, which it isn’t. To make matters worse, the tab header for the PDF says “Lis of Business” rather than “List of Business”! I suspect the Privy Council Office needed some extra proofreading here.

The order in council refers to the new head of government himself as follows:

This day the Right Honourable Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC (Prime Minister) did, by
His Majesty’s command, make solemn affirmation as First Lord of the Treasury.

Writing it this way depicts Sir Keir as already being Prime Minister at the time of his appointment as First Lord, making clear that these are distinct titles. Notably Rayner is not described as (Deputy Prime Minister) in the same fashion. Rishi Sunak’s appointment on 27th October 2022 is written the same way, as were Liz Truss’s on 12th October 2022 and Theresa May’s on 19th July 2016. Boris Johnson’s presumably happened on 25th July 2019 but the file seems to be missing. David Cameron’s happened on 13th May 2010 but the document only shows the contents summary. I find it interesting that May and Truss both delayed their swearings-in as First Lord until the meeting after that in which most of their cabinet ministers were sworn, with Truss’s in particular being so delayed that it was closer to the end of her premiership than to the beginning.

The second meeting, on Wednesday 10th July, shows the appointment of secretaries Streeting, Phillipson, Miliband, Reynolds, Kyle, Haigh, Reed, Benn, Murray and Stevens, followed by Reynolds again as President of the Board of Trade – this showing a contrasting approach to the ordering of business.

The ‘Clature (alright, I’m reaching here)

In keeping with David Cameron’s example as already mentioned, Starmer has still renamed one ministerial department even if he hasn’t seriously reorganised any: At the Saturday council Angela Rayner was sworn Secretary of State for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. At the Wednesday council she was sworn again as Secretary of State for Housing, Communites and Local Government.

This department has been in existence since 2001 without major changes to its functions but it has had multiple changes of name. I will list all of them now.

Notably GOV.UK treats the 2018 and 2024 establishments as distinct entities despite them having the same name. The (il)logic of when to say “office”, “ministry” or “department” is probably worth an article in itself at some later date. To change the Department for Children, Schools and Families into the Department for Education in 2010 required an eight-page statutory instrument. To change the MHCLG into the DLUHC in 2021 required twenty pages. Who knows how long it will take to change back again. The problem of “shopping list” department names has been noted for some time. It was reported that the “Levelling Up” part of the name was dropped because it was regarded as merely an empty slogan. Personally I would prefer that the vague “Communities” part be dropped as well, to restore the 1951-1970 name.

I mentioned in a previous post that most of my written and photographic output (online and off) post-dates Gordon Brown’s resignation. I should note now that this is also the case for most of the present digital profile of His Majesty’s Government. GOV.UK itself only dates back to 2012 (although Martha Lane Fox had started working on the project in 2009), and online minutes of the Privy Council only go back to the start of 2010. ParliamentLive.TV only dates back to December 2007 and most government Flickr accounts were in their infancy or non-existent at the time of the 2010 general election. Parliament.uk was very heavily redesigned during the later New Tens. This is not a perfect correlation, let alone a causal relationship, but it does indicate how novel it is to have all these online accounts operating under a Labour regime rather than a Conservative one.