The knives are out for Starmer’s cabinet secretary. How long can he hold on?

Some blame Simon Case for briefing against No 10 enforcer Sue Gray. Others say the man appointed by Boris ‘has poisoned the well’ of the Labour government. Sean O’Grady unpicks the thorn in the PM’s side...

Is it time for Keir Starmer’s top aide Simon Case to go? (PA Wire)

Fans of the cabinet secretary, Simon Case – and there still are some despite all the recent backstabbing – say that he is the ideal top civil servant because he possesss the invaluable gift of anticipating trouble and “he can see round corners”.

If so, then from what I’ve seen, he clearly didn’t make adequate preparations for the near-certain election of a Labour prime minister on 4 July, and the return to Whitehall of Sue Gray as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff.

Nor, for that matter, does Case seem to have been able to deal with the arrival of a cohort of political special advisers suspicious of a man who was, for a time, perceived very much as a creature of Boris Johnson – and who is now suspected of being in some way behind vicious briefings against Gray (personally) and the government (more generally).

It is no great surprise, and probably least of all to Case, that he is now facing his own wave of hostile gossip, including calls for him to exit Downing Street earlier than planned – probably next month, if not immediately.

To be fair to Case, he let it be known before the election that he intended to leave his post early in 2025, on health grounds, after spending some months on sick leave last year.

Having survived three Conservative premierships, he may also have concluded that even though he is still a young man (he’ll only be 46 in December), he might not prosper under a new administration – especially with Gray in such a senior position.

Apart from any other considerations, it seems as though there was simply too much bad blood between the pair. It cannot be entirely irrelevant that, a few years ago, Case blocked Gray’s appointment as permanent secretary at the Department of International Trade, a job that Gray yearned for, running her own department.

The then-Secretary of State, Kemi Badenoch, very much wanted Gray to join her. Gray had also impressed Michael Gove in her role at the Housing and Communities department. But, for whatever reason, it was not to be – and Gray eventually left government to work as chief of staff for Starmer. It would be understandable if she resented Case. She is certainly someone who understands power, as some other of Starmer’s team are also discovering.

Most prime ministers inherit a cabinet secretary and find themselves working reasonably harmoniously with him (it has always been a male) during the transition and early period of an administration. Sometimes, the relationship – obviously a crucial one for good and proper governance – continues and develops into something like friendship.

At other times, in due course and in orderly fashion, the time comes for the cabinet secretary to retire from the top job and the PM appoints someone more to their taste personally. It tends to be someone who is more sympathetic and in line with their outlook, if not sharing their politics. But almost never before has a cabinet secretary found themselves embroiled in the kind of public slagging match seen now.

The exception, funnily enough, involves Case himself, who replaced Mark Sedwill as the head of the civil service in September 2020. Sedwill had effectively been sacked by the then prime minister Boris Johnson and his boisterous special adviser Dominic Cummings. His humiliating premature departure was widely speculated about at the time.

Frustrated by the way Sedwill (and Johnson) had been handling the response to the Covid pandemic, Cummings later told a Commons select committee: “What I therefore did in the summer was I brought in Simon Case to be permanent secretary at No 10 because I thought the prime minister is not listening to me on this whole subject [Covid]. Our relations are getting worse and worse.”

After a few months in that role, Johnson appointed Case to the top job, after a series of briefings that left Sedwill’s position untenable.

Even at the time, extraordinarily, Sedwill publicly complained about the “demoralising” anonymous comments to the media and the way Johnson was running the government: “I think it’s damaging to the process of governance because if you want people to take risks, be held accountable, then they have to know they have the support of their leadership,” Sedwill told the Blavatnik School of Government. “So any kind of anonymous briefings and sniping is demoralising for people. It’s not completely unique but it has definitely risen in the last few years.”

The irony is obvious, with Case now suffering exactly the same kind of assaults on his reputation by people who are supposed to be part the team. It was then – and is now – a “toxic” situation, as it is often described by the “insiders”. Case was the prime beneficiary of the downfall of Sedwill. For me, at least, there is the whiff of karma about the imminent end to Case’s career in public service.

However, no one ever suggested that Case actively sought to oust Sedwill, either at the time or later. Having enjoyed a distinguished record already with postings at GCHQ – and spells as permanent private secretary to David Cameron and Theresa May – Case was apparently content at Kensington Palace running Prince William’s affairs.

A relatively civilised atmosphere, and you might argue that Case could not conceive of the chaos that awaited him during the remainder of the Johnson administration. Yet Case had been around long enough to know what was going on – and made sure he wasn’t going to end up like Sedwill.

Indeed, when Sedwill approached him to take the Covid job in No 10, Case told him: “I will work for you and the PM. I will not work for Dom. I will not support any version of No 10 that undermines any cabinet secretary, let alone you… I will do my utmost to support a PM but I am v v cautious about walking back into this… Honestly, Mark, I don’t want to go near these people. If as part of all this there are some guarantees about behaviour, I will give it a go for a very short period.” Cautious as he was, he did throw his lot in with Johnson – a fatal error.

Even now, no one underestimates Case’s intelligence and administrative skills. He has earned some respect for the way he handled his highly stressful and challenging job in difficult circumstances, not least the short-lived Truss administration (though he didn’t stand up for his most senior colleague, Tom Scholar, when Truss and her chancellor dismissed him as permanent secretary at the Treasury).

For example, after the Queen died, Case was described as “indispensable… calm, assured and strong”. His university tutor, Peter Hennessy, praised him for a “muscularity of mind and an intellectual curiosity which was outstanding”. Three Tory prime ministers relied heavily on him. Case’s judgment, however, was flawed.

In my opinion, what has really brought Case to his unhappy denouement wasn’t his health, nor the circumstances of his appointment by Johnson, nor even the antipathy that seems to have grown from and towards him in No 10 now – but Partygate.

Here again, his and Gray’s paths crossed, with momentous consequences. When the Partygate scandal broke, Johnson naturally appointed Case to conduct an investigation (perhaps hoping for an indulgent judgment on his behaviour).

But shortly after came the revelation that Case himself had organised and attended some of the “gatherings” that broke the lockdown rules – and he featured in a photograph of one such cheese and wine party in the garden of No 10.

Famously, the Partygate investigation was taken over by… Sue Gray, on the advice of Case himself. Having been head of ethics for the civil service, she was an obvious choice, but Case might have made a shrewder pick for the task. Hardly mentioning Case by name, Gray’s report criticised the “poor leadership” shown in Downing Street – and, like Johnson himself, the facts reported by Gray damaged Case almost irretrievably.

It is an unfortunate end to Case’s work, which he took seriously. But those who inhabit the world of bureaucratic politics know that they are only ever a critical mistake and a sworn enemy away from their demise with a consolatory peerage and some suitable but powerless sinecure.

Case created his own nemesis: Gray, with the inevitable gruesome consequences we are witnessing now. Worst of all, as soon as a Labour victory looked assured, Case would have seen her coming.