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Romeo replaces Wormald in the role (Alamy)

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Romeo replaces Sir Chris Wormald, who stood down as head of the civil service last week.

The changes come amid a wider reshuffle at the top of government. In recent weeks, Morgan McSweeney has resigned as Starmer’s chief of staff, and Tim Allan quit as the Prime Minister’s communications director, following outrage over the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite being aware of links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Romeo, who was formerly permanent secretary at the Home Office, was widely expected to be Starmer’s pick after Wormald’s departure.

However, her ascension to the most senior role in the civil service has triggered an extraordinary briefing row.

Previous allegations of Romeo’s use of expenses and bullying of staff when she was the UK’s consul general in New York resurfaced, despite investigations at the time concluding there was “no case to answer”.

In an interview with Channel 4 last week, former senior civil servant Simon McDonald said that the government should carry out “more due diligence” before appointing Romeo.

Former colleagues have come to her defence, however. Ex-cabinet minister Robert Buckland told The House magazine that Romeo is an “extremely impressive person”.

Meanwhile, one high-ranking civil servant, an ally of Romeo, described McDonald’s behaviour as outrageous.

“At all levels of the civil service, there is a feeling of sheer outrage that a retired civil servant could launch an attack on an existing one, knowing she can’t defend herself against it. It is a drive-by on her, and deeply damaging to the institution.”

Starmer said on Thursday morning: “I am delighted to appoint Dame Antonia Romeo as the new cabinet secretary. She is an outstanding public servant, with a 25‑year record of delivering for the British people.

“Since becoming prime minister, I’ve been impressed by her professionalism and determination to get things done. Families across the country are still feeling the squeeze, and this government is focused on easing the cost of living, strengthening public services and restoring pride in our communities. It is essential we have a cabinet secretary who can support the government to make this happen.

“Antonia has shown she is the right person to drive the government to reform, and I look forward to working with her to deliver this period of national renewal.”

Responding to her appointment, Romeo said: “It is a huge privilege to be asked to serve as cabinet secretary and head of the civil service.

“The civil service is a great and remarkable institution, which I love. We should be known for delivery, efficiency and innovation, working to implement the government’s agenda and meet the challenges the country faces.

“I look forward to working with all colleagues across the civil service to do this, in support of the prime minister and the government.”

Ahead of the Gorton and Denton by-election on Thursday 26 February, Rob Ford analyses the prospects for Labour, Reform and the Green Party.

Next week voters in the South Manchester seat of Gorton and Denton will choose a new MP in the second by-election of Keir Starmer’s administration. Last May Labour lost the formerly safe seat of Runcorn and Helsby and with the government unpopular and unstable, Labour could again struggle in this once rock-solid constituency, and the loss of a second safe seat in less than a year could see the questions around Keir Starmer’s leadership get louder once again.

Gorton and Denton is a Frankenstein’s monster constituency, created in 2024 when the Boundary Commission stitched together pieces of three earlier Manchester seats. The seat is shaped like a battle axe, with the handle running Southwest through diverse and gentrifying wards in Manchester city council, while the head of the axe in the Northeast covers the three Tameside wards of Denton.

Demographic differences: Tameside and Manchester wards of Gorton and Denton

Source: Census 2021

Though both parts of the seat have long voted Labour, they are poles apart demographically. The four Manchester wards are on average nearly 60% non-white and 40% Muslim, and 42% of the residents are either students or graduates. These wards resemble places Labour has struggled in the last couple of years with challenges on the left. The three Tameside wards of Denton are on average 83% white, 86% UK born, and with a high share of residents doing working class jobs. Reform UK made hay in wards like this in last May’s local elections. But the two chunks of the seat are not equally matched – about two thirds of the population live in the more diverse, graduate and student heavy Manchester wards.

Gorton and Denton has long been deep red. Labour won 50.8% here in 2024, making the seat one of just 70 where Labour won an absolute majority, but this share was down sharply on an estimated 67.2% in 2019. The seat was one of four in central/south Manchester where Labour support dropped by double digits, all with large Muslim communities and many students and young graduates. Both the Greens and the Worker’s Party made major gains at Labour’s expense in 2024, winning nearly a quarter of the vote between them. While the Greens start in third place on 13.2%, the Worker’s Party are not standing in the by-election and have all but endorsed the Greens, saying “Labour and Reform must lose.” Reform are now the largest right wing party locally, having won nearly 15% in 2024, while the Conservatives, already marginal have now become irrelevant, having fallen to fifth place with less than 8% of the vote

2019 and 2024 election results in Gorton and Denton

Dark bars on left – 2019 notional results (Rallings and Thrasher); light bars on right – 2024 results

Three routes to victory

On paper, Gorton and Denton should not be a hard seat for Labour to hold. They have won every general election in this seat and its predecessors for generations, and almost every local election in every ward here since 2011. This is a Labour leaning seat in a Labour leaning city in a Labour leaning region. Alas things are not so simple for a governing party polling below 20%, led by the most unpopular Prime Minister in polling history, a Prime Minister who has particularly struggled with the young progressives and Muslim voters who congregate in the seat’s Manchester wards.

Labour’s national troubles provide a local opening for the Greens, who are campaigning both as the vehicle for discontent with the Starmer government among young progressives and Muslims and as the strongest local opponent to Reform. The Greens are hoping they can to do to Labour in Gorton and Denton what Plaid Cymru did to Labour in Caerphilly – convince disaffected Labour voters that they can indeed have their cake and eat it – voting for a party who are both more progressive than Labour nationally and better able to stop Reform locally.

But the Greens face greater obstacles in Gorton and Denton that Plaid Cymru did in Caerphilly. Plaid had an exceptionally high profile candidate, and benefitted from national polling showing them well ahead of Welsh Labour. The Greens have little organisation and no presence in local government in Gorton and Denton’s wards, and their candidate is little known in the area. With national polling ambiguous and no reliable seat polling, Labour and the Greens have been waging an intense leaflet war over who is the strongest “stop Reform” option.

The risk to both, and the opportunity to Reform, is that neither side wins that argument and the left vote splits evenly. A split left is likely a necessary condition for Reform success, but not a sufficient one, in an area which has never been receptive to right wing politicians of any stripe. The combined Conservative and Reform vote in 2024 was just 22.4% – whereas in Runcorn and Helsby, where Reform defeated Labour by just six votes last May, it was 34.1% (18.1% Reform, 16.0% Tory). Reform will need everything to go their way if they are to take this seat. They will need to dominate the vote in the more Reform friendly Denton wards, an even split between Labour and the Greens in the Manchester wards, and low turnout in less Reform friendly areas to reduce the inherent advantages to their opponents. There is a route to Reform victory here but it is a narrow one.

This fragmented and uncertain contest will go to the wire, but one thing is already certain: defeat for Labour would be a disaster for the Starmer government, regardless of who inflicts it. This would be the second time in less than a year that Labour loses one of the 70 seats where it started with an absolute majority. Results like that are not “typical mid-term blues” but signs of an existential crisis. The political fallout could be severe, as the drumbeat of defeat in once rock-solid areas, set to get louder still in May’s local and devolved elections, will lead ever more Labour legislators to worry not only about their own electoral prospects, but about the future viability of their party.

By Professor Rob Ford, Senior Fellow, UK in a Changing Europe and Professor of Politics, University of Manchester.

A longer version of this article was previously published at “The Swingometer”

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the Epstein buddy formerly known as ‘prince’, has been arrested this morning at the Sandringham estate in Norfolk.

Police arrived early this morning in unmarked cars. The exact reason for the arrest is still unannounced, though it is under the umbrella term of misconduct in public office. BBC correspondent Laura Manning speculated that:

My understanding is that there’s been a very significant development in the investigation into the Epstein files. Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been arrested this morning on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

That goes back to documents from when he was a trade envoy, that are alleged to have been passed to Epstein.

Knowing the priorities of the British state, it is more likely to be linked to his leaking of secrets to serial chiild-rapist Jeffrey Epstein than his alleged trafficking of women.

For more on the the Epstein Files, please read the Canary’s article on way that the media circus around Epstein is erasing the experiences of victims and survivors.

Featured image via the Canary

The Royal British Legion (RBL) have announced an Iraq War ’15 years on’ memorial event. The veterans charity, which is backed by major global arms firms, said the event would be held in Staffordshire in May 2025 at the National Arboretum.

The Arboretum is a national site for military remembrance, and is known for partnering with military-linked firms.

The Legion’s press release says:

We will remember the lives lost and those affected and pay tribute to the professionalism and dedication of the men and women who served, from the initial invasion to the crucial rebuilding of Iraqi institutions and infrastructure.

That last little bit is particularly deceptive. It makes Iraq sound like a humanitarian mission, rather than a war crime-riddled heist.

Iraq denials don’t hold water

In fact, one Iraq veteran told the Canary that the RBL’s claim was flat wrong:

When I was on Telic one [the Iraq invasion] there was a planned campaign of arresting anyone that had membership of the Ba’ath party (this was after the government had fell). In effect teachers, dentists, doctors, or anyone with a skilled job, had to be members of the party under the old regime, or they wouldn’t have been allowed to work.

In effect, anyone that knew how to do something in society was removed, and when we questioned this on the ground, we were told that this policy had come from the very top (Downing Street)

So it wasn’t just the military campaign it was also the removal of all people that ran Iraqi society. At the same time the army was pretty much made redundant.

The institutions and infrastructure wouldn’t have needed building up or repairing without this.

When we asked the RBL about their links to corporate sponsors, they told us:

Which certainly doesn’t clear up the issue of their corporate sponsors as an organisation. And, when we asked the Iraq veteran about the Legion’s links to arms firms, he told us:

Yes the RBL are basically partnering with the arms business, which surely must be against the principles of when the organisation started.

The truth is that the Iraq War was illegal and killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of people. The war destabilised the entire Middle East region, leaving a lasting impact on those who carried it out. By all measures, it was an unmitigated disaster. Yet, bizarrely, figures like Trump’s secretary of state Marco Rubio are clamouring to revive colonialism. Regime change in Iraq clearly taught them that war is profitable for the West.

In the pockets of Big Death

Since the ousting of the pre-2003 government, Iraq has become a lucrative cash cow for certain players, including global arms firms — what I prefer to call Big Death. Welcome to the military charity-industrial complex.

What makes the Iraq event and comments from the Royal British Legion striking is that both the legion and the National Arboretum proudly state their connections to the global killing business.

BAE Systems is a major partner of the RBL — to the tune of £400,000. The Arboretum’s website names Amey, Key Systems, Briggs Equipment  and Jaguar Land Rover among its partners and supporters. All of these firms make profit from war and global instability.

The press and RBL did not even attempt to reflect these galling truths in their coverage of the event.

Flattening Iraq: literally and ideologically

Instead, the Mirror led with stories about veterans horribly wounded in the war — yep veterans, not the countless Iraqis killed as a result of the war.

Certainly, these are awful and harrowing tales involving terrible injuries. But the point, my friends, is that the choice to focus on individual stories is deeply political.

In 2018 Professor Paul Dixon wrote a report called Warrior Nation: War, militarisation and British democracy. Dixon recently published a much-expanded book on the same issue.

In his original report, Dixon identified many different tactics used by pro-war groups and individuals to de-politicise and flatten discussions about war. One of these is ‘personalisation”.

As Dixon has it:

The personalisation of war refers to the focus on human stories and the plight of the troops. This may serve militarists well in ‘depoliticising’ the war (which is, ironically, to conceal the highly political motivations of those behind the war) diverting attention from wider questions as to why it was necessary to fight these wars.

He adds:

Personalisation can be combined with deflection in which opposition to the war is presented

as opposition to military personnel, militaristic ideals and the nation. War becomes ‘a fight to

save our own soldiers… rather than as a struggle for policy goals external to the military.’