Sir Keir Starmer campaigned under the slogan “change”, and he has wasted little time altering the fabric of Government. An “unsettling” portrait of Margaret Thatcher has reportedly been removed from his study in No 10. Meanwhile his “all powerful” chief of staff Sue Gray is drawing on her 40 years’ experience in Whitehall to replace some key positions with people more to her – and presumably Labour’s – taste.

Most effective administrations change the personnel around them to those more sympathetic to their cause. There is a constant turnover in such posts in any case and many do not want to continue to serve when the ideology of their employers shifts from right to left or left to right.

There is nonetheless a danger that the controlling tendencies of Starmer and Gray could end up assembling a Government of yes men and women. Without creative tension, challenge and scrutiny at the top, mistakes are made more easily.

The changes made in the backroom so far are largely cosmetic. The departmental non-executive directors who are being replaced are just that, Government-appointed non-executives there to advise and oversee, but not directly involved in the implementation of policy.

It matters much more how the Prime Minister fills three plum vacancies which have emerged at the heart of........

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