Ex-aide: PM 'handed away clout' to keep rash campaign vows
The PM’s ex-chief of staff claims frantic efforts to honour campaign promises led to sweeping transfers of state power to private hands.
The promise trap
Downing Street corridors still echo with the row that erupted late on Wednesday, when the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff walked into a Westminster café, ordered a single espresso, and unloaded a political bombshell.
‘Too much power, too fast’
“Ministers were told to sign off powers they didn’t even know they had—just to keep the headlines coming,” the ex-aide told me, eyes fixed on the rain-slicked window. “By the time we realised, the levers were already gone.”
The aide, who left No. 10 only last month, claims that frantic efforts to deliver eye-catching election pledges—from zero-carbon targets to regional rail takeovers—forced the PM to cede regulatory control to quangos, private contractors and overseas investors.
What was given away?
- Carbon-credit pricing authority handed to a consortium including a Saudi investment fund.
- Planning fast-track powers outsourced to a consortium run by former ministers.
- New fiscal rules quietly amended to allow unfunded tax cuts, shifting oversight to an “independent” panel appointed by the Treasury.
Backbench backlash
One senior Tory backbencher, not usually aligned with the opposition, described the revelations as “a slow-motion surrender of parliamentary sovereignty”. Labour’s shadow chancellor called it “the biggest unilateral power grab by private interests since the 1980s privatisation spree”.
The numbers that sting
Analysis by the Institute for Fiscal Responsibility shows £37 billion in future policy commitments now sit outside direct ministerial control, up from £7 billion five years ago. Pollster YouGov reports public trust in elected officials has fallen a further 8 points in the past fortnight alone.
What happens next?
Ministers insist all delegations are “within constitutional norms” and subject to “robust sunset clauses”. Yet a cross-party group is plotting an emergency Commons debate to force publication of every memorandum of understanding signed since the last election. If they secure just 40 Conservative signatures, the Speaker is expected to grant the debate next week.
Meanwhile, the PM’s former gatekeeper sips the last of his coffee and offers a parting shot: “Power handed away in haste is seldom returned at leisure. Voters may not notice today, but they’ll feel it when the bill arrives.”