UK PM Keir Starmer replaces third top aide in less than a year

LONDON: UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is replacing his principal private secretary (PPS) Ninjeri Pandit , who has held the role since Oct 2024, as he attempts to reboot his govt after a torrid first year in power. She is the third top aide he has replaced in less than a year.

Chief of staff Sue Gray left in Oct and director of communications Matthew Doyle stepped down in March.

The PPS to the PM is a civil servant who runs the PM’s private office acting as a gatekeeper to the PM, running his diary and interacting with ministers, officials and advisers.

Nin Pandit will move into a newly created role next week leading on policy delivery at No. 10, Downing Street confirmed.

Sources said that the PM had decided to “take more direct oversight of delivery” and bring that into No. 10.

The BBC claimed that Pandit was being replaced because Starmer was concerned she was “ineffective” in the PPS role. The Guido Fawkes website quoted a Downing Street source saying Pandit was “hopeless and seems to dislike everyone and everything with no ability to fix things”.

However No. 10 sources told TOI on Saturday this was absolutely not true. Prior to her PPS role, Pandit ran the No. 10 Policy Unit from Nov 2022, under Rishi Sunak’s premiership.

The shake-up of the No. 10 operation comes as support for Labour has collapsed to a historic low of 20%, the party’s lowest rating since July 2019 when Jeremy Corbyn led the party. The latest polls put Reform UK at 15 points ahead of Labour. Starmer’s personal approval has plummeted to -44 net favourability, one of the lowest ratings for a sitting PM.

Starmer’s govt is under huge pressure to address the small boats crisis. More than 50,000 illegal migrants have crossed the English Channel since Labour came into power in July 2024, a 38% increase on the year before. There have been widespread protests outside asylum hotels throughout the summer, triggered after several migrants staying in them were charged with criminal offences. This is all a gift to Reform UK which recently announced it would deport all illegal migrants.