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Keir Starmer has signalled he will appoint more non-political experts as ministers in his new administration, in an apparent return to Gordon Brown’s attempt to build a “government of all the talents”.
The new prime minister has already made some surprise appointments from outside Westminster, including former chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance as science minister, rehabilitation campaigner and businessman James Timpson as his prisons minister and Richard Hermer KC, an expert on international law, as his attorney general.
Hermer’s appointment was welcomed by senior legal figures and comes with Starmer likely to need regular advice on the Gaza conflict. Hermer was among a group of Jewish lawyers, including former president of the UK supreme court Lord Neuberger, to write a letter warning that international law must guide Israel’s response to Hamas’s 7 October attack.
The letter stated that Hamas’s actions “were not simply a moral outrage but an egregious violation of all norms of international law”. It said that Israel had a clear right in international law to respond in self-defence and a duty to defend its citizens, but added: “To be clear, collective punishment is prohibited by the laws of war. Equally, international law requires combatants to ensure minimum destruction to civilian life and infrastructure.
“An intent to cause indiscriminate damage, rather than behaving in a precise manner to minimise damage would, if established, constitute a grave violation of international law.”
It comes with Labour and Starmer likely to face immediate pressure over the Gaza conflict. It will come from the four new Green MPs, as well as a group of independent candidates who won their campaigns by concentrating on the issue and local anger over Starmer’s response to it. Starmer faced accusations of being too slow in backing an immediate ceasefire.
Adam Wagner, a human rights lawyer who co-signed the letter with Hermer, described him as “an international law expert [who] has lived and breathed human rights law since the Human Rights Act arrived”.
Sir Jonathan Jones, the former Treasury solicitor and permanent secretary of the government legal department, said it was an “excellent appointment”. He said: “Richard Hermer is an extremely experienced KC with the highest reputation. I have no doubt he will take very seriously the attorney general’s vital role of upholding the rule of law in government.”
However, Hermer’s arrival meant sidelining Emily Thornberry, the London Labour MP who had held the role in opposition.
Hermer’s appointment, along with that of Vallance and Timpson, is a sign that Starmer is returning to the idea of appointing a “government of all the talents”.
Such appointees were known under the acronym “goats” during Brown’s tenure in Downing St. Starmer’s allies believe it will demonstrate that he intends to lead in a non-ideological way.
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Brown made a series of external ministerial appointments when he became prime minister in 2007. They included former admiral Lord West, ex-UN deputy secretary general Mark Malloch Brown, former CBI director-general Digby Jones and surgeon Ara Darzi.
The appointments had mixed results. There was some criticism of the approach after some of the outside ministers did not last long in their posts, while others caused political embarrassment for the government. Lord Jones left Brown’s government in a 2008 reshuffle. He later complained that being a junior minister had been “one of the most dehumanising and depersonalising experiences a human being can have”. However, Lord Darzi stayed in post as a health minister for two years and his 2008 review of the NHS won broad support.
Academics from UCL later interviewed several “Goats” to assess their experience, recommending that they be given “mentoring” to help them navigate Westminster. “We found a wide range of views and experience,” their subsequent report stated. “A few of these new UK ‘outsider’ ministers were regarded as successful, and several as failures. Most were given little or no induction.”