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Sir Keir Starmer has announced that Sir Chris Wormald will take over as Cabinet Secretary. This position is one of the most powerful positions within the government, and Sir Keir believes that Sir Chris is the perfect person for the job. The appointment was praised by Lord Jim Bethell, a former health minister, while another former health secretary, Sajid Javid, described Chris as “brilliant and dedicated.” However, Dominic Cummings, a senior No 10 adviser during the pandemic, had a different opinion, saying this appointment is a “wake-up call to all investors in the UK and young talent.”
Chris Wormald has worked for the civil service since the early 1990s, making him an authority in civil-service matters. His colleagues have mixed opinions about his appointment, with some saying he’s just the right person for reform while others believe he is too wedded to the status quo. Before his appointment, he had already given evidence on three separate occasions to the public inquiry into the government’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which was the biggest crisis of our time in its nature and speed of spread.
From May 2016 onwards, Chris became the most senior civil servant in the Department of Health and was involved in overseeing important decisions made after Covid-19 emerged. In November 2023, the Covid inquiry published a text message exchange between him and his then boss, Cabinet Secretary Mark Sedwill, which was conducted on 12 March 2020, just before the UK’s first national lockdown order. At the time, his boss wrote that they wanted the country to develop “herd immunity” before the next wave of Covid-19 hits. Chris replied, “Exactly right. We make the point every meeting, they don’t quite get it.” He later accepted that he had been “very, very loose” with his expression, although he claimed he was following scientific advice.
Sir Chris’s career is an enviable one, as he has worked in positions across Whitehall, including in the office of the then-Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, and the Department for Communities and Local Government. However, there were those in Westminster who felt his time had passed. Nevertheless, his appointment was surprising, as it’s believed that Sir Keir had prioritized a candidate with an understanding of the NHS. Chris’s relatively low profile in the media may have been another consideration in the selection. It’s hoped he will continue to go unnoticed by the wider public following the brief tenure of his well-known predecessor, Sue Gray
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