Red Box has found this in PR Week: an organogram of Downing Street’s comms operation. The resolution’s not very good (big version here), but one thing is very clear: Stephen Carter is above everyone else. As Red Box comments, “It would take a huge amount of insider knowledge to put such a thing together without any sort of briefing. Clearly someone helped.” And, Red Box wonders, “how do the others on this graphic feel about it?”.
Well, here’s a starter for ten: Spencer Livermore, who’s been a special adviser to Brown forever, quit yesterday.
Benedict Brogan puts it like this:
He was forced out by new man Stephen Carter, who is busily recasting the Downing Street political machine and now finds himself the target of recriminations from the old guard who resent seeing one of their own cast out. Compared to turmoil in the global markets and the rants of Heather McCartney, this event hardly qualifies as news. But it has the potential to prove significant.
Mr Livermore has powerful friends, not least Gordon Brown and Ed Balls who tried hard to persuade him to stay. They point out that he has never been short of private sector offers, and had a standing invitation to join Saatchis…
You can see where this is going. The arrival of new faces in No10 is causing stress.
Three Line Whip at the Telegraph offered more background yesterday:
Livermore initially worked well with Carter, but he has badly undermined him it seems. He moved Livermore out of his office so he could take the space. He also conspicuously omitted his name when introducing the No10 political team to Labour party staff at a ‘get-together’ last Friday. Reports over the weekend have quoted ‘sources close to Carter’ briefing against Livermore, and we can expect more of the same now his departure has been confirmed.
Here are Red Box’s three [sic] conclusions on the matter:
1. It suggests Carter is shaping up to be an extremely powerful person indeed in Downing Street, and others with long-standing connections to Brown are not necessarily as influential as they once were. I sense tears.
2. Downing Street is – in terms – admitting that Brown’s original slimmed-down Downing Street was ill prepared for the demands of that Whitehall placed on it because they failed to realise “everything that department do must go through Number 10”. Well worth revisiting Peter Riddell’s comments from a month ago. Today’s changes reinforce the idea Team Brown had little clue about what life next door was like when he was at the Treasury.
3. The phrase “sources close to Stephen Carter” has entered the lexicon. This is causing tension in Number 10 — ironic given the amount some of them have spun against others in the past.
4. There will probably be more changes. I’m guessing others in Downing Street may be worried. And may be mounting a fightback.
