KEIR Starmer’s former head of political strategy caused a minor sensation last week, bemoaning what he termed “the stakeholder state”.

Paul Ovenden was writing in The Times about why a government with a huge majority is still struggling to get anything done and is constantly distracted by issues that bemuse the public, such as the release of Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, which generated embarrassing headlines over the new year.

Ovenden blamed the “complex coalition of campaign groups, regulators, litigators, trade bodies and well-networked organisations... incubated by a political perma-class that exists within every party and every department – one whose entire focus is on preserving their status within a system that gives them meaning”.

This sounds like “the blob” – the term used in similar complaints by Boris Johnson’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings and Conservative former education minister Michael Gove.

Emma DeSouza: I’d love a border poll by 2030 but the truth is we’re not ready

Shocking US shooting offers stark warning for us all - The Irish News view

But Cummings and Gove believed the civil service was part of the problem and they accused the blob of a left-leaning........

© The Irish News