🔗 Share this article

Efforts to free of Alaa Abd el-Fattah regularly distracted Keir Starmer’s government from concentrating on bread-and-butter home affairs, according to a former member of the PM's inner circle of former advisers.

Frustration Became a Source of Humour

Paul Ovenden, who stepped down last year as the PM's chief of strategy, claimed the case of the imprisoned activist evolved into a “running joke” among those in government exasperated with the slow pace of change.

“We'd hold long meetings on the key goals of the government, and frequently they would be derailed via AOB into conversations of this gentleman,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He added, “Most of us on the political side of government were largely unaware of it – not closely following it – because it didn’t impact us daily. It actually became a bit of a kind of a running joke within government that people would always find a way to bring it back to this topic.”

A Sign of Wider Struggles

Ovenden argued the amount of time spent on freeing Abd el-Fattah was indicative of a government that has struggled to stay focused on voters’ core priorities in the face of pressure from “influential” campaign organisations and arms-length bodies.

Ovenden’s comments were made during his first public intervention since he resigned in September, following revelations he sent offensive texts about the Labour MP Diane Abbott eight years ago.

Echoes of PM's Own Concerns

But, Ovenden’s assessment is shared by many in Downing Street, even the prime minister, who lamented last month about bureaucratic hurdles slowing government action.

Ovenden stated Abd el-Fattah’s case was among a number of areas where the government was sidetracked from its primary goals. He pointed to controversies over compensation for historical injustices and prohibiting cigarettes in pub gardens as further examples.

“At a time when the public is getting more and more frustrated, more and more fed up with a lack of progress, increasingly tired with distraction, in my opinion, we simply can’t afford to be using valuable time on what I consider distractions,” he said.

Advocating for a Radical Shift

In a further article, he calls on the government to scale back environmental regulations, cut benefits expenditure and even end the guaranteed pension increase mechanism.

“We don’t have to keep picking the pockets of the wealth-generating sectors of our economy in order to fund above-inflation pension rises for the wealthy or an unsustainable welfare system,” he writes. “We don’t have to stifle small businesses at birth with excessive regulation.”

As one of a small group of advisers close to the prime minister since his days in opposition, his departure was seen by many as a setback to Starmer, even as his critique of governmental focus finds sympathy in certain quarters.