Ex-civil servants are among the MPs celebrating election wins today, with several of them contributing to Labour's landslide general election victory.
Having secured the Holborn and St Pancras seat he has held since 2015, former director of public prosecutions Sir Keir Starmer is Britain's new prime minister and the most high-profile former official among the more than 400 Labour MPs elected yesterday.
Historic wins
Among the Labour MPs who secured historic wins in their constituencies at the polls yesterday is Rachel Blake, a former policy adviser in the Treasury who worked on planning policy and economic development under then-chancellor Gordon Brown. She succeeds the Conservative's Nickie Aiken, who stepped down at the election, to become the first Labour MP for Cities of London and Westminister.
A former deputy mayor for London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Blake has spent the last year as principal consultant for Renaisi, which was founded by Hackney Council in 1998 to regenerate deprived neighbourhoods.
Dan Tomlinson, a former Treasury economist, has meanwhile become the first ever Labour MP for Chipping Barnet. Tomlinson has been principal policy adviser at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation for the last two years, after a seven-year stint at the Resolution Foundation.
Kanishka Narayan, a former senior adviser at the Cabinet Office and expert adviser to the environment secretary, has also made history after being elected Labour MP for the Vale of Glamorgan – becoming Wales's first MP of colour.
Narayan told BBC Wales his constituents "know politics requires honesty" and he is not offering "a quick sense of results tomorrow but a considered serious form of governance that delivers for this community at the right time".
Katie White won the new Leeds North West constituency, helping Labour take every seat in the city for the first time since 2001. Her career, which has largely been spent at charities and campaigning organisations, includes five years at the Department of Energy and Climate Change, including as head of international climate change engagement and acting senior private secretary.
Hamish Falconer, who has spent nearly a decade in the diplomatic service, beat out the incumbent Conservative Karl McCartney to become Lincoln’s new Labour MP. Before moving into politics, Falconer headed up the Foreign Office’s Terrorism Response Team, leading UK efforts to start a peace process in Afghanistan and served in Pakistan and South Sudan.
He has also worked for the Department for International Development and the National Crime Agency on humanitarian response, state building and investigating human trafficking.
He reflected on his Foreign Office experience in his vistory speech, saying: "I spent most of my diplomatic service in places where democracy did not exist or it was a sham. So I feel particularly moved tonight after a proper competition with my colleagues to have been chosen by my neighbours and fellow residents in Lincoln.”
Anna Dixon, a former chief analyst at the Department of Health, won her Shipley constituency for Labour, unseating Philip Davies, who has been its MP since 2005. Dixon was director of policy at the King's Fund before her move to DoH, where she was also director of quality and strategy, in 2013.
Another winner for Labour is Jeevun Sandher, head of economics at the New Economics Foundation, who has worked as an economist in both the Treasury and Department for Work and Pensions. He has become the first Labour MP for Loughborough since 2010. Nicky Morgan, who would go on to become education secretary, held the seat for nine years before being succeeded by her Conservative colleague Jane Hunt.
And Jennifer Craft, a former fast streamer at the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Cabinet Office, won Thurrock for Labour. Craft, who left the civil service to become a full-time caregiver to her child who has Down's syndrome, beat the Conservatives' Jacqui Doyle-Price, who had recently been elected as chair of the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.
Not all the civil servants-turned-MPs ran for Labour. Calum Miller claimed the new constituency of Bicester and Woodstock for the Lib Dems, contributing to a Conservative wipeout in Oxfordshire. Miller spent nearly a decade in the civil service across several departments, serving as PPS to then-cabinet secretary Gus O'Donnell and then deputy prime minister Nick Clegg – making him the most senior former official CSW identified among the latest intake of MPs.
Miller went on to become chief operating officer and associate dean at the University of Oxford's Blavatnik School of Government in 2012. He has been a senior fellow of practice in public management at the Blavatnik School since May 2023, and has served as a councillor on Oxfordshire County Council for just over three years.
Holding steady
Miatta Fahnbulleh, a former senior civil servant in the Cabinet Office, won her safe Labour seat in Peckham, succeeding Harriet Harman, who has stepped down and is joining the House of Lords. Fahnbulleh previously worked in the PM’s Strategy Unit under Gordon Brown and headed the coalition government’s Cities Policy Unit, and was later a policy adviser to then-leader of the opposition Ed Miliband.
Fahnbulleh has spent seven years at the IPPR think tank, where she is director of policy and research. She was previously chief executive of the left-wing think tank the New Economics Foundation, and stood on a platform focused on economic revitalisation, housing, and tackling crime and anti-social behaviour.
Taking over from Harman, who is tipped to be the next chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Fahnbulleh said the former deputy and acting leader of the Labour Party had “blazed a trail for women like me", adding: "I am incredibly proud to be standing on her shoulders.”
Torsten Bell, who was until recently chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, secured the Labour safe seat of Swansea West. The former Treasury civil servant succeeeds Geraint Davies, who was first elected there as a Labour MP in 2010 but was suspended from the party in 2023 after being accused of sexual harassment and sat the remainder of his term as an independent.
Davies announced in May that he would stand down at the general eleciton, saying he had "yet to have a Labour Party hearing and the opportunity to clear my name", and was therefore unable to stand as a Labour candidate.
Alicia Kearns stays on as Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton
Civil servant-turned-Labour MP Sarah Jones, who has represented Croydon Central since 2017, won the new Croydon West seat with a 14,226-vote majority. Jones was part of the team that delivered the London Olympics and Paralympics in 2012 in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.
Alicia Kearns – one of the few ex-officials CSW identified who stood for the Conservatives – was re-elected to her Rutland and Melton seat, which she has held since since 2019. Before turning to politics, Kearns spent time at the Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Justice and Foreign Office, and has been chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee since 2022.
Defeated
Attorney general Victoria Prentis, who was a government lawyer for 17 years, was less fortunate, losing the Banbury seat she has held for nine years to Labour rival Sean Woodcock. Prentis left her role as head of justice and security at the then-Treasury Solicitors Department to stand in the 2015 general election.
Prentis told the Oxford Mail: “It’s clearly not been a great night for us at all, but we have got to wish the next government all the best."
A number of former officials have meanwhile concluded unsucessful first-time election campaigns.
They include Zoë Billingham, the director of the IPPR think tank and would-be Labour MP, who lost out to the Lib Dem’s Roz Savage in the race for the new South Cotswolds constituency.
The former Treasury senior policy adviser, who worked on EU economic policy, had used her civil service experience to bolster her campaign, telling voters: "As an economist who has worked in public service and public policy throughout my working life, I know how to get things done in government."
Eric Sukumaran, who was standing as Conservative MP for the new Southgate and Wood Green constitency, failed to oust Labour's Bambos Charalambous, who has been MP for Enfield Southgate since 2017. The civil-servant-turned-entrepeneur worked as a senior policy adviser on the Brexit negotiations and international climate treaties, as well as working on HS2, the integration of health and social care, and digital transformation at HM Revenue and Customs.
Conservative hopeful Dylan Thomas meanwhile lost out to Labour heavy hitter John McDonnell in Hayes and Harlington. Thomas led a directorate at the Department for International Trade for three years, providing policy advice and leading on cross-Whitehall sector engagement for DIT with the Cabinet Office and No.10.
The Lib Dem's Matthew Winnington, a former Department for Work and Pensions executive officer, lost out to a comfortable Conservative win for incumbent Caroline Johnson in Sleaford and North Hykeham. And Jonathan Skipworth, a former recognition and accreditation adviser at Ofqual who stood for the Lib Dems in Makerfield, was defeated by Labour's Josh Simons.
Dominic Martin, a former senior senior civil servant and diplomat in the Cabinet Office and Foreign Office who CSW interviewed in 2010, narrowly missed out on a Lib Dem win in East Hampshire. Former education secretary Damian Hinds secured nearly 1,300 votes more to hold on to the seat.
Did we miss anyone? Email beckie.smith@civilserviceworld.com if you know of any other MPs with a civil service background