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Politicians feel the reality of power in both big and small ways.
The Chancellor is in the midst of making decisions about the pay of millions of civil servants, and staff are watching her every word as she walks down the long corridors of the Treasury Department.
But as Rachel Reeves navigates the family nightmare of a move, she’s also trying to find time to unpack truckloads of boxes — her husband has done most of the organizing so far — and wrestle with the perennial question: Where are we going to put all our books?
Foreign Secretary David Lammy has already served as Britain’s chief diplomat in several countries, negotiating some of the toughest negotiations in Israel and receiving a phone call in the middle of the night that a former US president had been shot.
But like millions of fathers, he has had to deal with teasing from his children, who warned him not to look stupid by bursting into tears on TV when he started his new job (though he did not burst into tears on camera, he did admit to having an “emotional moment” in the Cabinet room with Sue Gray, Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff).
But like others in the Cabinet, he wonders why the government’s new official red folder is too big to fit into the government’s red box, and endures teasing from colleagues about his father’s past loyalty to the Conservative party.
Sir Keir appears to have created a “Wes’s Dad” test to see whether former Conservative voters who backed Labour in this election would approve of plans and policies.
The change of government in the UK is astonishing – swift and brutal for those who are pushed out, but astonishing for those who are brought into power and have their dream jobs, who suddenly find themselves facing new realities and new responsibilities in the jobs they have long coveted.
During the first two weeks of the new Labour government, our cameras were able to capture the three new ministers up close and personal as they attended their first meetings, visited cabinet posts and conducted a series of interviews with me.
A special Panorama programme on Monday at 8pm BST will show how it is both political and deeply personal for all of them.
Just two weeks into its term, it’s impossible to tell whether this administration will succeed or fail, or where it may succeed or fail.
But it is clear that as a group they have prepared as thoroughly as any opposition party could and are in a rush to show they can get things done.
And after the first few weeks it has become abundantly clear that they, like previous administrations, are at the mercy of events over which they have no control.
It is also clear that these ministers believe in and want to expand state power – a fact that may not have been discussed much during an election campaign focused on tax and spend.
And it is clear they are trying desperately to reassure people about how difficult their task is. Ministers are rushing to warn about how the country is falling apart.
Clearly, even after the election, there is an attempt to create a lasting impression that the Conservatives have ruined the country. Messages like “it’s worse than we expected” and that the Conservatives “got away” may become familiar. The 2029 general election may still be a long way off, but make no mistake, the long campaign has already begun.
But what really struck me in my conversations with the three new key ministers is that, without any prompting, they all link their own chances of prosperity to the fate of our entire political system.
Reeves told me that if they didn’t keep their promises, it would be seen as an “institutional failure” for all politicians and would prove an existing suspicion among some voters that “all politicians are liars.”
Both Mr Lammy and Mr Streeting, who came close to losing his seat, have suggested that if they get the decision wrong, populists will rise to power.
The Labor Party suffered a scare in the election when some candidates were excluded due to aggressive campaigning on the Gaza issue.
Nigel Farage’s party, Reform UK, attracted the support of former Labour voters but also large segments of Conservative supporters.
The new government has just begun, but it seems to believe that what is at stake is not just the fate of political parties, but also the public’s trust in the political system.
‘Labour: Inside the New Government’ airs tonight at 8pm on BBC One.