The honeymoon is over. Global IT outage is Sir Keir Starmer’s first crisis.
When the the full enormity of the disaster As it became apparent, the prime minister was about to pull off his latest diplomatic coup: hosting Ukrainian President Zelenskyy at a cabinet meeting.
Were the Prime Minister and senior ministers distracted by the VIP guest in Downing Street and too slow to react? Almost certainly. And to make matters worse, Leeds was in flames after a night of riots.
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At 8:45 am, the Home Ministry said the government was not facing any IT issues. Really? This sounded like a complacent reaction and one that soon proved to be extremely misleading.
The rest of the country certainly felt the impact, right from breakfast time. And in many different ways affecting daily life.
Whether it was the chaos at airports caused by flight cancellations, canceled trains, paralyzed banking services or the near-collapse of the NHS – with doctor and hospital appointments and prescriptions halted – almost everyone in the UK and around the world was affected.
However, at first there appeared to be confusion and confusion in Whitehall as to which government department was dealing with the crisis. Not us, said the Department of Health. Speak to the NHS, said the department.
Not us, said the Cabinet, it was the science department. It then became clear that benefit payments by the Department for Work and Pensions could be frozen and not paid.
Before 10am, the Liberal Democrats demanded a COBRA meeting, a demand the party is often ridiculed for making. This time, however, it seemed like an entirely reasonable demand.
“The public needs to be assured that disruption to their travel or desperately needed GP appointments will be minimised,” said Cabinet Office spokeswoman Christine Jardine MP.
COBRA is not as sexy as it seems. It stands for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A and is the room in Whitehall where ministers, often including the Prime Minister, military chiefs, spies, medical experts and others meet in times of war, terrorist attacks or – more recently – COVID.
Even parliament was not exempt from IT chaos. “Due to technical problems, the cash registers at all points of sale on the property do not accept card payments,” deputies and their staff were informed. “Customers can pay in cash.”
What a relief for all those new MPs desperate for some subsidized bacon for breakfast before clamoring to get the attention of the President or Vice-President and deliver their maiden speech on the King’s Speech.
The feeling that the government had been caught off guard was reinforced when it became apparent that there would be no statement from the House of Commons – or even an urgent question from the Opposition – on the growing crisis.
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It was, however, mentioned during the first business of the day in the House of Commons, a statement from Sir Keir Starmer’s Cabinet minister Pat McFadden in Thursday’s COVID inquiry report.
Speaking of “the full range of risks we face”, he said: “And we are reminded of that this morning as reports come in of a global IT outrage affecting airlines, doctors’ practices, banks, media organisations.
“It’s not easy to know what the future holds. It’s not possible to fully plan for all possible risks.”
No, but it appears that the government was not prepared for this cyber crisis. Obviously Sir Keir and his team have only been in power for two weeks, so the previous Conservative government must take most of the blame.
But politics is an old and difficult trade and everyone whose lives have been disrupted by chaos at airports, railway stations, banks or in the NHS will be unforgiving and likely to blame the current government.
Global IT outage causes chaos at airports
McFadden told MPs: “I will lead a review of our national resilience against the range of risks the UK has faced. I will chair a dedicated cabinet committee on resilience to oversee that work.”
Yes, Minister! One can imagine Whitehall mandarin Sir Humphrey Apple advising the hapless minister Jim Hacker on how to deal with a crisis: “Set up a committee, minister!”
Mr McFadden later said: “I am in close contact with the teams coordinating our response through the COBRA response system.” Oh, COBRA! Finally!
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Well, not exactly. It turned out that COBRA meetings were simply attended by civil servants and other officials, not ministers. That won’t satisfy those pesky COBRA-loving liberal Democrats.
Science Minister Peter Kyle then said: “Government departments are working together to understand the nature of today’s outrages and respond appropriately and quickly.”
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Confirming that a COBRA meeting took place with officials but not ministers, Number 10 said the PM could not chair the meeting due to his talks with President Zelenskyy and then the cabinet meeting.
Which is fair enough. But it appears that Zelenskyy’s visit – important and historic as it was – distracted Number 10 from the growing cyber crisis. The timing was unfortunate and unlucky for the PM.
So far, Sir Keir has been an extremely lucky Prime Minister. Rishi Sunak’s disastrous decision to hold the election on July 4 gave Sir Keir the opportunity to make a big impact in his first fortnight as prime minister.
Cabinet Minister Pat McFadden. Photo: PA
A high-level NATO summit in Washington, followed by the holding of the great European debate space, the European Political Community, in glorious Blenheim, propelled him, in just a few days, to the forefront of the world stage.
No wonder his personal approval ratings rose in the short period he was prime minister. But his good fortune so far was rudely interrupted by the IT crisis.
Harold Macmillan famously said that the greatest challenge for a statesman was “events, dear boy, events” and Margaret Thatcher – equally famous – said that in politics “the unexpected always happens”.
When he is prime minister for a while longer, Sir Keir hopes to be better prepared for an unexpected crisis next time.
This story originally appeared on News.sky.com read the full story
