Trump Accuses UK of "an act of GREAT STUPIDITY!"

Summary

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Newscast Podcast Summary

Episode: “Trump Accuses UK of ‘an act of GREAT STUPIDITY!’”

Date: January 20, 2026
Host(s): Chris Mason, Chris Cook
Guest: Darren Jones, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister

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Episode Overview

This episode of BBC’s Newscast tackles two major topics:

• The diplomatic shockwaves from Donald Trump’s social media tirade against the UK’s Chagos Islands deal with Mauritius, including his accusation of “an act of GREAT STUPIDITY!”
• A deep-dive with Darren Jones, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, about his vision for reforming the British state, including ambitious plans for digital government, civil service overhaul, and a candid look at the realities of public sector change.

Tone: Candid, at times playful and self-deprecating, with incisive political analysis.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Social Media Intervention

[01:10 - 05:33]

• Trump’s Posts: Donald Trump leaked screenshots of private messages from Emmanuel Macron (France) and the NATO Secretary General, then posted a lengthy “warning” on Truth Social, criticising the UK for transferring the Chagos Islands (home to the vital US base Diego Garcia) to Mauritius.
• Main Trump Quote:

  “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of great stupidity and is another in a very long line of national security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired… Denmark and its European allies have to do the right thing…”
  — Chris Mason, reading Trump’s post [01:44]

• Geopolitical Shock: This is seen as a sudden reversal: previously, both Trump and U.S. officials had welcomed the deal for securing the base for 99 years. The hosts highlight how Trump’s unpredictability destabilises diplomatic relations.
• Official Response: The UK government is caught off-guard, scrambling to address the fallout even as they’re launching domestic reforms.
• Framing:

  “This intervention is really quite something because it upends any sense of being able to predict what Donald Trump will say around the UK and foreign policy.”
  — Chris Cook [04:20]

2. Chagos Islands, China, and Changing Alliances

[05:33 - 09:05]

• The Chagos Islands’ security is critical for both the UK and US; handover to Mauritius was designed to resolve sovereignty disputes while safeguarding military interests.
• Simultaneously, the UK has approved a massive new Chinese embassy in London, raising eyebrows in Washington about Britain’s China strategy.
• A key question arises: Is Trump’s post a personal outburst, a sign of deeper policy change, or a signal of increasing unpredictability in US-UK relations?

3. On-the-Fly Government Response: Interview with Darren Jones

[09:05 - 18:08]

• Initial Reaction: Jones describes the challenge of handling a diplomatic incident in real time during a domestic media round:

  “It was actually unfolding in the middle of my media round… it’s the kind of way the world works now.”
  — Darren Jones [10:06]

• Operational Impact: Despite heated rhetoric, Jones insists core security partnerships remain undisturbed:

  “I can… reassure you that the important relationship we have with the Americans… continues to operate today as it always has, keeping us safe.”
  — Darren Jones [10:52]

• Government’s Principles: The UK government stands by international law and sovereignty, negotiating a long-term lease to maintain security at Diego Garcia while complying with legal obligations.
• Diplomacy vs. Rhetoric:

  “What you need to really focus on is what’s actually happening or changing in the world.”
  — Darren Jones [15:07]

• New World Order: Jones acknowledges western alliances face unprecedented volatility, “pretty fundamental questions about how Western allies cooperate, the role of NATO…”

4. Reforming the British State: The Digital Government Vision

[18:08 - 24:06]

• Ambition: All government services accessible from a single, secure app—“the new front door of the digital state.”
• Digital ID:

  “Digital ID is pretty fundamental to this whole theory… It’s entirely up to you whether you use it… The big offer here is that it’s just going to be easier to get stuff done.”
  — Darren Jones [20:27]

• Legacy Systems & Pragmatism: Jones is candid that onboarding legacy services will be challenging and phased, starting with simple services (e.g., digital driving licenses, veterans cards) from 2027.

5. Taskforce Model & Civil Service Overhaul

[24:06 - 30:29]

• Taskforces: Inspired by the vaccine rollout, new “taskforces” will target persistent public service delivery problems—acting before a crisis emerges. Departments will compete for the chance to run these focused teams.
• Bonuses & Accountability: Plans to overhaul civil service bonuses, reducing their number but increasing their potential value, awarded for “really, really important” achievements. Key performance indicators (KPIs) will be set by Secretaries of State.

  “If KPIs are not hit, people could be fired. It’s kind of as brutal as that.”
  — Chris Mason [27:50]

• No “Blob” Scapegoating:

  “The people who are responsible for getting things done are the ministers. If ministers are blaming something called the Blob, it’s because they are not very good at doing their job.”
  — Darren Jones [29:17]

6. Systemic Challenges & Leadership

[30:29 - 36:54]

• Jones’ Role: Unprecedented central role spanning Treasury, Number 10, and Cabinet Office. He emphasizes that prioritization and coordination are the keys to making reform work.
• Honest Self-Assessment: Jones reveals he’s done a personal competency assessment—pointing out both his decisiveness and the need to be more inclusive as a leader.

  “I need to make sure… I give [my team] the space and the chance to talk to [policies] and to challenge it a bit, as opposed to saying, thanks for that 20-page paper, I think option A is the right one, let’s crack on with it.”
  — Darren Jones [34:37]

7. The Stakes: Existential or “Nice to Have”?

[38:50 - 40:41]

• Hosts reflect on the ambitious scale of the state reform:

  “They want to turn… government into an everything app.”
  — Chris Mason [38:50]

• The government views this transformation as existential, not optional, partly in response to threats from Reform UK and to close the growing gap between public and private sector user experiences:

  “…unless they can demonstrably deliver… they lose to Reform UK and… that then poses massive threats and challenges the like of which the UK has not seen before.”
  — Chris Cook [39:19]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Trump’s voice echoes:

  “The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of great stupidity and is another in a very long line of national security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired…”
  [01:44] (Chris Mason, reading Trump’s post)

• On real-time diplomacy:

  “It was actually unfolding in the middle of my media round… it’s the kind of way the world works now.”
  [10:06] (Darren Jones)

• On government’s digital ambition:

  “The new front door of the new digital state is going to be the gov.uk app, as opposed to what currently exists, which is 28 different departments of government, each with their own website, call center, paper based forms. That basically drives everybody up the wall.”
  [18:41] (Darren Jones)

• On civil service accountability:

  “If ministers are blaming something called the Blob, it’s because they are not very good at doing their job.”
  [29:17] (Darren Jones)

• Personal leadership lesson:

  “I apparently don’t have an innate need to please people, which is surprising given my job.”
  [34:19] (Darren Jones, self-deprecatingly on his competency test)

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Important Timestamps and Segments

• [01:10] — Opening salvo: Trump’s posts dissected
• [04:37] — Darren Jones in the media firing line as diplomatic crisis unfolds
• [09:33] — Jones joins hosts for an in-depth interview
• [10:06] — Jones’ reaction to Trump’s posts
• [18:41] — Jones lays out vision for government digital transformation
• [24:06] — Taskforces and civil service reform explained
• [29:17] — “Blob” debate addressed
• [34:19] — Jones shares personal leadership weaknesses
• [38:50] — Hosts reflect on ambition and stakes of government reform

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Conclusion

This episode illustrates how volatile geopolitics—especially when driven by the likes of Donald Trump—can force governments to react instantly, scrambling established diplomatic protocols. At the same time, it explores the UK government’s sweeping ambitions for public sector reform in the digital age, as Darren Jones explains a vision for a user-centric, accountable state. The show balances sharp political analysis with humor and self-awareness, giving listeners a comprehensive understanding of both immediate crises and the slower, deeper work of state reform.

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Transcript

[BBC Podcast Announcer]

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[Helena Merriman]

If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Chris Mason]

So, Chris, it's another day where kind of all the action has been on Donald Trump's social media channels.

[Chris Cook]

Yeah, completely. So I woke up this morning and, and I turned on the radio and I was sort of kind of half asleep and I thought, hang on a minute, something quite big's happened here, wasn't it? And then 10 minutes later, I'm on the radio talking about it.

[Chris Mason]

So the first thing was he published some screen grabs of private messages he'd received from Emmanuel Macron, a Margaret to the Secretary General of NATO. So that was one thing. Then he posted this kind of. You called it a rant, didn't you?

[Chris Cook]

Yeah, I think that's a reasonable description. Yeah.

[Chris Mason]

About the government's deal that it did with Mauritius to hand the Chagos Islands, which were British territory, over to Mauritius. And I'll read out the whole post on Truth Social from Donald Trump. So here's what it says. It is quite a long warning. Shockingly, our brilliant NATO ally, the United Kingdom, is currently planning to give away the island of Diego Garcia, the site of a vital US military base, to Mauritius. And to do so for no reason whatsoever. There's no doubt that China and Russia have noticed this act of total weakness. These are international powers who only recognize strength, which is why the United States of America, under my leadership, is now, after only one year, respected like never before. The UK giving away extremely important land is an act of great stupidity and is another in a very long line of national security reasons why Greenland has to be acquired, Denmark and its European allies have to do the right thing. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President Donald J. Trump.

[Chris Cook]

I like your audible capitalization going on there, but maybe we needed sort of Matt Ford to do it in a, in a kind of Trumpian style voice.

[Chris Mason]

I don't know, maybe. I think people can probably hear Donald Trump's voice when they hear it though.

[Chris Cook]

Yes.

[Chris Mason]

What on earth is going on? We'll discuss in this episode of Newscast which today is coming to you from the headquarters in West London of the tech company. What three words? Because we were invited here to watch a speech being given about reforming the state by the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, Darren Jones, who's also going to be joining us for this episode.

[Newscast Outro Announcer]

Of Newscast, Newscast, Newscast from the BBC.

[Darren Jones]

Fat Boy Slim and me in the.

[Chris Cook]

Classroom doing our violin lessons.

[Darren Jones]

I was the tattletale in the class. Can I have an apology, please? I trust almost nobody.

[Chris Cook]

Then daddy has to sometimes use strong language.

[Helena Merriman]

Next time in Moscow I feel Delulu with no Salulu.

[Chris Cook]

Take me down to Downing Street.

[Chris Mason]

Let's go have a tour.

[Chris Cook]

Blimey.

[Chris Mason]

Hello, it's Adam not in the newscast studio but in the offices of a tech company in West London and Chris.

[Chris Cook]

In same said offices wearing a suit and feeling completely and utterly out of place. And like a very much a creature of Westminster because it's all. There are all these sort of cool guys walking around with fancy haircuts and girls and date. Yeah, I meant that in a non, non gender specific way where, you know, with fancy haircuts and fashionable clothes and I have. And I possess neither ever.

[Chris Mason]

And you just had a very high quality coffee.

[Chris Cook]

I have had a superb coffee. It was tremendous. Yeah.

[Chris Mason]

So the reason we're here is because Darren Jones, who's the Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, which is a newly created role in part of the number 10 reshuffle that they did last year, he's doing a speech about changing how the state operates and he's got a big vision for how we'll interact with the government via app in a few years time. But to get there, he wants to make a few changes to how the civil service operates and we will be talking to him about all of those things in a minute. But in kind of classic 2026 fashion, Chris, this speech has been overtaken by those posts from Donald Trump which has created yet another geopolitical crisis. Our kind of second of the week.

[Chris Cook]

Yeah, quite. And for Mr. Jones, he had to live this in real time as he was doing what we morning round, wasn't he? Talking to television and radio programmes this morning about this whole thing about shaking up the state, only to encounter these things appearing whilst he's on the air talking about them. And so he had to move fast and fix things, to use his slogan in terms of what his own message would be in response to what the President was saying on Truth, Social and, you know, the President stuff. I mean, on the one hand, I was only saying this last night. We shouldn't sound surprised when Donald Trump does something that is wildly unorthodox, because clearly that's the central characteristic of the guy who's in the Oval Office right now. But this intervention is really quite something because it upends any sense of being able to predict what Donald Trump will say around the UK and foreign policy.

[Chris Mason]

Because previously, Donald Trump himself and the administration more widely, had actually been quite supportive of, or at least not negative about the UK's deal with Mauritius over the Chagos Islands, which includes the military base Diego Garcia, which the Americans use completely.

[Chris Cook]

So you've got this military base in the Indian Ocean seem to be strategically very, very important for all sorts of reasons that ministers will talk about and crucially, won't talk about, which gives you some sense of just how important it is in terms of security. And there it sits in a very strategically significant location. The government makes an argument that it. It had been contested the sovereignty of the islands, with Mauritius saying that it was basically theirs. And so this deal being done where the base will be secure for the next 99 years, might even be 98 now, but anyway, for a good old while, at some cost to the British taxpayer, by the way. But that resolves the kind of geopolitical significance of the base. Now, you've long had an argument in the UK as to whether or not this was kind of mad and it was kind of genuflecting to the will of the. The sort of international courts and law. The argument the government makes is that it abides by international conventions and laws, and therefore it found a way through. You know, a year ago, when I went with the Prime Minister over to the White House and he met Donald Trump in person for the first, or not for the first time, the first time as president. They'd met before when he was a candidate, we were asking about this deal, half expecting, in fact, to be honest, more than half expecting that Donald Trump would say something disobliging, and he didn't. That was actually quite surprising. Complete lack of fireworks. And then fast forward from the February to the May, when the deal was done and There was even more positive noises out of the administration, Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State, welcoming it, not least because it secured, as he articulated then, the long term future of this base that's hugely valuable to America as well as to the uk. And then you get this and Darren Jones and others having to react to it. What on earth do you do when he's saying this? Certainly speaking to people privately in government today, the way they are attempting to rationalize it is, and you'll have seen this from, you know, when you were reading out the message is to say this looks like an emotional reaction from the President to his frustrations about Europe and the UK's response to Greenland. And he references Greenland as opposed to, as they say it, see it, and I guess hope that it's a kind of, I don't know, a pivot to a place where he is sounding off about the UK in a wildly unpredictable way the whole time. Not least because I do just wonder as we record at half one on what day is it? Tuesday.

[Darren Jones]

Tuesday.

[Chris Mason]

Tuesday.

[Chris Cook]

That just in the last couple of hours since that post went live about the Chagos Islands, the UK has approved a new Chinese super embassy in London, the biggest embassy in Europe. And I know from speaking to various folk that there is skepticism in Washington about the UK's, as they would see it, cozying up towards China, of which arguably the embassy is a, is a case study. Do we get to the end of this day, do we even get to the point where newscasters are listening to this conversation without Donald Trump offering commentary on that? Maybe we do, maybe we don't. But that's where you get to the sense of is this Chagos thing a flash in the pan reaction to a deep frustration from the president or a complete change of outlook on how he deals with this country in general and this government and this prime minister in particular?

[Chris Mason]

And just so you know, we're recording this bit of this episode of newscast at half past one on Tuesday lunchtime. And about 25 minutes ago, we sat down with Darren Jones, the chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, who had just given a speech to a load of journalists, a load of people from think tanks and the civil service unions, about how he wants to rewire the British state to bring it into the 21st century. Mr. Chief Secretary, hello.

[Darren Jones]

Hello.

[Chris Mason]

So the world woke up today to a tirade on social media that showed the rules of the game have changed. We're in a new world now. What did you think of Brooklyn Beckham's denunciation of his parents?

[Darren Jones]

I have no idea whatsoever. Ask me about Trump.

[Chris Mason]

That's not on your radar.

[Darren Jones]

I'd rather do Trump than the Beckhams, to be honest.

[Chris Mason]

Fair enough. Fair enough. Okay. Seriously, though, like the rest of us, you will have woken up this morning, seen what Donald Trump had said about Greenland, then he added an extra bit about the Chagos Islands. I mean, what was your reaction when you saw those messages?

[Darren Jones]

Well, it was actually unfolding in the middle of my media round this morning, which made it a slightly challenging media round. I mean, look, this is not new. It's the kind of way the world works now. I think the important thing is how we respond and how we conduct ourselves. And the Prime Minister's made a very clear case that proper British diplomacy still works and still has value. We've had a number of successes on that in the past, and that's how we're going to continue to operate.

[Chris Cook]

Let me put it to you that what Donald Trump has done is take out the middle stump of your government's foreign policy about having a close and reliable relationship with the man in the White House who, up to now, despite the size of his personality, has been relatively reliable in those exchanges between London and Washington. And that's gone.

[Darren Jones]

Well, I'm not sure that's true, to be honest. I mean, look, this is a political conversation that we're referring to between political leaders. One of my jobs is to coordinate national security across government. And I can tell you and reassure you that the important relationship we have with the Americans on intelligence and security and military cooperation, including with our five Eyes partners, continues to operate today as it always has, keeping us safe.

[Chris Cook]

He's ranting, isn't he? He's ranting, and he's ranting at your government and the Prime Minister.

[Darren Jones]

But my point is, is it's not kind of, as you said, kind of pulled the leg from the stall, because operationally we still have very effective and close collaboration on keeping British interests secure around the world.

[Chris Cook]

Isn't the truth, though, that this moment, unlike other ones, yes, there have been disagreements, haven't there, between the government and Washington in the last year or so I think, of the recognition of a Palestinian state, or indeed Greenland in the last couple of days. The twist here is the President has gone from articulating one view, which was support for the government's position on the Chagos Islands, to the exact opposite, which then poses the question, how can you be certain of anything that he is saying to you, publicly or privately, without the fear that he says the opposite the day after?

[Darren Jones]

Well, look, I think the Prime Minister's approach is the right one, which is he does have a good relationship with the President of the United States. They speak very strongly.

[Chris Cook]

Does have or did have.

[Darren Jones]

No, does have and they continue to do. And they speak frequently on the phone directly as well as seeing each other frequently and other counterparts with the American administration doing the same thing on the Chagos Islands. The sovereignty of the Chagos Islands was disputed. It was a legacy of the British Empire. Our commitment was to protect that military base for a century, which is what we've done. It's important for British military, but also for NATO allies, including the United States. States. That's what the treaty achieved, which is why the Americans, as you say, welcomed it. And that's the process that we're finishing off.

[Chris Cook]

And you're absolutely certain that you couldn't have done what plenty of domestic critics think you could, which is just carry on as things were as far as the Chagos Islands were concerned?

[Darren Jones]

Well, there were legal processes taking place that would have resulted in us if we were to be in compliance with the international rules based order which we care about and stand by to have had to have been forced to act. So it was better that we negotiated a proper outcome which essentially was the, the lease for a century of the Chagos Islands with really important security guarantees about the functioning of the island and the seas around it to make sure that we can continue to use that military base in the way that we already have.

[Chris Mason]

So that Chagos deal, that's done, dusted, not going to be revisited. That's the new status quo.

[Darren Jones]

Yeah. The treaty's been signed and the legislation just to reaffirm the treaty is about to finish its process in Parliament.

[Chris Cook]

We're going to talk to you on this episode of newscast about the speech you've just given talking about shaking up the civil service. Just a broader point on the conversation that we've had thus far. How frustrating is it for you and indeed for the Prime Minister that so often when you're wanting to be on the front foot making the case for what you're doing. The Prime Minister wanted to be talking about the cost of living the other day. Instead he was talking about Greenland. You want to talk about the civil service today. Instead you're talking quite a bit about the Chagos Islands. That the nature of a president like the current one in the United States is that he has this huge megaphone and the capacity to drown you out day after day after day.

[Darren Jones]

Well, look, it's the world we live in. There's no point moaning about it, you just got to get on with it. I think the Prime Minister made an important point this week in his press conference about how international affairs has a direct effect on the living standards and functioning of the economy and our own security makes it harder it can do. Yeah, we've seen that in lots of ways around the world. So it's right that he plays the role he plays and I think the public recognize he's doing a really good job as Prime Minister on the international stage. It's also, quite frankly, one of the reasons why he created the job I have, so that when he's busy off doing the international stuff, there's capacity with ministers in number 10 to be focused on domestic priorities, whether it's public sector reform or reform of the civil service, so that we can continue to deliver on the public's priorities at home, whilst also making the best case abroad.

[Chris Mason]

Help us out, though, to kind of get a sense of proportion about how we should interpret Donald Trump's social media posts, because kind of what you're saying there is, we should all just chill out about them, because what he says is quite separate from what America actually does and how that interacts with our national interests. So you're saying we should almost, I don't know, mute Donald Trump's social media posts because they don't matter? Is that what you're getting at?

[Darren Jones]

No, it's not that they don't matter, it's just that I think what you need to really focus on is what's actually happening or changing in the world. And look, I don't shy away from the fact that this is difficult and hard and poses some pretty fundamental questions about how Western allies cooperate, the role of NATO and all of those types of things. I totally recognise the scale of that challenge. But our job, the Prime Minister's job, is to protect British interests and the British economy and British security, even in that world, if it is changing. So getting the best deal now, but making sure that we continue to build those important relationships with European allies and others around the world as well.

[Chris Mason]

In other words, nothing bad has actually happened when it comes to Greenland. There's been lots of rhetoric, lots of threats, but actually, Greenland is still a part of the Kingdom of Denmark. Nothing has actually changed.

[Darren Jones]

No, it hasn't.

[Chris Mason]

So we can relax a bit.

[Darren Jones]

Well, I mean, there's points of agreement that we should be getting on with. I mean, we all agree our military capabilities in the high north are not adequate and that needs to improve, not least because the ice caps are Melting back, it opens up the waterways for the Chinese navy or others, the huge landmass that Russia has in the high north. And the militarisation of that means that we do, as NATO need to go further. That's why we were having people up there recently. One person, yeah, it was a military attache who was there with NATO counterparts to try to understand what we should do, in what order. Basically, we've not had to worry so much about this in the past because it was all frozen. No one was doing anything up there. But because of climate change, it's starting to thaw out, and that's why it's a military domain we have to pay attention to.

[Chris Cook]

And to those who will say, look, we know what Donald Trump's like. There was always going to be one of these moments and maybe there's more to come, where he kind of goes tonto on social media. And therefore have questioned the whole strategy that the Prime Minister has adopted over the last 18 months or so in terms of building that relationship with Donald Trump, those who might say that it was naive to assume he'd be anything other than the character he has always been, and also that sense from some of an uncomfortable feeling of a prime minister being obsequious towards an American president. What's your counter to that? Given that at the moment, at least after a year where you could say the strategy of building that close relationship really did work, where now it looks like the wheels of it might be.

[Darren Jones]

Coming off, My challenge to that is that we're not supplicant on our principles. So the principles of the way Britain conducts itself and we want the world to operate are not negotiable. I mean, that's why we've been very clear that the future of Greenland is a matter for Greenlanders in the Kingdom of Denmark. They're sovereign states. You can't just take land from sovereign states.

[Chris Cook]

And you're making the same principle case around Chagos, aren't you, for example?

[Darren Jones]

So the principles are the same. They're not negotiable. Our approach to diplomatic engagement, which the British are really good at, I should say the world looked to us quite a lot, actually, to try to use our diplomatic capabilities, not just for ourselves, but for allies around the world, has proven to be successful, and I hope will continue to be. But then politically, you're going to have to be nimble, right? Because the world is a noisier, more challenging place. There's no denying that. But that doesn't undermine those basic principles or our approach to dealing with the challenges that we face.

[Chris Mason]

Right, let's talk about the challenge you've been addressing in your speech today, which is how the government works. And actually it's interesting because in the old days we would have badged this as civil service reform, but that's like a really boring way of explaining what you're trying to do here. We'll talk about some of the details of what you're proposing in a minute. But I just wanted to get a bit of a vision thing. I mean, we're here at a tech company, they're very good at vision. What is my interaction with the government going to be in a few years time? If your vision comes to pass, just explain in a very basic way what it would be like.

[Darren Jones]

It'll be like when you do your online banking or online shopping. So you have an app on your phone that you log into, it knows who you are and you can access the things you want to get done. And it may even suggest to you things that you've not thought about before that will be helpful to you, whether it's about apprenticeship opportunities or finding access to university support or those types of things. So essentially, the new front door of the new digital state is going to be the gov.uk app, as opposed to what currently exists, which is 28 different departments of government, each with their own website, call center, paper based forms. That basically drives everybody up the wall.

[Chris Mason]

And the idea is what you will say to all the government departments and the agencies. What's your plan for getting your services on this app?

[Darren Jones]

Yes, so when I talk about the new platform for the new digital state, I essentially mean the app and your ability to log into it and prove who you are. Once you've got that technology, you can then start to onboard legacy systems. Take for example, I don't know how you get your childcare sorted. It's a pretty complicated process right now, so that if you want to, this isn't mandatory, if you want to, you can decide to just get it sorted on the app instead of getting a form from the council, you've got to sign every three months and logging onto the HMRC website and how soon can.

[Chris Cook]

This kind of stuff be happening and what role within it does digital ID have to play? We saw the whole move of a week or so ago around you saying that it would no longer be compulsory for people seeking work. They could use other means to prove their capacity to work. And the argument around digital id, when you originally launched, it was particularly around illegal working and illegal migration. There are others who make the argument about selling it as effectively a consumer tool. So what role does that have in this process of getting to the point where we hit an app and stuff starts happening, as opposed to a million phone calls and all the rest of it?

[Darren Jones]

So the digital ID is pretty fundamental to this whole theory because you need to be able to log in in proof who you are in exactly the same way as you do with your banking app. They need to know who you are so they can show your bank account how much money you've got. So it's basically the same theory. It will be to the same security level as you would experience in your banking app. It's entirely up to you whether you use it. You'll have the options to share the data that you need to in order to access services and to turn them off in the future if you don't want to use them. The big offer here is that it's just going to be easier to get stuff done. And as a consequence of that, we can help people to achieve their best aspirations in life, which is good for them and good for the country.

[Chris Mason]

I've already got a national insurance number. I actually have two different government gateway IDs for some weird quirk in the system. So I'm now going to need, what, a fourth one as well?

[Darren Jones]

Well, you have one and then you don't need the other ones in the long run.

[Chris Mason]

Why can't the fourth one be one of those? Well, because we all have a national insurance number already, don't we?

[Darren Jones]

Yeah, but the IT system's not as great as it probably needs to be, to be honest. So you want to make sure that the digital ID is as good as the digital equivalent of a passport. So it has the same level of security. Because one of the benefits of all of this is you can reduce fraud that happens across the economy, both in the public and private sector. But you also then want to make sure that the security features are strong enough that people don't worry about it.

[Chris Cook]

Clearly, from a voter's perspective, what they'll want to see is this happening and IT being useful. But in terms of you getting to that point, all of this sounds A complicated and B, expensive. Is that fair?

[Darren Jones]

Well, it's a bit complicated, but not that hard, really. I mean, if you ask the technology guys, can you build an app and get someone to log in, it's really not that hard.

[Chris Cook]

But given the complexity of government, because governing is complex and there's so many different agencies that people will interact with, et cetera, et cetera. That seems complicated.

[Darren Jones]

So the thing that's hard is onboarding the legacy systems onto the app.

[Chris Cook]

What does that mean? Sort of cutting and pasting all the data and shoving it in the place so that the pipelines work. When you go on the app, take.

[Darren Jones]

The childcare system, which I keep going back to, probably because I've got lots of kids, but at the moment, you can log into a HMRC website every three months and get 20% off of your childcare fees. If you are not, by the way.

[Chris Cook]

This will be if you're in England.

[Darren Jones]

In England. But you've got to log in every three months and reconfirm it and you've got to do the payment yourself and you've got to work out the 80% of your fee. And then on top of that, if you want to get the funded childcare, you've got to get a form from the council physically, you've got to sign the box, you've got to get a code from the council and you've got to do that every three months with your childcare provider. Complete nonsense. If you can just log into the app, prove your eligibility and it automatically sends the money to your childcare provider, isn't that going to be much better? Sure.

[Chris Cook]

But I just wonder how you get to that point, given all the stages you've just jumped through that people have to physically do now, which is a complete pain in the backside. How do you create the digital pipeline to ensure that that is as quick as that, without cock ups?

[Darren Jones]

Basically, yeah. Look, those things are complicated, no denying it, but the foundational technology, the new platform, is not that hard. So what we've got to do this year is we've got to do the consultation on digital id, we've got to legislate for that. We then build the platform for the new stage. That's what we've got to do in 2026. We can then start to onboard services from 2027. They'll start to be the simple things, some of the things government's already done, like, we're about to make your driving license digital so you can put it on your phone. The veterans card is coming on, so you'll be able to prove certain identity checks and things, and then with time, and each one will need to be funded and it will take a bit of time. We're going to onboard what we hope are the most useful services to the public in the years ahead.

[Chris Mason]

And we should say, actually, the speech you've just given was about much more specific changes to the civil service. Than this big vision thing. So we should probably talk about some of the things you actually did talk about today. So this idea of the task force model so everyone will remember the vaccine task force, the kind of hit squad that came in, upended all the Civil Service rules, meant that we got really good vaccines, really quickly led the world. How are you going to apply that in the kind of classic civil Service?

[Darren Jones]

Yeah, well, my observation was that in the past, we've only moved fast and fixed things when something's gone totally wrong.

[Chris Cook]

In the first place or there's a crisis. Like a pandemic.

[Darren Jones]

Yeah, yeah. So the pandemic crisis, the other one I refer to is the Passport Office. Many people might remember.

[Chris Mason]

Amazing. Now, it's great.

[Darren Jones]

I mean, it's literally one of the best public services we have. But a couple of years ago, every MP was pulling their hair out because, like, thousands of their constituents are getting in touch saying, where is my passport?

[Chris Mason]

I need to passport by holiday.

[Chris Cook]

But that's the thing, is that things have to be hopeless before they can be good.

[Darren Jones]

But that's the thing I'm trying to change, because you can't break first. So on the things that are the most important issues to the public, and this is specifically where there is a delivery problem, this is not about trying to conceptualise a policy answer. We're basically going to say to these teams, you have the authority, the support, the quicker spending decisions, quicker procurement external challenge, if you need it, to get this particular question answered and fixed. And there's applying that in, as I say, peacetime, not in a crisis.

[Chris Mason]

What's the first task force going to be?

[Darren Jones]

Well, it's a competitive process. So now I've given the speech, we're going to be writing out to Secretaries of State across government and saying, you can have one of these if it aligns with the Prime Minister's priority, which is one of the public's priority, and you've got a clear delivery problem that's stopping you from getting on with it.

[Chris Mason]

When might we see the first one, then? When's the result of that kind of X Factor style internal thing you're going to do?

[Darren Jones]

I'm hoping it'll be within a couple of months. So Secretary of State will bid. This can't just be for business as usual stuff where they think they can. It has to be about public kind of priority. So they'll bid in, we'll pick them and then we'll give it a whirl and see how it goes.

[Chris Mason]

One of the other things you announced was Changes to civil service bonuses. What's the current scheme for civil service bonuses? Because it sounds like you can get a bonus for having literally just done your day job and not gone above and beyond or achieved anything.

[Chris Cook]

And some people might be quite surprised, actually, that there is. That you can get bonuses in the civil service. Working in the public sector.

[Darren Jones]

Yeah. At the moment it doesn't work well at all, basically. I mean, at the moment, you broadly mark each other's performance and if you all agree everyone's doing a thoroughly good job, you will get a bit of a bonus, which is obviously just not acceptable.

[Chris Mason]

Was that like hundreds or is that thousands of pounds?

[Darren Jones]

It can be thousands of pounds, yeah, for people. So I'm not changing the total value of the bonus pot, so I'm not increasing the amount we're spending on bonuses. But what I'm saying is, how big.

[Chris Cook]

Is the bonus pot?

[Darren Jones]

It can be a couple hundred thousand, I think, across government. But what I'm saying is there'll be fewer higher bonuses. So someone might get a 15 or 20,000 pound bonus if they've done something really, really important for the public and have gone above and beyond to shift the earth to make it happen. But the bar for that is going to be much higher. A link to that is then how do you assess that performance? Because it can't just be a kind of, haven't you done a good job yet? Haven't you done a good job yet? Okay, let's get our bonus. So one of the things I've said in the speech today is that Secretaries of State will set KPIs for their senior civil servants and key performance indicators.

[Chris Cook]

I must admit, during your speech. Should I admit this?

[Chris Mason]

Did you have to Google it?

[Darren Jones]

Do you not have any KPIs? I mean, listening numbers might be one of them.

[Chris Mason]

Not always going up on you.

[Chris Cook]

I was like, am I going to admit to this?

[Darren Jones]

But I think you're both very well.

[Chris Cook]

Look, here it is in my notebook. KPI's Key Performance Indicator.

[Darren Jones]

I googled it.

[Chris Cook]

Yeah, I'd sort of heard the phrase and kind of knew the gist that it meant about how well you were doing at work, but I didn't actually know what it stood for.

[Chris Mason]

We have a thing called My Conversation, Right. Which is our appraisal system, and you have a chat with your manager every six months about your objectives and your goals and whether you're living to see values.

[Darren Jones]

I don't think Chris has a manager or any goals by the sounds of it.

[Chris Cook]

I thought it was once a Year. I must have missed one.

[Darren Jones]

I think I'm going to send my speech to the new Director General. There's some improvements also.

[Chris Cook]

The other thing is about casualty of the Jones reforms.

[Chris Mason]

But the reason we were talking about KPIs, not to be confused with nuts, is because if KP's nuts.

[Darren Jones]

Oh, yes, Google that as well. Keep going, keep going.

[Chris Mason]

Is that basically these civil servants, if they're not hitting their KPIs, they could be fired. It's kind of as brutal as that.

[Darren Jones]

Yes. So at the moment, a lot of senior civil servants will have their performance tracked and assessed by other civil servants. Permanent Secretaries are accountable to political Secretaries of State for delivering on political objectives.

[Chris Mason]

So they're basically the civil servants that run the departments. The most senior of the most senior.

[Darren Jones]

Exactly. So my point here is that when a politician says, this is a priority, we want that to flow through the system so that everybody knows that they're held to account for delivering that outcome. Which might sound like it's bleeding your views, but it's not currently the way it works.

[Chris Mason]

Because so far only two people have ever been fired from mucking up in the Civil Service.

[Darren Jones]

Yeah. And look, I don't want to just go around firing people. I want to help people to do a good job. But given the number of problems we have in government, I just don't believe the fact that only two people we don't have just two problems are underperforming. So clearly something's not right there.

[Chris Cook]

In your speech, then, the Q and A afterwards, Dave Penman, the. The trade union leader for senior civil servants, was asking a question around all of this, because obviously civil servants will worry, perhaps, about what you're suggesting. What do you say to those who say that this is not wildly different from Jacob Rees Morgan, his little stickers on people's computers demanding to know why they weren't working at home. Is it not tapping into that same sort of sense and also perhaps that sense of a minister blaming the Civil Service.

[Darren Jones]

No, it's the complete opposite. And let me tell you why. I refuse to get into the debate about the Blob or whatever conspiracy theory is the latest idea as to why nothing can get done. The people who are responsible for getting things done are the ministers. If ministers are blaming something called the Blob, it's because they are not very good at doing their job. So we have got to make sure that that changes in the future.

[Chris Cook]

Sure, but I appreciate you're not using that word in a pejorative sense, in the way that others have. But isn't the essence of your argument quite, quite similar that there is this collection of civil servants, including, as you've articulated, some who should have been sacked and weren't, and now you're creating a mechanism where they can be.

[Darren Jones]

It's just more accountability, which I think is normal in any other business. And quite frankly, for the people that want to get on and do really well, the new National School for Government is going to give you access to the training and skills that you need, especially for the new technologies and how the new state's going to work, the new bonus scheme to reward delivery and innovation and going above and beyond all of these are positive signals to the system to say that I have your back, I will share the risk with you. I want to help you to help me to get this right for the public, because the big political debate, if we lose it is a very dark prospect for the future of Britain. But also, quite frankly, if you don't rise to the challenge, there's no place for you in the civil service.

[Chris Mason]

And also when you talk about the dark prospect of this all going wrong, can you give us a sense of just. I mean, you talked in the speech about we spend unsustainable amounts of money for quite rubbish public services. How kind of bad is it on the inside? Because I think everyone has stories about, oh, this doesn't work. Oh, that's annoying. But it sounds to me that actually it might even be worse than we think it is when you actually look under the bonnet, which is what you do every day.

[Darren Jones]

Yeah. And the most important view about this is the public, or what I refer to as the customer experience, in a kind of private sector kind of way. And we know what their view is. They care a lot about their public services. They really value nhs nurses and doctors and teachers. And then you talk to those doctors, nurses and teachers and they say, it's a nightmare trying to get anything done. So what you want to achieve here is a win win for the public and for public servants to be able to deliver public services more effectively at the points in your life when you need them most, which is often when we rely on those public services. It matters that we get this right. The status quo of it just being a bit rubbish is not good enough.

[Chris Cook]

There's broader thought here that I'd be fascinated to hear your reflections on. You mentioned this a few minutes ago, that you were appointed by the Prime Minister a handful of months ago to a new role, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, to try and drive change from the Centre. And what intrigues me is that normally when people are appointed to government, there's a predecessor and there's a previous way that things have been done. And you look on Wikipedia and the list goes back to the 1470s or whatever, you've taken on a new job. And I wonder, on arriving at the Centre, you were obviously close down the road in the treasury beforehand. What has surprised you, what you've noticed that you're trying to do now that physically wasn't done before because you didn't have a predecessor? What are you able to do day to day now that wasn't happening? And has that sense that we've heard articulated by the Prime Minister and indeed his predecessors, that you can sit at the epicenter of a G7 government and feel that you pull levers and stuff doesn't happen, has that been the experience are you encountering that day to day?

[Darren Jones]

So, look, I'm quite lucky in that I've had the unique opportunity as a Minister. No one else has ever had this, I don't think where I've had the chance to work in the treasury in number 10 and the Cabinet Office, the three kind of engines of the center of government. And it means I get to work across economic security, national security, running public services, the whole spectrum of what government does. And the kind of key lesson I've learned from that is that when those three engines are on kind of full fire and are pointing in the right direction, you can get stuff done. If they're not, it tends to slow things down. And remember, all of our departments have got lots of day to day stuff. They need to be getting on the.

[Chris Cook]

How are those engines now? Are they all even turned on?

[Darren Jones]

Yeah, they are. But you need to make sure that everything is very, very clearly prioritized and focused on what are the most important things that you're trying to get done. And essentially that is my job. My job as a Minister inside number 10, as the ministerial head of the Cabinet Office and bringing my counterparts in the treasury with me as we do that work, is the way in which you can start to move heaven and earth to get things done for the public.

[Chris Mason]

Someone just knocked on the door. Should we see who it is or is that our time up? Come in.

[Darren Jones]

If it's Katie, it means I've got to go.

[Chris Mason]

All right.

[Chris Cook]

Okay.

[Chris Mason]

Your minder. Last question. You revealed in the Q and A with the journalists and the stakeholders that you'd done a competency. Competency test.

[Chris Cook]

We should have asked this at the start.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah. What was the Result.

[Darren Jones]

So the first thing I should say.

[Chris Mason]

Is it's like a test of you.

[Darren Jones]

Yeah. So you fill out a load of questions and then a coach tells you what you're good and bad at. I think everyone should do this.

[Chris Cook]

What kind of questions?

[Darren Jones]

There are lots. How you lead, how you make decisions, how you work in teams. Teams, how you operate.

[Chris Mason]

Do you like working outside that type.

[Darren Jones]

Of stuff, for example? I think it's a really important thing for all of us to do because if it means that we can be better and empower our teams to be better, then that's good for everybody. I won't give you the full gory details.

[Chris Mason]

Well, because you said there were some things you had strengths and weaknesses and.

[Darren Jones]

You needed to work, which we all.

[Chris Cook]

Do to be fair.

[Darren Jones]

But yeah, my team are going to get sweaty now as I explain this is the bit we like explain this one of the I'll you give you two bits of the negatives that are room for improvements, let's put it that way. The first was that I tend to be a fast, quick decision maker. I'm pretty clear on what I want to do and where I want to.

[Chris Cook]

Move fast and fix things.

[Darren Jones]

Move fast.

[Chris Cook]

And that's what it said.

[Darren Jones]

I need to make sure as part of that that for what is often quite a lot of people who have worked on policy submissions and papers and all that type of stuff that I give them the space and the chance to talk to it and to challenge it a bit as opposed to saying thanks for that 20 page paper. I think option A is the right one. Let's crack on with it. So I to be a bit more inclusive and that means that you can enable people in the team to feel like they play a more important role in the process. And the second thing was that I apparently don't have an innate need to please people, which is surprising given my job. Politician explains a bit and so thank you very much. Thank you very much. Those KPIs are coming fast to you guys, I can tell you. And so as a consequence of that, because I'm extremely busy and like all of my days, in half an hour I take a bit more time to do the things like floor walks and going around and talking to people and that type of stuff, which I just think is an important thing for senior leaders to do.

[Chris Mason]

Very admirable of you to acknowledge those things, I think.

[Darren Jones]

Well, like I said, I think we should be humble about what we're good and what we're not good at. No one's perfect.

[Chris Mason]

So You've got a coach. So somebody comes in. How often do you see them?

[Darren Jones]

I've only had one call so far.

[Chris Mason]

Right. Oh, so you do it virtually.

[Darren Jones]

Yes.

[Chris Mason]

And is it like half an hour? An hour?

[Darren Jones]

I did half an hour because that's how my life operates. But it was supposed to be two hours, apparently, so I think I've got a bit more.

[Chris Mason]

And will you see them again or.

[Darren Jones]

I'd like to look, if I.

[Chris Mason]

Does the Prime Minister have a coach?

[Chris Cook]

I don't know. Maybe you're his coach. I don't know.

[Darren Jones]

I don't know if I should be the Prime Minister's coach, to be honest. But, look, the key thing for me is that if it helps me get the best out of the people I work with to make sure that collectively we're achieving better outcomes for the country, then I'm all up for that.

[Chris Cook]

And was that something you chose to do and you clearly want to see others doing, or sort of came to you because of the nature of the job you're in?

[Darren Jones]

No, no, I chose to do it. I mean, I thought this was pretty normal in other jobs, to be honest. It's very weird when you become a minister. Like, you have no training or mentoring, you don't do competency assessments, you just kind of get on with it. So I think we should take the time to challenge ourselves, to talk to people that have had experience, to. To understand how we work and how we operate and to try and do as best a job as we can.

[Chris Mason]

Well, our KPI was to do a 20 minute interview and I think we've done about 25 minutes, so we've exceeded expectations.

[Chris Cook]

The Minister's life exists in half an hour chunks.

[Chris Mason]

We've got another four minutes.

[Darren Jones]

Busting.

[Chris Mason]

Every interview should now be half an hour. Great.

[Darren Jones]

And I've got to go and work.

[Chris Cook]

Out what my KPIs are as a matter of urgency.

[Darren Jones]

There you go, there you go.

[Chris Mason]

And whether you feel the need to please people.

[Chris Cook]

I'm not.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, right. Darren, thank you very much.

[Darren Jones]

My pleasure. Pleasure. Thanks so much.

[Chris Cook]

Cheers.

[Chris Mason]

Right, so that was Darren Jones talking to us a little bit earlier. Chris, what's your big take on what. What his message was?

[Chris Cook]

Well, I think, you know, journalistically, obviously, on a day like this, all of the obsession and the focus and the breathlessness is around what President Trump is saying and what might he say next and all that kind of stuff. And to a greater or lesser extent, that's going to be a thing for the next three years. But actually, when you listen to Darren Jones or indeed any occupier of his chair, if you like, getting that stuff right in a way. And it's not for us to judge whether it's right or wrong. It's for newscasters in the coming years experiencing their interactions with the state. Getting that stuff right and also trying to close the gap between people's consumer expectations with so many organizations in the private sector versus the public sector is massive, isn't it? Massive. Of course there's other stuff that's massive, like people's sense of are they feeling better off etc. Of course all that really matters. But you do wonder in the kind of contributors to people's grumpiness about governments of all sorts of colors the gap between their experience day to day with all sorts of apps on the phone delivering this, that and the other and the kind of plodding bureaucracy and frustration of dealing with the state if governments and it's this government's challenge now can close that gap. That's really important.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, I mean I've learned two things from being here this morning. Number one, what Darren Jones and his colleagues want to do about this government app and our relationship with the government is quite ambitious and I don't think I'd quite clocked how ambitious they are. They want to turn it into like the government into an everything app gap. And second of all, I hadn't realized quite how worried they are about the consequences if they fail to do it. Yes, this isn't a sort of as nice to have as far as they see it's quite kind of existential and.

[Chris Cook]

I think deep seated in Darren Jones's view and yes the Prime Minister's view and he didn't refer to them by name but he was referring to Reform UK is a sense of their view and the Prime Minister said this publicly in an interview with the Economist just before Christmas that their view is that unless they can demonstrably deliver the indicators at the moment are that they lose to Reform UK and as they would see it that then poses massive threats and challenges the like of which the UK has not seen before. Now of course in that scenario the electorate would have embraced that challenge. And so it's this is, this is. It's not for us to be judgmental around that. But that's how. But they are judgmental around. Around all of that. The Prime Minister to pointedly making a difference that he could wake. You know he sleeps easily at night when there is a Conservative government, even though he'd rather have a Labour one. But drawing a distinction between that scenario and a reform government. So the politics of this is a real and live. And then how do you deliver on that scale of ambition on a electoral window that is actually a handful of years, isn't it? Chances are at best a work in progress.

[Chris Mason]

And whether or what Darren Jones has announced here, this tech company in West London is big enough to meet all those challenges is for newscasters to decide, of course. Chris, thank you very much.

[Chris Cook]

Ta.

[Chris Mason]

And thanks to you for listening to this episode of Newscast. We will be back with another one very soon. Bye bye. Newscast.

[Newscast Outro Announcer]

Newscast from the BBC, from one newscaster to another, thank you so much for making it to the end of this episode. You clearly do, in the words of Chris Mason, ooze stamina. Can I also gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? Tell everyone you know and don't forget, you can email us [e-mail] or if you're that way inclined, send us a WhatsApp on [phone]. Be assured. I promise, promise we listen to everyone.