Keir Starmer Urged To Bring Back "GOATs" If Labour Win Election

Labour peer Lord Paul Drayson, one of the so-called ‘GOATs’ – Government of All Talents – of New Labour, has said that if elected this year, a Labour government should emulate the model if it is to succeed in recovering and growing the economy.

Drayson is a millionaire entrepreneur and Labour Party donor who held a number of ministerial positions in the twilight years of New Labour, including in the Ministry of Defence and the former Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. He was one of former prime minister Gordon Brown’s ‘GOATs’: a business leader granted a peerage to become part of a ‘government of all talents' in the late 2000s. 

Last week, Drayson joined the advisory board of Labour Together, a think tank which has been credited as a key influence behind Labour leader Keir Starmer’s strategy leading up the next general election. The organisation was founded in 2015, and Morgan McSweeney, who is now Starmer’s key election strategist, was appointed as director between 2017 and 2020.

With the next general election due later this year, Labour Together is expanding its own staff and board roles, bringing back a number of Blairite and Brownite government figures to advise on policy and communications. 

Drayson said that he believed if Labour were to win the election, they would need to bring back a ‘government of all talents’ in order to inspire public confidence and implement an effective industrial strategy. 

“I was one of the original ‘GOATs’... I was asked to come in and be a government minister after having been a tech entrepreneur for 20-odd years,” Drayson told PoliticsHome.

“There were a number of us that Tony and Gordon brought in from outside of politics to try and contribute and I think that's going to be