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Efforts to free of Alaa Abd el-Fattah regularly distracted Keir Starmer’s government from concentrating on bread-and-butter domestic political issues, according to a former member of the PM's inner circle of ex-aides.

A 'Running Joke' Within Government

Paul Ovenden, who stood down last year as the prime minister’s director of strategy, said the case of the British political prisoner became a “running joke” among those in government exasperated with the slow pace of change.

“We would be having long meetings on the priorities of the government, and often they would be derailed via any other business into conversations of this gentleman,” he stated on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He added, “The majority on the political side of government were largely unaware of it – not closely following it – because it didn't affect us on a day-to-day basis. It truly turned into a bit of a kind of a running joke within government that people would invariably find a way to return to this conversation.”

A Sign of Wider Struggles

Ovenden argued the amount of time spent on the activist's case was indicative of a government that has struggled to remain concentrated on the public's main concerns in the face of pressure from “well-connected” activist groups and quasi-independent agencies.

These remarks came in his first public intervention since he resigned in September, after it was revealed he had sent inappropriate messages about the Labour MP Diane Abbott eight years ago.

Echoes of PM's Own Concerns

But, Ovenden’s political analysis is echoed by many in Downing Street, including the prime minister, who lamented last month about bureaucratic hurdles delaying government action.

Ovenden said Abd el-Fattah’s case was among a number of areas where the government was sidetracked from its main objectives. He pointed to controversies over reparations to former colonies and prohibiting cigarettes in outdoor hospitality areas as further examples.

“When the public is getting more and more frustrated, more and more fed up with a lack of progress, increasingly tired with distraction, in my opinion, we simply can’t afford to be using valuable time on what I consider distractions,” he said.

Advocating for a Radical Shift

In a further article, he urges the government to scale back environmental regulations, cut welfare spending and even end the guaranteed pension increase mechanism.

“We don’t have to keep picking the pockets of the wealth-generating sectors of our economy in order to fund above-inflation pension rises for the wealthy or an unaffordable benefits framework,” he writes. “We don’t have to strangle entrepreneurs from the outset with excessive regulation.”

As one of a handful of advisers close to the prime minister since his days in the opposition benches, his exit was seen by many as a setback to Starmer, even as his critique of Whitehall priorities finds sympathy in certain quarters.