19 February 2026

Antonia Romeo becomes first female Cabinet Secretary

Her appointment follows a furious briefing war against her

Somewhere, Sue Gray is smiling. Keir Starmer has now appointed one of the people she recommended to him many months ago for the top job in the civil service: Antonia Romeo, a colourful but experienced civil servant who becomes the Cabinet Secretary and first female head of the civil service in its history.

Ironically, Starmer decided against appointing Romeo in December 2024 precisely because he was spooked by his experience with Gray. Having seen the appointment of one high-profile civil servant blow up in his face, he told colleagues he wanted his new Cabinet Secretary to be “on the shop floor, not in the shop window” and settled on Chris Wormald, a cautious policy expert whom he sacked last week. Gray’s advice – that Romeo was hugely experienced, dynamic, and had already proven her effectiveness to Starmer in leading the response to the Southport murders in his first month in office – went unheeded.

Until now, Romeo was still perhaps best known publicly for her stint as British Consul General in New York in 2017, during which she hosted glamorous parties with the likes of Anna Wintour, Alexa Chung and Joanna Lumley – all in the name of promoting British fashion and film abroad. During that time, she used Twitter as a promotional tool, gaining a bigger public profile than most civil servants, and gave an interview to The Times describing a daily routine of spin classes and green juices alongside her diplomatic duties. “I can’t get enough of Preen. I love Erdem for nights out, and Stella McCartney and Victoria Beckham for office life,” she said in the interview, again emphasising the then-£26 billion direct value to the UK economy of the fashion industry. To her many admirers, it was all a “brilliant, creative” example of Romeo’s dynamism in any role she took up, this one being necessarily more public-facing. For more traditional colleagues, it was all very new and not entirely welcome. Certainly, she made more of an impression in her year in New York than many diplomats before or since.

Since returning to London, she has served as permanent secretary in three departments – International Trade, Justice and now the Home Office – and is the longest-serving permanent secretary in the civil service. If Starmer was once concerned about her high-profile character, a senior figure says those concerns have been allayed by what he has seen since: “Antonia has been head down trying to sort out the Home Office and deliver for Shabana [Mahmood], so those worries have gone.” Gray would perhaps argue that he had already seen enough of her at work on the Southport murders response before his initial decision not to appoint her.

As I wrote in this week’s New Statesman politics column, the civil service is at a low ebb, feeling unexpectedly bruised by its experience with the Labour government and under pressure to show it can deliver on the government of the day’s priorities. “The service needs a major kick or we will lose our licence to operate, especially under a Reform government, but frankly any government,” a senior civil servant told me. They believe Romeo is the answer, with the “energy, skills and oomph” to galvanise the service. Their colleagues across departments overwhelmingly told me the same thing, expressing deep admiration for her as a leader and concern that some coverage of her has had an undertone of misogyny.

As Romeo became the clear favourite for the role following Wormald’s sacking, her former boss, Simon McDonald, took to the airwaves to give Starmer an extraordinary warning about her. He said that if Romeo was indeed the frontrunner for the role then “due diligence has some way still to go,” pointing to a complaint raised about her during her time in New York. The complaint was settled with “no case to answer” and Dave Penman, the head of the FDA union representing many civil servants, said the coverage of the complaint had “a whiff of misogyny about it”.

A furious briefing war has nevertheless followed in recent days, with other outlets, including the BBC, reporting that she had been the subject of multiple bullying complaints in New York. Some of her former colleagues publicly defended her, noting there had been no complaints in subsequent roles and that McDonald had launched a public attack on her while knowing that, as a serving civil servant, she would be unable to defend herself. One ally, speaking last week, noted that Romeo was the only permanent secretary to ever stand up to Dominic Raab about his own alleged bullying of civil servants, as the report from the time shows.

Having faced questions over his vetting of both Peter Mandelson and Matthew Doyle, the briefing war posed an awkward challenge for the Prime Minister. In the end, he decided to appoint Romeo anyway, with No 10 emphasising that an “enhanced” due diligence process had been followed.

After weeks of briefings about her, Romeo was able to release a short public statement when the news of her appointment was announced. “The Civil Service is a great and remarkable institution, which I love. We should be known for delivery, efficiency and innovation, working to implement the Government’s agenda and meet the challenges the country faces. I look forward to working with all colleagues across the Civil Service to do this, in support of the Prime Minister and the Government.”

Antonia Romeo is, for many of her colleagues, the right person to turn the civil service around at a difficult time. But the person who most needs her to be the right hire is Starmer. He will desperately be hoping that this won’t be an appointment that blows up in his face.

[Further reading: Starmer humiliated Wormald but his problems with the blob remain]