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Attempts to secure the release of Alaa Abd el-Fattah regularly distracted the Starmer administration from focusing on core home affairs, as stated by a former member of the prime minister’s closest ex-aides.

A 'Running Joke' Within Government

Paul Ovenden, who stepped down last year as the prime minister’s director of strategy, claimed the case of the British political prisoner evolved into a “recurring punchline” among those in Whitehall exasperated with the lack of progress of change.

“We'd hold long meetings on the priorities of the government, and frequently they would be derailed via AOB into discussions of this individual,” he stated on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

He added, “Most of us on the political team of government were largely unaware of it – weren’t that tuned into it – because it didn't affect us on a day-to-day basis. It actually became a bit of a kind of a running joke within government that people would always find a way to bring it back to this conversation.”

Symptomatic of a Broader Issue

Ovenden said the amount of time dedicated to freeing Abd el-Fattah was indicative of a government that has struggled to stay focused on the public's main concerns in the face of pressure from “well-connected” campaign organisations and arms-length bodies.

Ovenden’s comments were made during his first public intervention since he stepped down in September, following revelations he had sent inappropriate messages about the Labour MP Diane Abbott previously.

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 became distracted from its main objectives. He pointed to rows over compensation for historical injustices and prohibiting cigarettes in outdoor hospitality areas as other instances.

“When the public is getting increasingly impatient, more and more fed up with inaction, increasingly tired with distraction, in my opinion, we cannot justify to be spending their time on what I consider distractions,” he said.

Calls for Policy Overhaul

In a further article, he calls on the government to scale back green rules, reduce welfare spending and even end the guaranteed pension increase mechanism.

“We don’t have to keep taking money of the productive parts of our economy in order to pay for inflation-busting pension increases for millionaires or an unaffordable benefits framework,” he writes. “We don’t have to strangle entrepreneurs from the outset with regulatory burdens.”

As one of a handful of advisers around the prime minister since his days in the opposition benches, his exit was widely regarded as a setback to Starmer, while his analysis of Whitehall priorities resonates in certain quarters.