Keir Starmer takes centre stage at Labour’s conference in Liverpool today, but whatever the Prime Minister has to say, the truth is that the event has been overshadowed. The Prime Minister must have hoped this would be a triumphant gathering bathed in the glow of a landslide election victory less than 12 weeks ago. Instead he will be disappointed: the decision to cut winter fuel payments has sparked fury and there is deep unease at the row over ministers accepting gifts from wealthy donors. The discovery that Sue Gray, the prime minister’s chief of staff, is paid more than her boss also continues to cause tension – not least because many of the missteps made by the Prime Minister should have been dealt with more effectively by a competent chief of staff.
An astonishing number of the new government’s missteps and pratfalls have been attributable to maladministration
When the story about Gray’s salary of £170,000 emerged last week a dangerous number of Labour figures were willing, albeit anonymously, to criticise her style and performance. It transpired over the weekend that Gray would not be attending the party conference, which allowed the Conservative party press office a cheap but pithily effective shot: ‘Would no one pay for her train ticket or has she stayed behind to run the country?’
Gray is, in one sense, modestly rewarded in her salary for doing a job which is vital to the way the government is run. But the focus on the prime minister’s chief of staff and her conduct and effectiveness makes you wonder: what is Sue Gray actually for?
On paper, Gray seems well qualified for the gig: a civil servant of huge experience, having spent more than 40 years as an official, she joined the leader of the opposition’s office in September last year. Within the civil service, her experience was predominantly in management and institutions: she ran the Propriety and Ethics Group in the Cabinet Office, supervised ministerial private offices and headed the Union and Constitution Directorate. She has not worked in significant policy roles but is fundamentally an expert in process.
This experience is not a bad qualification to be Downing Street chief of staff. Although some of Gray’s predecessors also acted as senior advisers on policy, the job is central to the management of the government machine, working as a link between the prime minister and the rest of Whitehall, supervising access and activity, and acting as a first port of call in a crisis. One journalist described Jonathan Powell, one of Gray’s predecessors, as ‘baby-catcher in chief’. For Starmer, assuming power without any ministerial experience and leading a party which had been in opposition for 14 years, Gray’s intimate knowledge of Whitehall’s landscape should have been invaluable.
Yet an astonishing number of the new government’s missteps and pratfalls have been attributable to maladministration or bad handling. From the very beginning, ministerial appointments were noticeably slow, with some junior ministers only being given their roles a fortnight after the election. The government’s special advisers are so dissatisfied and defensive about pay and conditions that many have, for the first time, joined a trade union. There has also been a simmering semi-scandal over the direct appointment of Labour party donors and activists to civil service positions.
Before and during the election campaign, Starmer droned on about his intention to lead a ‘mission-driven’ government. Much was made of promised ‘mission boards’ which would oversee key policy areas and transform the way Whitehall works. In fact they have met only a handful of times so far, are not – as recklessly promised – chaired by the prime minister and have no new financial powers. In effect they are cabinet committees in all but name.
Most damning has been the succession of embarrassments about matters of ethics and propriety including ministers’ acceptance of gifts, confusion about if and when these should be declared, and the issue of a Downing Street security pass to donor Lord Alli. These issues sit squarely in the remit Gray directly controlled for many years, yet they have been clumsily handled at best.
When Gray joined Starmer’s office last year she was praised for her rigour and professionalism, born of decades of civil service experience. It was her trump card, her obvious qualification to fulfil the chief of staff’s role. Since arriving in Downing Street, not only has Gray failed to transform the administrative operation of the government, but it has become an area of notable weakness. Some are already writing her political obituary. This seems, for now, to be premature, but the Prime Minister must surely wonder what it is Gray now brings to the table.
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