Offering Sue Gray a job as his chief of staff is one of the most consequential decisions Keir Starmer is ever going to make in his political career. For a senior politician, your chief, together with your communications director, and your campaign director, are force multipliers. They represent you in meetings and briefings you can’t attend, know your mind, report your views and relay – and enforce – your decisions. Importantly, they can tell others what you think and want – thus releasing valuable time. It is an intense relationship, but one that can last for an entire administration: consider that the two senior figures who were with Tony Blair as Labour leader and prime minister from beginning to end were Gordon Brown as chancellor, and Jonathan Powell as chief of staff.
What does the appointment tell us about Starmer – and his ambitions? First, that he is deadly serious about getting into government and wants to be fully prepared for it. Since he became Labour leader, Starmer has been systematically underestimated. Remember all the commentary that Boris Johnson had reshaped the electoral landscape and that the Tories would govern for the coming decade? Well, Starmer saw Boris off, and his successor Liz Truss – and Labour have had an opinion poll lead for the last 474 days.
In my dealings with Gray when I was political secretary, I found her tough but fair
There’s been a gear change in policy with the launch of Labour’s ‘Missions’ for the UK. Sue Gray as chief of staff means a seismic change in internal management and organisation. That’s the second point. For Jeremy Corbyn and Ed Miliband as leaders of the opposition, preparation for government meant some workshops with the Institute for Government. For Starmer, it means poaching a permanent secretary from the Cabinet Office – the very heart of government.
One of the regular taunts from Rishi Sunak at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs) is that Starmer was a lawyer before he became an MP. Of course, the reality is that he was director of public prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Office. As a consequence, Starmer has first-hand experience of reforming government bureaucracy and he has now appointed, as his right-hand woman, someone who brings experience of civil service leadership at the highest levels.
Thirdly, and importantly, Sue Gray does not simply bring experience from the centre. She brings senior experience from the devolved Northern Ireland Civil Service where she was permanent secretary of the department of finance in the Northern Ireland Executive from 2018 to 2021. There she brought much needed rigour to the scrutiny of public expenditure and reforms to the decision making on spending. Sue Gray wanted no return to the processes that produced the ‘Cash for Ash’ scandal. This focus on propriety drew on her previous experience as head of propriety and ethics in the UK Cabinet office, and probably cost her the chance to be the head of the NI Civil Service.
It was coming back to the UK that brought Sue Gray into the public light for the first time. As the ‘Partygate’ scandal unfolded, first the government denied that there was a problem. Cabinet Secretary Simon Case launched an inquiry, then Case was reminded he had himself hosted parties over the period in question and recused himself. ‘Send for Sue’ came the call – and she took over and completed the inquiry. Published with the orotund title ‘Findings of Second Permanent Secretary’s investigation into alleged gatherings on government premises during COVID restrictions’, this report led to the fall of Boris Johnson.
It is that report which is, in the words of one senior civil servant, causing Tory MPs to ‘choke on their brandies’ at their away day in Windsor. Suddenly, many backbenchers have become amateur Jim Garrisons and are angrily re-examining the ‘assassination’ of prime minister Boris Johnson’. In some way, it must have been a Labour plot all along – right down to supplying the booze fridges, the suitcase of wine and the karaoke.
Along with the anger, there are demands that ‘something must be done’, the appointment must be blocked – in some way – by ACOBA (the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments). But their rules are clear:
‘It is in the public interest that people with experience of public administration should be able to move into other sectors, and that such movement should not be frustrated by unjustified public concern over a particular appointment.’
And it is not exactly ‘commercial in confidence’ that Boris Johnson’s Downing Street was a clown car – even the Met worked that one out.
Sue Gray has previously worked in the shadows – when she took over the ‘Partygate’ inquiry she was routinely described as ‘the most powerful civil servant you’ve never heard of’. She generates strong views among those who have worked with her, but all acknowledge that she gets things done.
In my dealings with her when I was political secretary, I found her tough but fair. A special adviser (SPAD) who was sacked on maternity leave as a consequence of a reshuffle was told by her department she had no employment rights because SPADs are employed under Crown prerogative; her union and the union lawyers agreed. She came to me and I knew this was wrong: Harriet Harman had brought in maternity rights that came over the top of the SPAD contract. I went to Sue Gray and she sorted a full pay-out for my colleague.
Firm, fair and fast. It’s just what Keir Starmer needs!
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