Another day, another Sue Gray-related drama. Even though the ex-civil servant has resigned from the role of Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff after becoming the story herself, she is still managing to generate headlines in her absentia. In an attempt to reboot his government, the Prime Minister swapped out Gray for Labour campaign guru Morgan McSweeney – but the negative briefings haven’t stopped quite yet. Now her allies are on the warpath, even hitting out at the PM. Oh dear.
As reported by the Times, Gray’s allies have attacked claims that the former civil servant had presided over a dysfunctional culture in Downing Street. One insisted the PM’s one-time chief of staff was instead a victim of an ‘out of control’ group of senior male advisers who didn’t like her, adding:
Either Starmer wasn’t across what was going on or he was and he let them do it. Frankly neither is a good look. You simply can’t have a lot of out of control special advisers ousting a chief of staff.
Ouch. Another Whitehall insider insisted:
The dysfunction in Downing Street is not the fault of Sue. There are systemic issues which Starmer has not addressed. Just because she has now gone does not mean that things are going to improve. In some ways if you’re chief of staff all roads lead to your door and you can be blamed for everything. But in reality the ultimate responsibility lies with the prime minister.
Does Starmer’s top team have a women problem? It has been reported that yet another senior source suggested that the treatment of Gray by No. 10 staff meant at least one other senior woman had opted against applying for the job of cabinet secretary, after Simon Case announced his resignation last week. They added:
Serious people are thinking twice about applying and at least one has decided it is not for them after seeing what happened to Sue. They’ve seen the dysfunction and the briefing and are asking themselves whether the job is worth it.
How very curious. Certainly Gray’s resignation follows weeks of bad briefings – from her salary, to accusations she was ‘subverting’ Cabinet over Belfast’s Casement Park, to her relationship with McSweeney himself. Starmer will have been hoping that with the switching up of his top team, the negative press would stop. But it appears this isn’t quite the case yet – and with a new More in Common poll today showing Labour is only, um, one point more popular than the Tories, Starmer still very much has his work cut out…
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