Change is the flavour of the month and nobody knows that better than Sir Keir Starmer’s top team, which on Sunday saw the PM’s chief of staff Sue Gray swap out for Labour campaign guru Morgan McSweeney after weeks of negative briefings about the former civil servant. Gray is down but not quite out – taking on an ‘advisory’ position as ‘envoy for the regions and nations’ – and as she moves into her next role, Mr S thought it would be worth reflecting on the ex-Starmer staffer’s biggest lowlights in the top job…
Previous professional controversies
If readers cast their minds back to March 2023, they will remember Sue Gray’s last episode of explosive job news. Early last year, the Partygate investigator had jaws dropping across the country after she made the decision to jump ship from the civil service to Sir Keir Starmer. The extraordinary step ruffled feathers across Whitehall – not least as Gray was responsible for looking into the Downing Street lockdown gatherings attended by Tory politicians and staff, but also because it threw the impartiality of the civil service into doubt. How, after all, are ministers expected to trust top mandarins if they might defect to the opposition? As one sombre official said to Mr S at the time: ‘We’re a joke. I’ve completely lost respect for her.’ Oh dear…
Top team tussles
Not so long after Labour won the July election, rumours started circulating about the friction between Gray and McSweeney. Reports that the pair were locked in a power struggle in No. 10 got tongues wagging, after stories emerged about the ex-civil servant blocking appointments to the new government in a swipe at McSweeney’s allies. Then there were the rather baffling reports that Gray had twice moved McSweeney’s desk further away from the PM’s office, in more examples of the tension between the two. Another story suggested that Starmer’s one-time chief of staff had even tried to have McSweeney’s access to a secure computer system denied – although No. 10 and Whitehall officials strongly rejected the claims.
All the while, frustrated briefings about Gray’s ‘centralisation’ of government continued to trickle out to the press, with one government insider telling the Guardian: ‘There’s a suspicion that she’s making a lot of decisions on the PM’s behalf and that he wouldn’t necessarily agree with them.’ Crikey. The developments of the past 24 hours seem to show, however, that while Gray made have emerged victorious in some battles, McSweeney looks ultimately to have won the war…
Concerns of cronyism
Gray found herself in the spotlight over a number of prospective government appointments but there was one in particular that drew attention to Starmer’s chief of staff during Labour’s jobs row, with allegations of cronyism directed at, er, the ex-civil servant herself. Ouch. It transpired in August that Gray was reportedly in favour of making Daniel Gieve, a senior civil servant who worked alongside her at the Cabinet Office, Starmer’s principle private secretary – a rather senior role second only in constitutional important to that of the Cabinet Secretary. Cue the outrage. Handy having friends in high places, eh?
Sue ‘subverting’ Cabinet, say insiders
Belfast’s Casement Park redevelopment project came under extra scrutiny in July this year after Gray was accused by insiders of ‘subverting‘ Sir Keir’s cabinet by ‘personally dominating’ negotiations about the proposed Euros 2028 venue. At the time, the ex-Irish pub owner faced allegations that she was trying to secure millions of pounds in public funds to rebuild the Gaelic football ground, while one Stormont source claimed that Gray is ‘very close’ to Sinn Féin’s finance minister Conor Murphy. How curious.
The UK government has since ditched attempts to rebuild the stadium before the 2028 tournament, but it is thought that the project will be completed for GAA games in the future. Currently the Sinn Féin government, Ireland and the GAA have pledged less than a fifth of the projected £310 million needed for the revamp but there remain hope that the UK government will make a significant contribution – and evidently Gray was on side. Mr S has contacted Sinn Féin for its thoughts on the disappearance of a potential ally from Starmer’s top team. Stay tuned…
A pay packet the PM would envy
And it would be remiss not to mention the row over Gray’s pay. It emerged last month that the top staffer had been given a salary of a whopping £170,000 – which is £3,000 more than the man in the top job. Alright for some! But the revelation sparked an uncomfortable row amongst other advisers who believe they are being underpaid. In a rather heated report, one insider told the BBC: ‘It was suggested that [Sue Gray] might want to go for a few thousand pound less than the prime minister to avoid this very story. She declined.’ Oo er.
Another launched into a more scathing attack, fuming:
It speaks to the dysfunctional way No. 10 is being run – no political judgement, an increasingly grand Sue who considers herself to be the Deputy Prime Minister, hence the salary and no other voice for the Prime Minister to hear as everything gets run through Sue.
Shots fired, eh? Steerpike wonders now whether McSweeney will make adjustments to the whopping income he’s inheriting, following criticism from the anti-Sue briefers. Watch this space…
Comments