Sue Gray may no longer be Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff but that doesn’t mean she isn’t still making headlines. Now it transpires that the Prime Minister is planning to award a peerage to the former civil servant, despite the rather negative press attention Gray managed to garner while in the top job. How very interesting…
According to the Financial Times, Starmer has grand plans to award the former mandarin with a seat in the House of Lords – while a number of other ex-MPs who allowed fresh candidates to stand in the July election are also expected to make Sir Keir’s ‘political’ list of peerages.
Gray had a rather checkered time in No. 10, with a number of negative briefings suggesting that the ex-civil servant did not particularly get on with the rest of Starmer’s top team. The former Partygate investigator was said to have ruffled feathers with Labour’s campaign guru Morgan McSweeney and their reported power struggle got tongues wagging after stories emerged about the ex-civil servant blocking appointments to the new government in a swipe at McSweeney’s allies. Another report 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 rejected the claims. Oo er.
More than that, Gray faced accusations of cronyism, was accused of ‘subverting’ Cabinet over the issue of Belfast’s Casement Park and came under intense criticism after it was revealed that she was being paid a staggering salary of £170,000 a year – £3,000 more than the PM himself. Alright for some!
Alongside the former civil servant, reports suggest that former parliamentarians – including Thangam Debbonaire, who lost her Bristol West seat to the Greens in July – would also make Sir Keir’s list, although Downing Street has refused to comment on the whole palaver. It’s a rather interesting development – not least because Starmer has vowed to abolish the House of Lords altogether while his party colleagues have in the past raised concerns about peerages dished out by the Tories. Rules for thee, but not for me!
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