Finale: Sue Gray's departure is a symbol of the government's condition

Losing a chief of staff after 94 days is embarrassing but hardly fatal; what is important is what her departure reveals about the way Downing Street currently operates

Sue Gray was Downing Street chief of staff for 94 days. It is not the shortest tenure in the history of the post, an honour reserved for Mark Fulbrook who was Liz Truss’s chief of staff for her 49-day premiership in September-October 2022; nevertheless, it is a very short length of time, and one neither she nor Sir Keir Starmer could ever have contemplated when she joined the Leader of the Opposition’s Office in September last year.

I examined the state of play concerning Gray’s role and the Downing Street administration at the end of last month. My thesis was that she was part of a wider picture of very poor media management, but that the intense scrutiny had been caused in part by issues of integrity, propriety and ethics as well as smooth administration, areas in which she was supposed to have significant expertise. In short, the government was finding itself in the spotlight on the main issues which qualified her for the role of chief of staff. I don’t think it was excessively harsh to ask what, then, was she adding to Downing Street.

Gray’s elegy

By the beginning of this month, whatever the facts and merits of each individual media story, the simple fact of Gray’s role had become a news item in itself. Some of the government’s partisans have howled at the unfairness of this, accusing journalists, opposition politicians, anonymous civil servants and figures within the Labour Party of conspiring to confect a story where none existed in order to bring Gray down. This is self-evidently not wholly true—although, newsflash, if you think the opposition is looking for ways to damage the government, you’re right, and it’s their job—but it is also an exercise in missing the point. Beyond a certain level, media attention is a factor whether it is justified or not and if you are a serious player you have to deal with that fact. As Enoch Powell remarked, “for a politician to complain about the press is like a ship’s captain complaining about the sea”.

It is a truism that once an adviser becomes the focus of media attention, he or she has become a liability, and probably to the extent that the end of tenure is in sight. This was a contributory factor in the downfall of Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s “chief adviser” who departed Downing Street in November 2020; it was cited by Alastair Campbell when he moved from being Downing Street press secretary to the less front-line role of director of communications and strategy in July 2000 (and contributed to his resignation in August 2003); and it played a part in the resignation of Professor Sir Alan Walters, Margaret Thatcher’s chief economic adviser, in October 1989. Sue Gray was clearly heading in that direction, and Sebastian Payne, director of think tank Onward, had predicted her fall in The i as early as 20 September, saying “it’s now a matter of when, and not if, she will become the first major departure of the Starmer government”.

So it proved on Sunday 6 October. There is a cosmetic new role for Gray, who will now serve as “the prime minister’s envoy for the nations and regions”, helping to manage relations between Whitehall and the devolved administrations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and supporting the prime minister and deputy prime minister, the cabinet and elected mayors on devolution within England. In her written statement, however, she confirms that the media attention has been a decisive factor.

In recent weeks it has become clear to me that intense commentary around my position risked becoming a distraction to the government’s vital work of change. It is for that reason I have chosen to stand aside, and I look forward to continuing to support the Prime Minister in my new role.

In the same statement, Sir Keir Starmer paid tribute to Gray for “all the support she has given me, both in opposition and government, and her work to prepare us for government and get us started on our programme of change”.

Whether or not you believe it has been overplayed, there is an element of instability in Downing Street at the moment, above and beyond that which inevitably attaches to a new government. Not all of it can be blamed on the prime minister, not can he be totally exonerated. But the facts are that the cabinet secretary, Simon Case, recently announced his long-anticipated retirement on health grounds, triggering a competition for his successor; in August, Starmer rescinded the decision made by Rishi Sunak four months previous to appoint General Gwyn Jenkins as national security adviser and reopen the recruitment process; and until Sunday the critical post of principal private secretary to the prime minister was vacant after Elizabeth Perelman had moved to a position in the Cabinet Office.

Steadying the ship

This is clearly not a situation which Starmer had anticipated, desired or engineered, but it gives him a narrow window of opportunity to establish renewed control, in fact and in presentation, of the bureaucracy within Downing Street. Historian of prime ministers Sir Anthony Seldon told Sky News a few days ago: “Starmer needs to act quickly. He has been naive and complacent on staff appointments. Get it right now and he can fly.”

The announcement of Gray’s departure was followed by a series of new appointments. Taking on the role of chief of staff is Morgan McSweeney, who had been head of political strategy and before that director of campaigns in the Leader of the Opposition’s Office from September 2022. He served as Starmer’s first chief of staff from April 2020 to June 2021, being moved aside after Labour’s disastrous performance in the Chesham and Amersham by-election. McSweeney will be supported by two deputy chiefs of staff, Jill Cuthbertson, previously director of government relations and Starmer’s head of office in opposition, and Vidhya Alakeson, until now political director to the prime minister.

A new arrival is James Lyons as director of strategic communications. He is an experienced journalist and public relations adviser, having been deputy political editor of The Daily Mirror and The Sunday Times, director of communications at NHS England and most recently head of corporate and policy communications for Europe at TikTok. He will report to the existing director of communications Matthew Doyle, a veteran of Sir Tony Blair’s Downing Street operation. There is also finally a principal private secretary, with the appointment of Ninjeri Pandit, a civil servant who had been director of health policy in the Number 10 Policy Unit since November 2022 and before that worked in the senior management of the National Health Service.

There are still two absolutely critical roles to fill, cabinet secretary and national security adviser. I reviewed the runners and riders for the former position at the end of August, though received wisdom still seems to waver between Starmer wanting to appoint an outsider (which would likely point towards former mandarin Sir Olly Robbins) or an existing Whitehall chief (the leading contenders looking like Dame Antonia Romeo and Tamara Finkelstein). Worryingly, The Times reported on Tuesday that the atmosphere at the centre of government was so bad and so misogynist that at least one senior woman had decided not to apply for the role of cabinet secretary. If true, it would be a striking example of image and reality combining to be the same thing: if your headquarters is perceived to be that toxic, whether it really is becomes almost secondary.

Equally, there is a plausible theory that Robbins is being sized up for national security adviser, having served as deputy NSA 2010-14. It seems that the prime minister has chosen not to separate the roles of cabinet secretary and head of the Civil Service; the two positions were last distinct in 2012-14 but many Whitehall watchers have advocated decoupling them, and it was a recommendation of Lord Maude of Horsham’s Independent Review of Governance and Accountability in the Civil Service which reported in November 2023.

The Treasury’s grip

That Starmer needs to renew his grasp on the levers of power is both true and odd. Lord Barwell, former Conservative MP and minister who was Theresa May’s chief of staff, said to the BBC on Sunday “because No 10 hasn’t been right we’ve had government by Treasury, too much doom and gloom”. There is an element of truth in this: Rachel Reeves, the chancellor of the Exchequer, has proved to be a central influence on the administration so far, with Esther Webber in Politico noting last month that “the government’s agenda has become more or less identical with that of the chancellor”. This is peculiar not because her position is inherently weak—unless and until the landscape of Whitehall is transformed, HM Treasury and its ministerial head will retain enormous power—but because the prime minister has let it happen.

We can only work on supposition here. Starmer made Labour’s economic competence and trustworthiness a central part of his election offer, and Reeves was, of course, his choice as shadow chancellor back in May 2021 when he replaced the lacklustre Anneliese Dodds. He was presumably attracted by Reeves’s training as an economist, and she still makes great play of the fact that she worked at the Bank of England and the British Embassy in Washington. (An unkind soul would point out that she last worked as a professional economist 15 years ago, an unkinder soul would note that she is a graduate of the notoriously ubiquitous philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) course at Oxford and the unkindest soul of all would reflect that she joined the Bank of England as a graduate recruit on the same day as Matt Hancock.)

That said, there is no sense in which Starmer was obliged to appoint her. Taking over as leader of the Labour Party from Jeremy Corbyn after a catastrophic election defeat, and winning the leadership contest comfortably with 56 per cent of the vote, he had considerable latitude in his appointments. His only formal limitation was Angela Rayner, whose position as deputy leader came from a party-wide election and who therefore had her own mandate. During his time as leader of the opposition, he would replace his shadow foreign secretary, shadow home secretary, shadow health secretary and chief whip, among others, as well as his shadow chancellor.

Nor did Reeves have a dedicated following among MPs: although her sister Ellie was elected MP for Lewisham West and Penge in 2017 and is married to John Cryer, MP for Hornchurch 1997-2005 and Leyton and Wanstead 2010-24 and chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party from 2015 to 2024, she had not actively cultivated supporters. She had also spent three years as chair of the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee which put her at a slight remove from the sharp edge of partisan politics. But Starmer and Reeves displayed a similar approach to Labour’s recovery after 2019/20, both sober, serious, eager to reassure business of their responsible economic policy and relentless in emphasising prudence and stability.

It must be the case, then, that the prime minister is content to let Reeves accrete such power. As Politico put it:

Insiders in Westminster and Whitehall, granted anonymity to speak about sensitive matters, say Starmer’s No.10 Downing Street has taken a back seat to the Treasury in deciding what flies. “When we were having conversations about developing policy, it would always be ‘what does the Treasury think about this?’ whereas No.10 were totally absent from our consideration,” said a former Treasury official who left government recently.

It is reported that civil servants and advisers from the Treasury are present at meetings across Whitehall, an indication that “Starmer’s No. 10 is seen to be taking a more hands-off approach to the day-to-day running of government”.

This “hands-off approach” has not shown itself to be a striking success over the past 12 weeks. Much of the political discourse has been overshadowed by the chancellor’s mantra of a £22 billion “black hole” in the public finances and the “tough decisions” which she will have to take in her first Budget on 30 October. Of course this is partly deliberate framing, presenting the previous government as profligate and irresponsible, and therefore to be blamed for any spending commitments the new administration is unable to make. But characteristic Treasury parsimony may have driven the narrative too far; it was notable last month that Andy Haldane, formerly chief economist at the Bank of England, called Reeves’s message “unnecessary and probably unhelpful economically”.

That’s generated a fear and foreboding and uncertainty among consumers, among businesses, among investors... which is unfortunate because just after the election, there was a sense of refresh, a sense of renewal, a confidence about the UK both domestically and internationally.

All of this is surprising because of the agency with Starmer could have exercised but has not. Setting aside for a moment the share of the vote Labour achieved at the general election and the supposed fragility of its political dominance, Starmer led his party to a majority of 174 seats over a shattered Conservative Party which had the worst electoral showing in its history. (Blair’s majority in 1997 was 179, so Starmer is in a similar position in parliamentary terms.)

A decisive moment for Starmer

The truth is that his position as prime minister and leader of the Labour Party will probably never be stronger than it has been in these first almost-100 days. Sir Keir Starmer may not ooze charisma or dynamism, nor does he have a particular strong connection to the heart rather than the head of the Labour movement, but in less than five years he took his party from the depths of despair to political dominance. He has no serious rival within the party: on the left, Jeremy Corbyn was suspended from Labour in 2020 and expelled in 2024, and anyway is now 75; John McDonnell, 73, has no significant personal power base and young socialist MPs like Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome may enjoy prominent media profiles but are not credible leaders (and McDonnell and Sultana are currently suspended from the whip).

If Starmer has taken a deliberate decision to be less interventionist and allow his chancellor to make much of the running, then so be it, although its wisdom should be questioned. What should not be the case is that he and his team are adjusting to the realities of government. This was the line promoted by Baroness Harman:

It’s often the case if you have been out of power for a long time and you get in, there are missteps, there is clunkiness.

In a similar vein, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, told Sky News that the government was “young”.

This ignores two critical factors. Firstly, the prime minister himself is hardly a newcomer to Whitehall. As director of public prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service for five years, he ranked as a permanent secretary and attended the weekly “Wednedsay Morning Colleagues” meetings of mandarins chaired by the cabinet secretary. To be clear: Starmer is the most senior civil servant ever to become prime minister, by a country mile. Secondly, as I set out in The Spectator last month, Sue Gray was employed by Starmer because of her experience and because she would help the Labour Party, out of power for a generation, grapple with the complexities of government. Last summer, Starmer was explicit about this:

Sue will lead our work preparing for a mission-led Labour government. She brings unrivalled experience on how the machinery of government works—and is a woman of great integrity. Should we be privileged enough to be elected, Sue will ensure we’re able to hit the ground running.

After all, Gray had been a civil servant for more than 40 years, had never held a position with a political party, and was not even a Labour member. Her qualification was her knowledge of administration.

There have been some dreadful headlines for the prime minister in the last few days. The news that his party enjoyed a lead of a single point over the Conservatives at this early stage is humiliating, and that he is more unpopular than the divisive Nigel Farage must sting him personally. These are not fatal blows, and many of them derive from sheer clumsiness: the controversy over appointments of Labour supporters to mainstream civil service posts was dreadfully handled; the slow pace of putting ministers into position, in some cases taking nearly three weeks, was an unforced error—it took a month and a half to appoint the advocate general for Scotland, the Hon. Catherine Smith KC, and there is still no minister for investment, despite the International Investment Summit taking place next week—and the departure of Gray itself has been an exercise in letting a presentational issue fester.

It is important to remember that the government has not yet been in office for 100 days. The next election is years away and the possible events which might occur between now and then are without limit. Sometimes, however, minor storms can be microcosms of wider truth. The prime minister has allowed the appearance to develop of a dysfunctional administration within 10 Downing Street. His challenge over the next weeks and months, as well as running the country, is to demonstrate that this appearance was either misleading, or at least no longer applies. This is the period of his greatest power, prestige and influence. It will never be like this again.