Keir Starmer's embattled chief of staff is being accused of 'control freakery' and a No 10 'feud'. Labour is circling the wagons
Keir Starmer's embattled chief of staff is being accused of 'control freakery' and a No 10 'feud'.
Reports of a Downing Street ‘feud’ has uncomfortable resonance for Labour following the Blair Brown divide at the top of the party’s last government “I understand that the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff has personally blocked a number of special adviser appointments,” Glen’s complaint is reported to read. “I am concerned that this may have led to ministers trying to circumvent the rules by appointing such political advisers as normal civil servants, which do not require 10 Downing Street’s approval.
One Labour source said they were surprised that the headcount was so low. “I suspect it will be in a place in the future where there will just have to be a greater number than what we currently have, because there is just so much to do,” they said. “The point is every civil servant has to work to the programme of the government. The key question is do the changes make the missions more deliverable or less deliverable and matched against that, I don’t think the number of spads really matters.”
A third minister also dismissed claims the hiring of advisors had been hindered. “I just don’t recognise this – special advisors have been approved quickly for our department and we are very well supported. Sue has been incredibly supportive to me personally as a new minister and her experience has been invaluable.”
Labour sources have also raised the idea that the negative briefings that Ms Gray has apparently suffered may be about the kind of misogyny they say has hit many other senior women in politics.Morgan McSweeney was born in Macroom, County Cork and moved to London in 1994 when he was just 17.
Profiles of McSweeney often focus on his staunch opposition to anti-Semitism and racism within the party, a motivation which led him to establish the Centre for Countering Digital Hate. From there, he became Starmer’s chief of staff, before eventually becoming Labour’s director of campaigns in 2021 in the wake of Labour’s following the party’s poor results in by-elections in Chesham and Amersham and Batley and Spen.
“I do think that there’s a real danger with any setup where you do not have a clear pyramid to the top, because you’ve essentially got two people reporting to Kier and they’ve each got their own team and they’ve each got their own remits,” they said. “I think that that is inevitably going to conflict, because there’s no one who’s distilling all the advice for the PM.
Once described as ‘the most powerful person you’ve never heard of’, Sue Gray’s profile has been rising: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire It was the partygate scandal that truly brought her to nationwide attention. She took over the investigation after Simon Case, the Cabinet Secretary, recused himself on the grounds that he may have attended some lockdown-breaching parties.
It was referred to the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which recommended a six-month break between the two posts. She officially began working for the Labour Party in September 2023. “ Dominic Cummings, Andy Coulson, and Alistair Campbell did, but those three were very different as they came with their own separate controversies. Until there is a scandal involving , issues of the machinery of government don’t really cut through to the public,” he said.“Labour need to maintain the appearance of being united, or at least relative to the other lot ,” he said. “These internal disputes, whether they’re within No 10 or factions of the party, don’t help.
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