By Evan Verpoest
Looking at the news, you would be forgiven for thinking we are back in 2009. Number 10 psychodrama, negative briefing, and a lack of executive skills arguably defined the latter stages of Gordon Brown’s premiership, according to those who emerged after the 2010 election defeat.
Yet this is no three-term government. Peter Mandelson is no knight in shining armour (thus far) and the Prime Minister has not spent twelve long years at the top of government. He’s spent twelve weeks.
Sir Tony Blair once described government as a “conspiracy of distraction”. The fundamental problems with modern political leadership, he argued, were rooted in “the scale of issues diverting leaders from key tasks”. It would be hard not to draw parallels between the demands and problems facing him in 1997 and Labour in 2024.
Starmer would be wise to listen to him. After all, Blair’s talk of the distractions of crisis and scandal can hardly help when the impediments to the agenda come from behind the big black door.
Few officials have received more media attention in the last few weeks than Downing Street Chief of Staff Sue Gray. Reports of internal Downing Street feuds have consumed Whitehall in the very manner that Starmer, not unlike Blair in 1997, wished to avoid. But just as the stories were seemingly fizzling out, Gray has stepped down.
It is difficult to overstate the importance of the role of Downing Street Chief of Staff. It is also difficult to define the role of the chief of staff. The role has come to be one that defines a government – whether through merits or flaws. When the Tories entered power it was Cameron’s chief of staff, Ed Lewellyn, who was one of five signatures on the groundbreaking coalition agreement. When they left power it was Rishi Sunak’s chief of staff, Liam Booth-Smith, who was one of the strongest advocates for the calamitous snap July election. Effectively the beating heart of the Prime Minister’s Office, the chief of staff is often a close confidante of the Prime Minister, with an executive skillest to get governing done. Or not done.
Sue Gray was arguably the perfect Starmerite candidate. Despite Tory uproar upon her appointment, Gray’s career-long focus on delivery and distinct lack of tribalism made her more akin to a pragmatic operator typical of the Starmer crowd, rather than a Dominic Cummings-esque senior political appointee. Few in the Labour Party hold lightly the experience she brings to government. Yet for Number 10, entering government with a fresh mandate during the quieter summer months should have allowed for smooth political sailing. So why has it gone so wrong?
"Many of those in the Cabinet were ministers in the dying days of the Brown government and will be uncomfortably familiar with the danger of Downing Street infighting."
It is always difficult to know what goes on behind the Georgian facade but reports indicated close tension in Number 10 between Gray and two key figures – Simon Case and Morgan McSweeney.
Case, the outgoing Cabinet Secretary, was a long-term colleague of Gray. Having served since 2020 in the top Civil Service position, Case worked closely with Johnson, Truss, and Sunak. Most defining of his time in the top job was his implication in the Partygate scandal, having to recuse himself from conducting the investigation which thus fell to Gray, who reportedly disliked the task and felt ostracised from the Civil Service, exposed to the jaws of the media with little support. His frosty relationship with Gray led many in the government to believe Case was partly responsible for the leaks and negative briefing. A medical condition has meant he will be standing down.
Morgan McSweeney was named by New Statesman as the single most powerful person on the left this year. A close Starmer ally, it is McSweeney who ran the influential centrist Labour Together think tank and who in 2017, scouted Starmer as the ideal person to move the Labour Party to the centre and into Number 10. The redistribution of Labour’s 33% of the vote to capture more of Middle England and outmanoeuvre the Tories has McSweeney’s name written all over it. McSweeney was also Starmer’s very first chief of staff back in opposition in 2020 before he was moved following the botched reshuffle of 2021. Extremely close to Starmer, McSweeney has served as Director of Political Strategy since July and will now replace Gray. Cabinet members and Labour MPs must hope that the second time's a charm.
Accusations made towards Gray from anonymous Number 10 sources alleged she was creating a bottleneck at the top. Reportedly, she had delayed security briefings from reaching the PM’s desk and taken decisions at her own discretion, leaving many Labour colleagues feeling uneasy. The delay in holding a COBRA meeting in the wake of the Southport riots was attributed by critics to Gray’s tight grip on operations. Further accusations include her attempts to delay McSweeney’s access to security briefings and micromanage ministerial and advisory appointments. Amidst all of this, a difficult relationship with Case has meant that the Civil Service, Number 10, and Labour Party operations have failed to fall into the usual post-election lockstep.
With Gray now gone and Case setting a timetable for his departure, Starmer will be hoping for less turbulent times at the top. Yet for a Prime Minister who despises the Whitehall bickering which has defined the last two years of British politics, the Gray affair has risked entrapping his government in the same debacle. Many of those in the Cabinet were ministers in the dying days of the Brown government and will be uncomfortably familiar with the danger of Downing Street infighting.
On the drizzly morning of July 5, Keir Starmer promised to put “government back into the service of working people”. He has also promised that he is willing to be unpopular. Yet on both counts, it is clear that he must start quite literally by putting his house in order. Or to borrow a slogan from a former Johnsonian chief of staff: take back control.
Image: Flickr
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