Keir Starmer should be walking into his first Labour conference as UK prime minister this weekend against a backdrop of party unity after delivering one of the biggest Tory defeats in election history. Instead, Downing Street appears mired in internecine battles involving its top advisers, while rivalries have also developed between the top teams of some in cabinet.
Political honeymoons are usually short, but Starmer’s barely lasted longer than the wet weekend in July when Labour won.
Much of the latest backbiting has been directed at Sue Gray, the former top civil servant who is Starmer’s all-powerful chief of staff. She has long been a target of Conservatives, who bear a grudge over her civil service-era Partygate report, and some of the Tory-leaning British press. Yet it appears Gray must also worry about her enemies within.
BBC’s political editor Chris Mason said this week a “government insider” had tipped him off that Gray was being paid £170,000 (€202,000), about £3,000 more than the prime minister. Leaving aside the issue of whether or not Starmer’s salary is enough for a G7 leader, the Gray story revealed widespread resentment of her among ministerial special advisers (spads), the political appointees to government whose new salaries are lower than many of them got while working in opposition. Many of them resent her power.
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Fierce internal briefing against her had enveloped Labour long before the July election, however, with much focusing on the apparent rivalry between Gray and Morgan McSweeney, the Cork-born strategist who is Starmer’s closest political adviser.
When Gray joined Starmer’s team in September 2023, she ran into a wall of powerful advisers around the Labour leader known in Westminster as “the boys”. As Labour pulled ahead of the Tories before the election, this cohort was reportedly criticised by one insider for “strutting around with their 12-inch poll leads”.
There were frequent reports of power struggles with Gray. Some in Starmer’s team resented her control of access to him. It was widely reported she had moved McSweeney’s desk farther from the door of the prime minister’s office. There were also reports – denied by the new government – of a row over the access McSweeney would get to sensitive government IT systems.
The flow of reports of direct conflict between Gray and McSweeney had lessened towards the end of the summer, but in recent weeks, briefing against her has flared up again. This time the resentment appears more widespread across the ecosystem of government advisers.
Gray’s supporters have pushed back and Mason this week felt compelled to write a blog justifying his salary scoop after some in government saw the story as unnecessarily personalised. Mason argued it was justified because it revealed the fighting at the top of government.
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said this week the government was “lucky to have” Gray. The prime minister, meanwhile, told reporters he would not talk about her “behind her back” and that “most” of the stories about her were “wildly wrong”.
Meanwhile, with the focus on Gray, rivalries have also developed between the teams around Starmer and Angela Rayner, the deputy prime minister. At times the power struggles have appeared petty – on election night, some of Rayner’s staff were told to attend the celebration party of a Labour-linked public relations company instead of getting tickets to the official Labour bash.
The deputy prime minister has also had to deal with briefing that she is being sidelined in the power stakes behind the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and Pat McFadden, another top cabinet member.
Before Starmer fixes Britain, first he must calm the infighting flaring up around him. The Labour anthem that “things can only get better” isn’t always a sure thing.
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