Keir Starmer\u2019s former chief of staff has lifted the lid on how \u201cunbearable\u201d it was working in No 10, revealing she feared her conversations were being recorded by colleagues seeking to leak her remarks to the media.<\/p>\n
Sue Gray, who was the most powerful adviser in Downing Street before her resignation in 2024, was highly critical of the working environment under Starmer, saying she was \u201cdisappointed\u201d that he did not act on her concerns about staff briefing journalists against her.<\/p>\n
In an interview with the Political Currency<\/a> podcast, shared with the Guardian, she gave her first major analysis of the extreme tensions in the early days of Starmer\u2019s operation, providing an insight into the culture of what has been called a \u201cboys\u2019 club\u201d operating with Downing Street.<\/p>\n In the weeks before Gray quit, Starmer was accused of having lost control of his senior team after a series of acrimonious leaks<\/a> to the media about his chief of staff\u2019s pay being higher than that of the prime minister and her apparently difficult relationships with senior colleagues.<\/p>\n In relation to a story that she had tried to get Starmer\u2019s other closest aide, Morgan McSweeney, moved further away from the prime minister<\/a>, Gray told the podcast\u2019s interviewer Ed Balls: \u201cI had always taken a view as a civil servant and actually as a special adviser that you should be able to speak freely in rooms \u2026 I couldn\u2019t recall those sort of discussions being briefed out, and yet here I found myself.<\/p>\n \u201cStories about supposedly trying to move Morgan McSweeney<\/a> to the back of the building. Actually, that was a genuine \u2026 \u2018I can\u2019t believe so many of you are going to sit in this small room. Let\u2019s find a better room for you.\u2019 It just got to the point where you know everything you say, you feel somebody is recording it.\u201d<\/p>\n Asked whether Starmer acted on her concerns, Gray said: \u201cI talked to him a couple of times about it, and I don\u2019t really want to disclose individual conversations. But I was disappointed that not more was done because I think it could have been done.\u201d<\/p>\n She said the atmosphere in No 10 was \u201cdefinitely unbearable, particularly for me\u201d, adding: \u201cI would say that none of that briefing came from me. I think it was very difficult, and it was just affecting me and my life \u2026 It was a very, very, very difficult period.\u201d<\/p>\n Gray is the second senior woman from Starmer\u2019s administration in recent weeks to have expressed frustration at his leadership.<\/p>\n Yvette Cooper, the health secretary under Burnham and the wife of Balls, gave an interview to the same podcast earlier this month accusing Keir Starmer\u2019s No 10 of sidelining her<\/a> during the launch of a key immigration policy when she was home secretary.<\/p>\n During his two years in Downing Street, Starmer oversaw a huge churn in his staff within No 10, with Gray lasting just four months in the job after working for him in opposition to prepare for government. She was replaced by Morgan McSweeney, who subsequently had to resign over his role in having appointed Peter Mandelson as US ambassador.<\/p>\n Starmer has not given a big interview since being forced out of office by his MPs but he has previously said he was wrong to have appointed Gray<\/a>, a former ethics chief and senior civil servant who carried out the Partygate inquiry for Boris Johnson, despite not wanting to have taken on that task.<\/p>\n