Does Starmer’s £170,000-a-year enforcer have to go?

The revelation that Sue Gray refused to take a lower salary than the prime minister has added to a growing sense of drift and grievance within Starmer’s administration, says John Rentoul – who thinks she should have done more to avoid the impression that No 10 cares more about freebies than ‘delivery’

Keir Starmer has advertised his confidence in Sue Gray by appointing her to the National Security Council and by taking her with him on foreign trips (PA Archive)

Sue Gray, the prime minister’s chief of staff, is facing a sullen revolt from the political advisers she is supposed to lead. The leaking of her salary – £3,000 more than Keir Starmer’s – matters not just because of the sums of money involved, but because of the resentments it reveals.

One of the aggrieved advisers quoted by the BBC in its report of Gray’s pay said: “If you ever see any evidence of our preparations for government, please let me know.” Given that Gray was hired by Starmer to prepare for government, deploying her experience as a senior civil servant, this was wounding.

The immediate cause of the unhappiness of Labour apparatchiks is that she is taking a £170,000 salary, which is more than the £167,000 that the prime minister is paid, while she is being blamed for squeezing the pay of the poor, bloody infantry.

It is claimed on her behalf that “Sue Gray had no involvement in any decision on her pay” – but she could have refused to take the full amount suggested, knowing how it would look to the outside world if she were paid more than the prime minister. One party insider joked that it made her the only pensioner better off under Labour.

It is also claimed that she is not responsible for setting the pay of junior special advisers, but according to Henry Newman, who was a Conservative special adviser, she would be a member of the committee that sets their pay. And if she really is not involved in setting their pay, what does it say about her that several of them seem to believe otherwise?

The prime minister’s people have tried to dismiss the story as journalist-confected froth, and insist that the voters care about “delivery”. But that is why the revolt of the spad-ocracy is important. Special advisers, or “spads”, including Gray herself, are political appointees whose job is to inject the drive needed to deliver a party’s manifesto promises. If they are at war with themselves, delivery is going to be harder. And if Labour’s preparation for government was inadequate, as alleged – and there is little in its first 76 days in power to suggest otherwise – that, too, will make delivery harder.

The stories about the prime minister accepting vast sums in donations for his suits and glasses don’t help, either. If anyone must take responsibility for blowing the chance of a honeymoon with public opinion, it is Starmer himself – but it seems surprising that Gray, the former head of the propriety and ethics team at the Cabinet Office, should have failed to anticipate and defuse the public relations disaster.

Again, the leak of damaging information – in this case, that Starmer decided only after the deadline had passed to register wealthy Labour donor Waheed Alli’s clothing donations to his wife – speaks volumes about the disaffection and lack of discipline in Downing Street.

What is extraordinary is not just that disgruntlement should be so public so early on in the government, but that it should be so focused on Gray. It may be a classic case of the king’s advisers getting the blame because it is too dangerous to criticise the king, but I am told that some ministers now wonder how long Gray can survive.

Starmer has advertised his confidence in Gray by appointing her to the National Security Council, and by taking her with him on foreign trips. Previous chiefs of staff would often accompany the prime minister to Washington, but some observers were surprised that she went with Starmer to Italy this week as well, for his meeting with Giorgia Meloni, the Italian prime minister.

He will stand by her, because he has to. If she went, he would be weakened. And there are ministers, officials and special advisers who speak highly of her and say that she has worked hard to engage people with Starmer’s office, both in opposition and in government.

But the growing chorus of complaints about her is ominous. “Who is doing the politics in No 10?” a Labour former cabinet minister asked me when news of her salary broke.

It could be argued that £170,000 is low compared with private-sector equivalents, and that Starmer’s salary ought to be higher. It is true that Neville Chamberlain’s salary as prime minister in 1937 would be worth £815,000 today. But the median British voter on full-time earnings of £35,000 is not going to be impressed.

More importantly, though, the hostility towards Gray among special advisers makes it harder for Labour to deliver the change it promised.