Sue Gray has learnt from her decades in government how to stop quarrels spiralling out of control. Now she’s applying those lessons to keeping the unpredictable Angela Rayner tied in.
“She isn’t taking any chances”, a source told i, and has implemented a “quad” system to ensure any disagreements between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his Deputy Prime Minister are easily resolved.
Relations between Starmer and Rayner appear to have thawed since the frosty period when he tried to demote her, she refused, and he promoted her instead.
But Gray, Starmer’s chief of staff, isn’t taking the risk that relations will collapse again and has designed a way to “bind in” the Deputy PM to prevent any potential for her “going rogue”, according to a source.
“Sue isn’t taking any chances” the source said. Gray borrowed the idea of a “quad” from the 2010 Coalition government where the Tories and the Liberal Democrats didn’t entirely trust each other.
Four senior ministers – Starmer, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden, and Rayner will oversee key decisions together.
No 10 insiders insisted, however, that the intention of the quad was not to restrict Ms Rayner in any way, and said she was included in the grouping because it was based on the arrangements under the Coalition Government, when Nick Clegg was part of the quad as Deputy Prime Minister.
The quad is one aspect of Gray’s work to ensure the Government’s heart beats evenly.
Just as Starmer was at Buckingham Palace to be formally installed by King Charles III as Prime Minister, a mile away, preparations for his arrival at No 10 were under way. His key fixer Sue Gray had arrived.
A jubilant but exhausted Labour Party team were filing into a rainy Downing Street. Younger aides who had spent their entire adult lives under a Conservative government were looking around in awe at the scene only familiar from pictures.
They hugged, they cheered; some cried with joy. The ranks of cameras focused on the glossy front door. Gray stood at No 10’s back door, inscrutable and ready.
Supporters were handed patriotic Union Flag umbrellas. Fearing a repeat of Rishi Sunak’s soggy fate, word was sent to Starmer’s team to delay his arrival until the weather had cleared up.
When the sun broke through the clouds the mood lifted even further. Folding their umbrellas, damp supporters were handed flags to wave instead. After addressing the nation, Starmer went inside to start governing.
Ahead of taking power, the party had been conscious that 14 years of opposition meant Labour had no “muscle memory” of office, and hired Gray to plug the gap, according to one of Starmer’s aides.
She was already a household name after helming the report into lockdown-busting government parties. She also boasted a long service in Whitehall’s lawmaking sausage machine.
Joining the Civil Service straight from school in the late 1970s Gray worked her way up through different parts of government, including more than 20 years in the Cabinet Office.
From 2012 she was director-general of the Propriety and Ethics team, providing advice to departments on standards issues. “She was constantly in and out of No 10,” a colleague recalls. “She was a close confidante of the top political people as well as the Civil Service there.”
While Starmer and his shadow ministers toured the country over the last six weeks, Gray spent the election campaign focused almost entirely on preparations for government, sending Labour officials for talks with Whitehall civil servants.
A Cabinet minister credits Gray with professionalising Labour in the run-up to taking office. “Some colleagues used to have a ‘looser’ style that she brought under control. She insisted everything is properly structured,” they told i.
Sue Gray, who is either 65 or 66 – she will not confirm her age – appeared to be a Civil Service lifer until she took a career break during the 1980s.
She temporarily left Westminster to run The Cove pub in Newry, Northern Ireland with her husband, country singer Bill Conlon. It was this posting at the height of The Troubles that led to suggestions she was serving as a spy. She has denied those claims.
Partygate
The civil servant came to public attention for leading the investigation into Partygate. Her 2022 final report into the lockdown-busting events found officials variously smuggled alcohol into No 10, spilled red wine on the walls, fought, vomited, and partied until 4am during the pandemic.
Public outrage ensued and Boris Johnson faced calls to resign. It marked the beginning of the end of his premiership.
The woman who had spent her career as an anonymous civil servant became a household name. She has described to friends how she found the scrutiny one of the worst times of her life.
But when it emerged that Gray was about to take up an appointment with Labour Party the following year, the Tories were outraged. The then government said it was evidence of a conflict of interest over the Partygate report.
Gray refused to engage with an inquiry into whether she had broken government rules by failing to disclose the discussions with Labour in advance of quitting, a potential breach of the rules governing Civil Service conduct. She was found to have broken regulations, but Labour dismissed the “Mickey Mouse” findings.
Gray has even been in the newspapers for her on-trend floaty matching tops and trouser sets, which some unfashionable commentators have unkindly likened to pyjamas.
She may prefer the nickname earned in the winter months when she was rarely seen without a black leather jacket. Labour staffers affectionately dubbed her Rizzo after the strong-minded antiheroine in 1978 hit film, Grease.
Away from the fashion commentary, her reputation as a political fixer is long established.
Former prime minister Gordon Brown – referring to her stint in the Cabinet Office – said she “was always there with wise advice when – as all too regularly happened – mini-crises and crises befell.”
In his memoirs, Liberal Democrat former minister David Laws recalls being told by a colleague “Our great United Kingdom is actually entirely run by a lady called Sue Gray, the head of ethics or something in the Cabinet Office – unless she agrees, things just don’t happen.”
Ruthlessness
But colleagues also point to a ruthlessness. Overseeing political scandals without leaving a paper trail was her way of working, a Civil Service source said, adding: “She certainly knew where the bodies were buried.”
But crucially she enjoyed the confidence and respect of people around her. “People wouldn’t try to go around her,” the source added. “She was the law but very nice about it too. People enjoyed her company.”
She is “the ultimate professional,” according to a Civil Service colleague who worked alongside her. “She is the classic completer-finisher. If something needs doing, she will make sure it gets done. She’s very kind, though, and not aggressive or bullying.”
Another ex-Civil Service colleague described Gray as “well-liked because she is straight with people. She’s not overly nice, either. She doesn’t gush.”
While some in Labour circles are prepared to take Chief of Staff Gray as they find her – straight, competent, seemingly rule-abiding – others are more circumspect.
They point to her own more robust description of her character. In 2020, she sought but failed to be appointed head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, and in a subsequent rare interview told the BBC: “I suspect people may have thought that I perhaps was too much of a challenger, or a disrupter. I am both.”
That’s spin, according to one of her detractors, a former colleague. “Ask yourself why Jeremy Heywood didn’t promote Sue out of the Cabinet Office for over two decades,” the source said.
Some civil servants also privately complain they have been on the receiving end of her decisions without the benefit of transparency. “Sue works in the shadows. This might ultimately benefit the PM but it’s not what he thought he was getting,” the source added.
Chief of staff to the prime minister is a variable role and can depend on the character of the holder. Duties vary from advising their boss on matters of state to making sure special advisers attached to Cabinet ministers are not briefing against one another.
One Conservative who served in the role told i how they’d gone into the job underestimating how much of their time would be taken up with HR matters and how little time they’d spend on politics.
But Sue Gray is used to managing expectations of staff across Whitehall. One former Conservative special adviser recalls meeting her upon their appointment to government. They had asked for a salary level which was not forthcoming.
“I remember how she was really pleasant,” the source said. “She welcomed me and said, ‘This is going to be great; we’re so thrilled to have you; you’re going to do great things.’ Then there was a long pause while she shook her head at the figure I’d requested. ‘Now, I’m afraid we can only afford to pay you this amount,’ she told me. I was a bit miffed at the time, but to be fair to her, she was trying to keep the wage bill down for the taxpayer.”
The delicate act of hiring and firing in government was put to use on day one. Soon after Starmer’s team arrived in No 10, Gray told Sir Tim Barrow, the National Security Advisor, he wasn’t getting the plum job as UK ambassador to Washington, which Rishi Sunak had promised him.
Peacemaker
While firing people is part of her job, Gray has also acted as a Labour peacemaker, convincing warring tribes to come together to win office.
She is credited with telling members of the shadow cabinet to stop briefing against Labour regional mayors Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan, who previously had a fractious relationship with the central party. Last month, at Labour’s election manifesto launch in Manchester, Gray spent a long time chatting to the mayors.
Playing the part of referee, in opposition she was also called in to adjudicate in squabbles between members of the shadow cabinet over who should appear on the morning round of breakfast TV and radio.
Now, when Starmer arrives at an event, his chief of staff is sometimes caught by the cameras breaking into a jog to make sure his arrival goes well. It’s a metaphor for her job.
She has also provided ballast against the sometimes-macho culture that dominated Starmer’s office in opposition. At the start of the election campaign, Gray was ascribed with trying to negotiate an amicable exit for Labour left-winger Diane Abbott against the advice of some others in Starmer’s inner circle.
Even though this new administration is only a week old, the barbs have started. Rightly or wrongly Gray is already being blamed by Labour MPs for the slowness with which ministers were appointed this week.
“It’s always quicker to blame the chief of staff,” a Tory who worked in Downing Street warns. “It’s much easier than acknowledging decisions come from the very top.”
On the Friday morning after Labour took power, Sunak’s team was “bundled out within minutes” according to a Tory who was there.
A short time later, Labour’s advance guard arrived. Alongside Gray they included Morgan McSweeney, formerly Labour’s director of campaigns and now No 10’s Director of Communications. Some Labour insiders had wondered whether there would be a personality clash between Gray and the highly political, wily McSweeney.
So far there haven’t been any ructions, an observer confides. “They’ve got a lot more space between them now than they had in opposition; not so much overlap.”
Meanwhile Conservatives still angry about what they describe as a hatchet job on Boris Johnson now claim to be vindicated that Gray was a Labour supporter all along.
For evidence they point to her son Liam Conlon, who was elected as Labour MP last week to the new constituency of Beckenham and Penge. He puts his passion for politics down to his experience of the NHS as a teenager. At 13, Conlon had an accident which left him unable to walk for four years and says his disability informs his thinking.
But with the Tories now squabbling among themselves about how to rebuild their party, Gray will not be affected by the sniping from the sidelines.
Honeymoon phase
Her former colleagues in the Civil Service mostly seem pleased she’s in post. “With the arrival of Sue, because so many civil servants either knew her personally or knew her by reputation, it feels like there has been a real frisson of anticipation,” a senior No 10 source said.
One official attributed the speed by which Starmer addressed civil servants to Gray’s influence. “I want you to know that you have my confidence, my support and, importantly, my respect,” Starmer told them via video on Monday.
“The mood in the Civil Service is so much better this week after the Prime Minister’s address,” a Civil Service source said, suggesting Gray had been behind the decision to talk to staff so quickly once in office.
“Morale was really low under the Tories. People only work well with a level of respect and that seems to be back.”
How long will Starmer and his team enjoy the current honeymoon phase? One former Tory staffer who worked with Gray in government predicts it won’t last long.
If Gray is appointed as a special adviser, which is a political role, she will face the same pressures as the last government. Officials smarting at their exacting treatment from Gray’s former propriety and ethics team “will be out to get her” and will “gum stuff up” and “make life difficult” for her, for example by rigorously pointing out breaches of the special advisers’ code, the source said.
There is no evidence of any gumming so far and the government insiders appear relaxed. “Sue is great to work with, everyone has been very impressed,” one minister said. For others with no experience of office, Gray has a formidable reputation.
“She has this aura about her,” another minister tell i. “I almost curtsey when she comes in.”