Keir Starmer has ejected Sue Gray after Labour’s ‘night of the short knife’, as it is being called by some.
Ms Gray, it seems, is the sacrificial lamb marking a disastrous first 100 days of office for Starmer’s Labour government in which minister’s greed and advisors’ squabbles have overshadowed any achievements of the new administration in reversing the effects of 14 years of Tory misrule.
Her departure from her role as Starmer’s chief of staff comes after it was revealed in a malicious leak that she demanded a higher salary than the prime minister himself receives – while apparently failing to do her job properly, with many roles left unfilled and the people who expected to be installed in those roles left in the wilderness.
It also happens amid the FreebieGate scandal over donations of clothes and other gifts to senior Labour politicians including Starmer – many of them made by Labour Lord Waheed Alli, who reportedly received a Downing Street pass in the early days of the new government… authorised by Sue Gray.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Now the woman who rose to public recognition as the Partygate investigator, and wanted to be the gatekeeper controlling access to Starmer, is taking a consolation-prize job as the PM’s envoy for nations and regions – acting as a go-between for his dealings with mayors like Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham who are powerful enough to deal with Starmer directly, and with regional governments like that in Northern Ireland, that may disagree strongly with her over the kind of support they want to receive from Westminster.
It’s a poisoned chalice.
Even more galling for her must be the fact that her former role is being taken over by her arch-rival Morgan McSweeney – for a salary that, as yet, remains undisclosed. Will he get the £200,000 a year that she demanded, or even more (which would be shockingly hypocritical, given the fuss that was made because she demanded that much).
McSweeney’s appointment is a lurch further to the political right-wing for a Labour-In-Name-Only government that was already vying with the Tories to be the most right-wing of the Big Two mainstream UK political parties.
As co-founder of Labour Together, McSweeney has been exposed as the arch-conspirator responsible for undermining Jeremy Corbyn’s centre-left leadership of Labour (notably by undermining Corbyn supporters with false accusations of anti-Semitism).
It seems he has also been (falsely) credited with engineering a large majority for Labour in July’s general election (it was in fact achieved because more people turned away from the Conservatives than from Labour, which is absolutely no reason for anybody to be proud).
And he helped “pre-select” Starmer as Corbyn’s successor, in the belief that the knighted former Director of Public Prosecutions would be an asset to his project to remove left-wingers from Labour altogether. This means he has Starmer’s “unwavering gratitude”, according to some.
It seems his first task will be to fill the vacant roles that Ms Gray neglected – and it seems likely that they will go to political wheeler-dealers like McSweeney himself, who are good at presenting an appearance of competence and public service – but whose ability to actually deliver any service to the public has yet to be tested.
The aim now seems to be to “ensure that the next 100 days will look less hapless than the last”, as Anne McElvoy described it in her i article.
We know from the downfall of Jeremy Corbyn that McSweeney and his cronies can make a movement look bad. But does he really have the chops to make Keir Starmer look good?
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Starmer has ejected Sue Gray after Labour’s ‘night of the short knife’
Keir Starmer has ejected Sue Gray after Labour’s ‘night of the short knife’, as it is being called by some.
Ms Gray, it seems, is the sacrificial lamb marking a disastrous first 100 days of office for Starmer’s Labour government in which minister’s greed and advisors’ squabbles have overshadowed any achievements of the new administration in reversing the effects of 14 years of Tory misrule.
Her departure from her role as Starmer’s chief of staff comes after it was revealed in a malicious leak that she demanded a higher salary than the prime minister himself receives – while apparently failing to do her job properly, with many roles left unfilled and the people who expected to be installed in those roles left in the wilderness.
It also happens amid the FreebieGate scandal over donations of clothes and other gifts to senior Labour politicians including Starmer – many of them made by Labour Lord Waheed Alli, who reportedly received a Downing Street pass in the early days of the new government… authorised by Sue Gray.
Buy Cruel Britannia in print here. Buy the Cruel Britannia ebook here. Or just click on the image!
Now the woman who rose to public recognition as the Partygate investigator, and wanted to be the gatekeeper controlling access to Starmer, is taking a consolation-prize job as the PM’s envoy for nations and regions – acting as a go-between for his dealings with mayors like Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham who are powerful enough to deal with Starmer directly, and with regional governments like that in Northern Ireland, that may disagree strongly with her over the kind of support they want to receive from Westminster.
It’s a poisoned chalice.
Even more galling for her must be the fact that her former role is being taken over by her arch-rival Morgan McSweeney – for a salary that, as yet, remains undisclosed. Will he get the £200,000 a year that she demanded, or even more (which would be shockingly hypocritical, given the fuss that was made because she demanded that much).
McSweeney’s appointment is a lurch further to the political right-wing for a Labour-In-Name-Only government that was already vying with the Tories to be the most right-wing of the Big Two mainstream UK political parties.
As co-founder of Labour Together, McSweeney has been exposed as the arch-conspirator responsible for undermining Jeremy Corbyn’s centre-left leadership of Labour (notably by undermining Corbyn supporters with false accusations of anti-Semitism).
It seems he has also been (falsely) credited with engineering a large majority for Labour in July’s general election (it was in fact achieved because more people turned away from the Conservatives than from Labour, which is absolutely no reason for anybody to be proud).
And he helped “pre-select” Starmer as Corbyn’s successor, in the belief that the knighted former Director of Public Prosecutions would be an asset to his project to remove left-wingers from Labour altogether. This means he has Starmer’s “unwavering gratitude”, according to some.
It seems his first task will be to fill the vacant roles that Ms Gray neglected – and it seems likely that they will go to political wheeler-dealers like McSweeney himself, who are good at presenting an appearance of competence and public service – but whose ability to actually deliver any service to the public has yet to be tested.
The aim now seems to be to “ensure that the next 100 days will look less hapless than the last”, as Anne McElvoy described it in her i article.
We know from the downfall of Jeremy Corbyn that McSweeney and his cronies can make a movement look bad. But does he really have the chops to make Keir Starmer look good?
Vox Political needs your help!
If you want to support this site
(but don’t want to give your money to advertisers)
you can make a one-off donation here:
Be among the first to know what’s going on! Here are the ways to manage it:
1) Register with us by clicking on ‘Subscribe’ (bottom right of the home page). You can then receive notifications of every new article that is posted here.
2) Follow VP on Twitter @VoxPolitical
3) Like the Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/VoxPolitical/
Join the Vox Political Facebook page.
4) You could even make Vox Political your homepage at http://voxpoliticalonline.com
5) Join the uPopulus group at https://upopulus.com/groups/vox-political/
6) Join the MeWe page at https://mewe.com/p-front/voxpolitical
7) Feel free to comment!
And do share with your family and friends – so they don’t miss out!
If you have appreciated this article, don’t forget to share it using the buttons at the bottom of this page. Politics is about everybody – so let’s try to get everybody involved!
Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
fighting for the facts.
Cruel Britannia is available
in either print or eBook format here:
The Livingstone Presumption is available
in either print or eBook format here:
Health Warning: Government! is now available
in either print or eBook format here:
The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:
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