Ex-Starmer aide Sue Gray gets House of Lords consolation prize
Keir Starmer's former chief of staff — a Whitehall power-player — caps list of political peerages.
LONDON — Sue Gray may be long gone as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff — but at least she’s got a job for life.
Gray, who briefly served as the U.K. prime minister’s top Downing Street adviser following his landslide election win in July, has been offered a lifetime place in the U.K.’s unelected House of Lords, the government confirmed Friday.
It caps a tumultuous two years for Gray, who took on the chief of staff role in opposition in 2023 after a long career as a senior official in Britain’s impartial civil service.
In her old life, she led the investigation into lockdown-busting parties in Tory Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Downing Street at the height of the Covid pandemic.
But Gray became a lightning rod for internal criticism in the wake of Labour’s victory, with colleagues blaming her for a myriad of issues including communications failures, the slow appointment of ministers and low pay for special advisers.
She quit the job in October and was replaced by Morgan McSweeney, a close political aide of Starmer seen as helping propel him to power. A promised job of envoy to the nations and regions was not taken up.
As a member of the House of Lords, Gray — who gained a reputation as a fear-inducing Whitehall ethics investigator before taking on the Labour job — will be entitled to claim a daily attendance allowance, shape legislation and grill ministers.
Under the U.K.’s political system, prime ministers can appoint life peers to the House of Lords. Labour is in the process of thinning the thinning the ranks of peers eligible to sit in the upper chamber by birthright.
But the latest list of political appointees from Starmer includes a host of allies, including former Labour MP Luciana Berger, who quit the party in disgust in 2019 at its failure to deal with antisemitism; Thangam Debbonaire — who lost her House of Commons seat in July’s election; ex-Labour general secretary David Evans; and Anji Hunter, a key aide to Labour’s Tony Blair during his time in No.10 Downing Street.
Starmer’s director of strategy when in opposition, focus groups guru Deborah Mattison, is also up for a peerage.
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