Britain’s most powerful woman goes to war

LONDON — There’s a new mantra in London: Don’t piss off Sue.

Last September U.K. Labour Leader Keir Starmer appointed one of Britain’s most senior officials, Sue Gray, as his all-powerful chief of staff to spearhead his party’s preparations for government.

Now Starmer is prime minister, following last month’s landslide election victory, Gray is one of the central figures charged with driving through the changes to Britain he promised on his path to power.

Gray has spent most of her career within Britain’s impartial civil service, holding a succession of powerful Whitehall roles culminating in an investigation into former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s conduct in the so-called Partygate scandal — which ultimately led to his resignation.

But while Gray knows the levers of the government machine well, she has long proved a divisive figure.

“Sue’s got her fans from when she was a civil servant, and she’s got the people who didn’t like her either personally or because they crossed swords with her,” said one senior Whitehall official who has worked closely with Gray.

A former Tory special adviser put it more bluntly: “She knows how the system works, which is why she was hired — but has made plenty enemies on both the official and political side, so will have a huge fight on her hands.” 

Thirst for power

There are already signs of division.

This week the Mail on Sunday reported that Gray had been accused of restricting access to the prime minister, including officials attempting to give Starmer an intelligence briefing. Downing Street denied the reports as “noises off from people who don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Labour staffers privately complain Gray has slowed both ministerial and special adviser appointments, with most decisions requiring her personal approval. Eyebrows were raised when her son, Liam Conlon, was offered an unpaid role in the Department for Transport within days of being elected an MP in July. Labour denied that she had a pivotal influence over approving appointments.

“It’s not about who she likes, but more about who she rates,” said the senior Whitehall official quoted above. “She does not suffer fools gladly. She never has done.”

Gray’s formidable reputation in Westminster was established during her time as the civil service’s head of ethics, a wide-ranging role which included investigating the conduct of ministers and officials — making potentially career-ending judgements about whether senior figures had followed the rules.

While Sue Gray knows the levers of the government machine well, she has long proved a divisive figure. | Charles McQuillan/Getty Images

Her status within Whitehall became almost mythical. In his memoir on the 2010-15 government, former Lib Dem minister David Laws recounted a now-famous tongue-in-cheek conversation with the Cabinet Office Minster Oliver Letwin, who noted drily that “our great United Kingdom is actually entirely run by a lady called Sue Gray.”  

“Unless she agrees, things just don’t happen. Cabinet reshuffles, departmental reorganizations, the whole lot — it’s all down to Sue Gray,” Letwin went on. “Nothing moves in Whitehall unless Sue says so.”

Getting things done

Certainly, many who have worked with Gray praise her ability to get things done.

“She’s very effective. Once she knows what she wants to do, you’re not getting in her way,” said the senior Whitehall official. “Because she’s very effective at delivering things, and she has good judgement, and is a networker, it means she can get things done.”

“She’s very different and very driven, which is why everyone is fascinated by her,” they added. “She never takes a holiday.” 

But Gray’s critics say she is too quick to put herself at the center of all decision-making — creating roadblocks, and making herself a flashpoint for every controversy, a characterization Labour refutes.

“The question with Sue is what does she want?” asked one Labour MP, who was granted anonymity — like others in this article — to speak frankly about Gray and the way she operates. 

“Does she want to delegate and appoint good people to important jobs to make government work effectively, which is the right way of managing power, or does she want everything to run through her as the center of all of this?” the MP added. 

“The interesting thing about Sue is she is not a policy person,” the Whitehall official quoted above added. “It’s about power and control and making things happen. She’s the bureaucrat’s bureaucrat.”

Not a fan

Yet the current head of the civil service, Simon Case, is not a fan. Case, the Cabinet secretary, reportedly blocked Gray’s appointment to head the civil service in Northern Ireland in 2020, before preventing her from landing a job as the top official in the Department for Business and Trade in 2023.

Later that year when Gray resigned her civil service position to join the Labour Party and work for Starmer, Case recommended the government impose the longest possible delay to her taking up her new role.

But Case is due to step down shortly due to health problems, as POLITICO revealed last month — paving the way for Gray to overhaul the civil service next year.

Later that year when Sue Gray resigned her civil service position to join the Labour Party and work for Keir Starmer, Simon Case recommended the government impose the longest possible delay to her taking up her new role. | Dan Kitwood/Getty Images

Labour’s victory last month raised expectations within the civil service of a better relationship with ministers than had been enjoyed with their Tory predecessors. Top Conservatives were often at war with their officials over perceived liberal bias and a supposed resistance to change. The civil service was collectively nicknamed “the blob.”

One Whitehall official, breaking the civil service code of impartiality to write anonymously for the left-of-center Guardian newspaper last month, said that there was a “profound sense of relief” among government officials following Labour’s victory that the “adults were back in the room.” 

The change of tone was immediate and deliberate from Labour. Pat McFadden, the new Cabinet Office chief, vowed that there would be no more “going around beating the civil service up” under his party’s watch.

New Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, joked in her first address to civil servants in the atrium of her department that they had been dealing with some “batshit” policies under the Tories, but stressed that she knew officials worked in good faith. 

Reform the blob

But such warmth is unlikely to last.

“Changes in government naturally bring a sense of renewed energy, and it’s only normal for civil servants to feel that — but they can’t get carried away,” said Jack Worlidge, a former Conservative special adviser who now works as a researcher for the Institute for Government think tank. 

“The further we get into this parliament, the more things will start to go wrong, as they do for all governments. Relationships become strained.” 

Another former Tory aide, who worked in Liz Truss’ short-lived administration added: “The civil service has formed some habits — and grown in power — over the last 10 years that mean Labour will find it harder than it should to get things done, regardless of being viewed slightly favorably by civil servants.” 

This will prove challenging for Gray, a self-confessed disrupter, who will want to shake up how government functions on the inside.

Pondering in a BBC interview a few years ago why she was overlooked for the top civil service job in Northern Ireland, Gray said: “I suspect people may have thought that I perhaps was too much of a challenger, or a disrupter. I am both. Perhaps I would bring about … too much change. And yes, I wanted to have change.” 

Westminster watchers will note echoes of a previous Downing Street chief of staff, Dominic Cummings, who ran the prime minister’s team under Boris Johnson. A vocal critic of the intransigence of the civil service, Cummings has written and spoken extensively on the frustrations of being blocked by officials.

Westminster watchers will note echoes of a previous Downing Street chief of staff, Dominic Cummings, who ran the prime minister’s team under Boris Johnson. | Carl Court/Getty Images

Speaking at a panel event earlier this month, he offered Labour’s promise to radically reform U.K. planning laws as an example.

“The very first thing that will happen when Starmer and Sue Gray sit around the Cabinet table shortly is that a bunch of officials explain to them ‘sorry prime minister, a lot of this isn’t just about political will,’ before explaining how many judicial reviews and planning reviews will hold it up,” he said.

A new Dominic Cummings?

The former Tory aide quoted above, warned that officials may turn to the media to frustrate progress on changes they don’t agree with.

“Top civil servants are always fascinated by the dynamics of a prime minister’s team, and special advisers. Sometimes when they need to, they will play rival silos and groups of politicos off against each other,” they said. “Something we found was civil servants are increasingly willing to brief things to the media as a tactic, to brief against things they don’t agree with, to leak stuff they know will be damaging.”

Labour and Gray will not only have to face opposition from within the machine, but as is often the case for the left, within its own ranks. 

Though there were some 650 staff members on Labour’s opposition payroll, with not enough government jobs to go around, Gray has been blamed by several Labour staff members who were not given jobs as special advisors, in Downing Street, or the wider government. 

Those that have not been given jobs have complained of little contact with the party about their future, while those that have made the transition to government have complained at their reduced pay from opposition and at being put three-month temporary contracts. 

Labour did not comment on the reaction of current and former staff.

Similarly, around a dozen shadow ministers did not make the transition into government, while newcomers have seen rapid promotions, including Gray’s son.

Media reports suggest Gray has also clashed with Morgan McSweeney, Labour’s head of political strategy and key Starmer aide, something the Labour administration denies. 

Labour has kept the two separate, with neither reporting to the other, running separate teams to work to their strengths. McSweeney is seen as more political and combative, with a history of taking on political opponents such as the right-wing while at Barking and Dagenham council. Gray is seen as the gatekeeper, through whom all government planning flows.

The backlash against Gray by Labour figures who have either crossed swords with her, or view her as the cause of their ills, is likely to continue the longer she is in power.

For Gray, that could result in a tough ride. As the Whitehall official quoted above said: “She had a lot of protection being a civil servant — but she has none of that now.”  

Expect sparks to fly.