Keir Starmer has refused to say when he first approached Sue Gray to become his chief of staff, saying only that they had no contact while she was holding an inquiry into Downing Street parties and that “nothing improper at all” had happened.
News that Gray, a senior civil servant who wrote a report into No 10 parties involving Boris Johnson and his staff during lockdown, was joining Starmer’s team prompted surprise when it emerged last week.
Some Johnson allies have since argued that Gray’s decision to resign from the civil service and join Labour shows her report on parties in May cannot be trusted, even though none of its findings have been disputed and Johnson accepted them fully at the time.
When questioned about the appointment, which remains subject to the scrutiny of the advisory committee on business appointments watchdog, Starmer dismissed such criticisms but refused to set out exactly when he began discussing the role with Gray.
“I don’t think many people take seriously Boris Johnson’s suggestion that all this is some kind of plot – that I organised the parties in Downing Street, that I got the booze in, and forced him to go to them,” Starmer told LBC Radio’s Call Keir programme.
“I think most people have made their own minds up on that. It does, I think, show how desperate he is.”
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Sir Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at King’s College London, said Gray’s appointment would be “both unprecedented and unconstitutional”.
“She has … been in senior and sensitive policymaking roles involving day-to-day contact with key governmental decision-makers,” Bogdanor said. “She has had access to privileged information, not publicly available. Were it to be made available to Sir Keir Starmer, it would give Labour an improper advantage in political battles with the government.”
Asked about the timings, Starmer said his last chief of staff, Sam White, had left in October last year: “I’ve been on the lookout for a chief of staff for a little while now. Obviously, Sue will set that out, but there’s nothing improper at all.”
Pressed on when discussions began, he replied: “That’s going to be laid out by Sue. She’s got to do that as part of her leaving procedure, but there was nothing improper at all.”
Starmer added: “I had absolutely no contact with Sue Gray during the preparation of her report, when she was writing it or anything like that. The whole suggestion is a complete and utter nonsense.”
Saying he had first met Gray when he was director of public prosecutions before entering politics, Starmer said: “She’s not a friend. I don’t mix with her, I’m not in the same social circles or anything like that.”
He added: “I am really pleased that really good people want to be part of what we want to do with the Labour government and the change that we want to bring about in this country.
“Sue Gray is known for her integrity, she’s known for her delivery in government. And those are two things that I think are essential to an incoming Labour government, if we get the privilege of being voted in next year.”
