Sir Keir Starmer has stated the “majority” of tales about his chief of employees Sue Gray are “completely false”, following stories of rift in Number 10.
Gray has been the topic of plenty of newspaper tales since Labour got here into authorities, together with claims that she has a troubled relationship with Cabinet Secretary Simon Case and technique chief Morgan McSweeney.
Case is Britain's most senior civil servant. McSweeney led the Labour Party's profitable common election marketing campaign.
A senior Government supply instructed the BBC the claims have been “completely exaggerated” and that “Sue is working with all the civil service teams and is acting in a completely professional manner.”
Another authorities determine stated of Gray's management: “No matter how bad you think it is, it's worse.”
When requested by reporters if Gray had “become the story”, Sir Keir replied: “I’m not going to speak behind her again and I’m not going to speak about any particular person member of employees, whether or not that’s Sue Gray or every other member of employees.
“All I can say about these stories is that most of them are completely false.”
Gray controversially joined the Labor Party final yr after greater than 30 years within the civil service.
She got here into the general public highlight in 2022, when she led an inquiry into overcrowding in authorities workplaces through the COVID-19 pandemic, when Boris Johnson was prime minister.
Their report discovered that workers participated within the occasions on a number of events While the remainder of the UK was in lockdown, and he partly blamed the management at Downing Street for this.
Johnson confronted calls to resign following the report, fuelling Tory discontent and resulting in his downfall as prime minister.
Some Conservative MPs had expressed anger that Gray had been supplied a job because the Labour chief’s chief of employees, arguing it could hurt the impartiality of his investigations into lockdown-breaking events.
With inputs from BBC
