Sue Gray Officially Starts New Job With Labour – And Is Already Helping Starmer Attack The Tories

Telling Labour staff that she “has their back,” disgraced former civil servant bigwig Sue Gray has officially started work with the Labour Party. 

After being ordered by a Whitehall watchdog to take a six-month break between jobs, Gray began her new role last week, and immediately begin helping to plot attacks on Tories – even potentially influencing Starmer‘s reshuffle.

Insiders have claimed that certain decisions, such as appointing Hilary Benn as the shadow secretary of state for Northern Ireland, where Gray worked in the 1980s as a pub landlady, were heavily influenced by Gray herself.

Within moments of her arriving at Labour HQ, one of Westminster’s most prolific photographers, Stefan Rousseau of the Press Association, was invited up to her office to take photographs. Gray posed with two green parliamentary chairs before heading out onto the balcony to continue her photoshoot.

Accompanied by Starmer and David Evans, the party’s general secretary, Gray was then formally introduced to Labour HQ staff on Tuesday, with members of staff said to have been “whooping and hollering” when Starmer introduced her in a short speech.

Gray then told over 100 staffers present: “I will have your back.”

After, Starmer, Gray and Evans walked around Labour HQ, located on Blackfriars Road, and spoke to staff members and different teams about their roles. “She was asking questions and listening to thoughts and ideas,” one told the Express.

Gray also sat in on the first meeting of the new shadow cabinet and is now understood to be ‘settling well’ into her new job.

Sue Gray has officially started her new job as chief of staff for the Labour Party.

Shortly before last week’s PMQs, the former civil servant, who was caught lying that she was politically impartial, helped Starmer prepare Starmer for his counterattacks on the government.

That morning, she was part of a group of aides who sat down with Sir Keir for the final prep session that always takes place in the run-up to the weekly debate in Parliament. Insiders told the Express that ‘her instincts would prove invaluable at helping skewer Sunak across the dispatch box’.

She now continues to get stuck in with her new position, including helping to coordinate and manage staff and advise Starmer on how best to attack the Conservative government.

Her appointment to the position was met with controversy – particularly over her leading of the ‘partygate’ report – with many claiming that joining the Labour party meant she had displayed ‘anti-Boris’ bias during the investigation.

After it was revealed that Gray had lied about not speaking to Starmer during the investigation, the Cabinet Office pushed for Ms Gray to be barred from taking up the position for at least 18 months, pointing to the access she had to sensitive government secrets. In the end, a watchdog agreed that her appointment should be delayed by six months.

She is now working on drawing up plans to reform the civil service, should the Labour Party win next year’s election.

In a case of so-called ‘double-dipping’, the former civil servant will receive an annual pension of between £85,000 and £90,000 now that she has quit Whitehall, along with her estimated £140,000 salary from Labour.

Former Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg previously said her report, published in full last May, now looked like “a left-wing stitch-up”.

Proof of her partaking in a ‘conspiracy’ to bring down Boris Johnson can be read here.