Wide-ranging links to the Labour Party

THE extent of Sue Gray’s links to the Labour Party came under fresh scrutiny yesterday after it emerged that Keir Starmer boasted of knowing her ‘personally’.

A clip of an interview from January last year showed the Labour leader insisting Ms Gray had ‘huge integrity and huge respect’.

This was because he knew her on a personal level, he explained. ‘The first thing I should say, full disclosure, I know Sue Gray because I was director of public prosecutions,’ he told LBC radio. ‘She was a senior civil servant, so I know her personally.’

Ms Gray’s son, Liam Conlon, is also a senior Labour activist. He is deputy chairman of the Lewisham West and Penge branch in south London.

A picture posted on Twitter by Mr Conlon in May 2018 shows him at a parliamentary event with Ms Gray, ex-Labour cabinet minister Tessa Jowell and Labour peer Doreen Lawrence.

Ms Gray has her arm around Ms Jowell, suggesting she knew her on a personal level.

And in her new role working as Sir Keir’s chief of staff, Ms Gray will be reunited with Labour Party press officer Leila McIntyre, who worked in Downing Street while Ms Gray was preparing her Partygate report.