Partygate investigator’s ‘detailed talks’ with Gordon Brown
THE row over the Partygate investigator who has been in negotiations to be Sir Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff deepened last night over claims that she has made visits to Gordon Brown’s home over the past two years. Sources told The Mail on Sunday that Sue Gray had been in ‘detailed discussions’ with the former Prime Minister over his review of the constitution on behalf of Sir Keir.
The review led to the leader’s announcement in January that if Labour formed the next Government, he would move more power out of London to Scotland and the regions.
However, a Labour source said that the purpose of Ms Gray’s visits had been strictly in the capacity of her role as a senior civil servant, working on behalf of the Government in the full knowledge of Ministers and not to do with the review.
A Labour spokesman said that Ms Gray had sought clearance from Whitehall before seeing Mr Brown in Scotland, saying: ‘All meetings with the former Prime Minister were done with the full knowledge and support of Ministers.’
A senior Government official said Ms Gray had visited Mr Brown at home at least twice between 2021 and 2022. The official added: ‘It is staggering that a senior Government official was having these talks.’
The revelation comes a week after this newspaper revealed claims that Ms Gray, who conducted an inquiry into Boris Johnson’s behaviour in Downing Street in the pandemic, had been in negotiations with Labour for a year. The report, denied by Labour, followed an outcry over news that the career civil servant would be switching to a party political role with Labour as Chief of Staff, which led officials to speculate that she had been leaking Government information to Labour. Her friends categorically deny this.
Sir Keir has been urged by some senior Labour figures to do a U-turn on appointing Ms Gray seeing it as an unnecessary distraction. Mr Johnson’s supporters have argued that her appointment would prove that her probe into his behaviour in Downing Street was a ‘cynical stitch-up’ by his political opponents.
Sir Keir’s spokesman categorically denied Ms Gray had been in talks with the party for an extended period, saying: ‘As is well documented, and Keir has said, the Chief of Staff vacancy only arose in autumn 2022.’
Mr Brown’s 40-point plan included replacing the House of Lords with an elected second chamber and giving newly-devolved regions in England powers over skills, transport, planning and culture.
It also recommended 288 ‘new economic clusters’ capable of creating thousands of high-paid jobs. A Government source confirmed that the Brown meetings had been signed off, but added: ‘If Sue Gray did know what the rules were, why didn’t she declare all the other meetings she had with Labour while she was still a supposedly “impartial” civil servant working for the Government?’