How Sue Gray is wielding power at the heart of Downing Street

With great influence and a firm grip on Whitehall, Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff may well be Britain’s most powerful woman

Jess Phillips was in the pouring rain waiting for an Uber when the call came through: She was being made a minister in the new Labour government. 
The voice on the line explained that she would be heading to the Home Office with a brief to tackle violence against women and girls, an issue she had campaigned on for years.
Yet it was not Sir Keir Starmer, the new Prime Minister, delivering the news, but the woman rapidly emerging as one of the most powerful figures in Number 10: Sue Gray. 
“It was quite surprising, I wasn’t expecting it,” Ms Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, told the Edinburgh International Book Festival earlier this month about her appointment. 
She was not the only one given the news of their career boost by Ms Gray. It has been a common feature of the new government, according to sources in multiple departments.
On one level, there is nothing jaw-dropping about the dynamic. It is not unheard of for chiefs of staff – the role Ms Gray holds under Sir Keir – to deliver reshuffle news, though it is rare. 
It speaks, however, to the power balance in Starmer’s Downing Street, still just six weeks old, where Ms Gray faces grumblings about how much control she has.
“She has got a massive amount of power,” said one adviser to a cabinet minister. “She’s an extremely powerful chief of staff.” Another said: “She has an immensely powerful position.”
As a veteran of Whitehall, Ms Gray has decades of government experience under her belt – a point of difference with many in Sir Keir’s team, not to mention the Prime Minister himself.
Much of that time was spent in the Cabinet Office, the department attached to Number 10 which acts for the country’s leader but often has a loosely defined set of responsibilities. 
Ms Gray understands how to wield power in government. It was not for nothing that Sir Oliver Letwin, a Tory minister who served in the Cabinet Office, once said: “It took me precisely two years before I realised who it is that runs Britain. Our great United Kingdom is actually entirely run by a lady called Sue Gray.”
More than a dozen figures inside the government have spoken to The Telegraph about how Ms Gray’s early influence is being felt at the centre of power.
One message consistently delivered is about a specific area where Ms Gray is holding considerable control, with potential long-term significance: Appointments. 
The reason why it took longer than expected for the full rank of ministerial positions to be announced after Labour’s victory on July 4 is explained by some by Ms Gray’s involvement.
It took almost a fortnight for the list of parliamentary private secretaries – ministerial “bag carriers”, as they are known, the first rung on the government ladder – to be announced. 
Eyes were raised when Liam Conlon, the new Labour MP who is Ms Gray’s son, was handed a PPS position in the Transport Department just days into his parliamentary career. 
Very few new MPs go straight onto the government payroll, but it is not just ministerial picks where Ms Grey is closely involved. 
Special advisers or “spads”, the political roles attached to cabinet ministers who act as the conduit between the decision-maker and civil servants or the media, need the tick from Ms Grey to be appointed, according to multiple sources including Number 10. 
“For all of the spads she has sign-off”, grumbled one insider. Some cabinet ministers – such as Liz Kendall, the Work and Pensions Secretary who is hurriedly drafting welfare reforms with the Treasury to be announced at the Budget in two months – are still without their full spad teams.
One insider even claimed Ms Gray is helping decide salary levels for some advisers, though a Cabinet Office source pushed back on this claim, saying it is forbidden under the special advisers’ code of conduct. 
Who made it from Sir Keir’s team in opposition into Number 10 has been a point of contention and frustration within Labour, with some stalwarts of the leader’s office not taken across. But it has been noted Ms Gray’s advisers have made the move. 
Unusually for a chief of staff in opposition, Ms Gray had two political advisers working by her side before the election. Both have been given prime jobs in Number 10, one was handed a senior foreign policy role. 
And then there are the appointments looming, specifically two of the most significant posts in the civil service which are set to be filled early next year. 
One is for a successor to Simon Case, who as Cabinet Secretary is the most senior civil servant in the country and is expected to step down in the New Year after ill health.
Ms Gray had a strained relationship with Mr Case when they were last in Government together, according to multiple sources including those who saw the dynamic up close.
She is expected to play a role in picking his successor, which is ultimately a choice for Sir Keir. Bringing back Sir Olly Robbins, Theresa May’s Brexit negotiator, is reportedly one option being explored.
Another call is needed on who will become the next UK ambassador to America. Sir Tim Barrow had been due to go to Washington under the Tories but that is no longer planned under Labour. Again, it is likely that Ms Gray will have a say in the debate. 
The decision is being delayed until after the US presidential election on November 5, allowing time to tailor the choice depending on whether it will be a Donald Trump or Kamala Harris White House from January 2025. 
Some are quick to wave away the intrigue about Ms Gray. 
Dave Penman, general secretary of the FDA, a trade union that represents civil service, said: “Everyone is thinking that Sue is imprinting herself in the world, when in reality as chief of staff she is imprinting Starmer. The things that Sue is doing are in his name and with his authority and approval.”
Being closely involved in key appointments – ministers, special advisers, Number 10 insiders, senior civil servants – allows Ms Gray to help determine the make-up of the new government and who will make the key decisions. 
It is the clearest example of her grip on the system, but there are other signs. 
One is access. Ms Gray was by Sir Keir’s side for his first two international summits, the Nato gathering in Washington DC and the European Political Community gathering at Blenheim Palace. She was often among the three aides Sir Keir was joined by in the leader-to-leader meetings. 
Claims in a Sunday newspaper last weekend that she restricted national security briefing access to the Prime Minister have been firmly disputed by Downing Street. 
Another feature of her time with Sir Keir has been building up strong personal relationships with ministers and senior advisers. Ms Gray hands out her mobile phone number and urges contact, something she did as a senior civil servant in Northern Ireland. 
“Her style was to give out her mobile number to people,” said one Democratic Unionist Party politician. “It was almost as if she wanted to bypass the machine and normal processes.” 
A similar approach is being taken in Government. “She is a relationship builder”, said an aide to a cabinet minister who has her number. 
The approach has led to whispers about a tension at the heart of Number 10 between Ms Gray and Morgan McSweeney, the Irishman who led the Labour general election campaign and now had a political strategy brief in Downing Street. 
Claims in The Sun that Mr McSweeney’s desk was moved twice by Ms Gray have been dismissed by his allies. The real story, it is said, is that Mr McSweeney initially picked a room with a partition between it for his team and then moved into a single bigger room to fit them all together once jobs were locked down. 
Similarly, the idea of a “boys’ club” revolving around Mr McSweeney does not neatly fit the facts. His nine-person team is made up of six women and just three men. 
Indeed it is true that to date there have been no media reports of a row about any specific policy or decision between them. They have different beats: Ms Gray, a Whitehall veteran focused on policy delivery; Mr McSweeney, a skillful campaigner on all things political. 
It appears to be the lack of clarity over where the line between the two spheres lies, as the new Downing Street operation beds in, that has contributed to mutterings about a power struggle. 
There is some “tension”, one senior government adviser said, but it is “healthy tension”.
It is safe to assume Ms Gray will keep making headlines, for at least one reason: she has an unusually high public profile for a political insider operating behind the scenes.
Her role in leading the partygate investigation that contributed to Boris Johnson’s downfall while a civil servant, then quitting to join Sir Keir’s team, has made her an outcast in the eyes of many Tories. 
This month at the Edinburgh Fringe, there is even an entire comedy show based around her.
Not since Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s domineering chief of staff, has a Number 10 insider been so well known to the public. And that ended in dramatic fashion with a Cummings resignation followed by a brutal briefing war.
Ms Grey may lack Mr Cummings’ maverick energy but she has a similar feel for raw power in Whitehall. Those inside the Government as well as out are watching to see how she uses it.