The British Labor leader, Keir Starmer, has appointed Sue Gray, the senior official of the United Kingdom central administration who led the investigation of the illegal parties held -the well-known Patygate- during the coronavirus pandemic, as head of his transitional cabinet. in the office and official residence of then Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Gray’s appointment has infuriated the former Conservative leader’s circle of allies, as well as raising questions about the characteristic impartiality of the UK civil service.
Gray highlighted leadership failures in high government circles among his Partygate conclusions, which spanned 16 events and social gatherings in the Downing Street garden and offices between 2020 and 2021. Scotland Yard relied on his report before issuing more than 125 fines for circumventing the sanitary regulations of confinement. Among those penalized were Johnson and the now prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
In response, the former prime minister described as “surreal” the notion of such a report being the documentary basis in Parliament’s Committee on Privileges’ inquiry into his own conduct throughout the scandal. The group of seven deputies considers that there are indications that he was aware of the festivities and could, therefore, lie about it to the House of Commons. The committee reaches this conclusion in its preliminary report, published precisely this noon, in which it also summons Johnson to give oral testimony on March 20.
“It is surreal to discover that the committee proposes to rely on evidence culled and orchestrated by Sue Gray, who has just been appointed chief of staff to the leader of the Labor Party,” Johnson said, warning that there is no evidence that he lied to Parliament about of his knowledge of the drunken gatherings at his official London residence.
The friends of the former head of government also question the integrity of the work of the veteran public employee. “The validity of the Sue Gray investigation and its results have been completely destroyed,” an anonymous source told conservative media. For Jacob Rees-Mogg, who held ministerial posts during Johnson’s tenure, “the Gray report now looks like a left-wing gimmick against a Conservative prime minister.” “It is no longer an independent report. It has been written by a left-wing activist,” he complained to the media.
Gray tendered his resignation to the permanent secretary of the Cabinet ministry, which was accepted with immediate effect this Thursday. By then, rumors were swirling of his signing as a centerpiece in the team that will help Starmer prepare for the “big transition” from opposition to the UK government. The party confirmed on Friday its intention to hire the veteran public official as the Labor leader’s chief of staff, a position that has been vacant since the autumn.
“Keir Starmer is delighted that she is hoping to join us in our preparations to govern and in our mission to build a better UK,” the spokesman for the Labor leader said. The head of Culture, Lucy Powell, added that the centrist leader “needs someone to help him in the next year to be ready” to implement “big ideas” and structural reforms, to win the next legislative elections, which must be held before January 2025. Labor consistently scores 15-20 points ahead of the Conservatives in voting intention polls published over the past eighteen months.
The hiring of the imminent former official is now pending the proceedings of the Advisory Committee on Professional Appointments (ACOBA, for its acronym in English), in charge of supervising the so-called practice of “revolving doors” between the public, private and charitable sectors. This independent entity, headed by a former conservative minister, could take between three months and two years for the effective transfer of the official to her new job.
Gray had worked in the civil service since the 1970s, holding positions of increasing responsibility in Northern Ireland and in the British capital. She was director general of the department of ethics and professional correctness, attached to the Cabinet ministry, from 2012 to 2018, a position that would have given her access to all complaints, allegations, rumors and insinuations about the conduct of ministers and former ministers. It is a reality from her past that probably worries more conservative politicians than the handful of deputies who are denouncing the “coup” against Johnson.
Starmer follows the lead of his predecessor, Tony Blair, who also recruited a seasoned civil servant, Jonathan Powell, in the years leading up to Labor’s massive 1997 victory. Johnson himself chose a Treasury veteran. , Dan Rosenfield, as chief of staff after firing his adviser and strategist Dominic Cummings. But, as Alex Thomson, a former analyst at the Institute for Governance (IfG), has pointed out, “it had not happened before with a civilian employee, active in such a high position and with a public profile and career path at the center of government. like Sue Gray’s.”
According to the criteria of The Trust Project