Sir Keir Starmer reveals his relationship with Sue Gray dates back at least TEN YEARS
SIR Keir Starmer has revealed his relationship with Sue Gray dates back at least TEN YEARS, a video shows.
The revelation heaps huge pressure on the party chief to disclose when talks began to woo the ex-senior mandarin.
The Labour leader told a radio phone-in last January that he knew the ex-mandarin when he was the country’s top prosecutor.
He told LBC: “Full disclosure, I know Sue Gray… I know her personally… she has got huge integrity and huge respect.”
But he dodged questions on a visit to Londonderry yesterday about when the chief of staff recruitment started but linked her appointment to preparing for government after the next election.
Starmer said he knew her when he was the Director of Public Prosecutions which is a role he left in 2013.
Ms Gray was the chief investigator of lockdown-breaking parties in 10 Downing Street.
They included a drinks gathering in the garden of Downing Street in May 2020, a birthday bash for then-PM Boris Johnson in June that year, and a leaving party for a special adviser that November.
Ms Gray’s scathing report described “failures of leadership and judgment” inside No 10 and led to Mr Johnson’s downfall two months later.
She was expected to be the star witness at the Commons Privileges inquiry into the affair.
Ms Gray spent a decade as Whitehall’s top sleaze-buster, intimately involved in every single reshuffle, appointment and scandal probe — meaning she will be leaving with a trove of secrets.
One former colleague said: “What is Sue meant to do, just forget all that now she’s working for a political party whose job it is to attack the Government every day?”