Labour must locate a political narrative to stem the sense of “drift” in government, a former senior adviser to Sir Tony Blair said after Sue Gray left her role as No 10 chief of staff.
John McTernan, who was Blair’s political secretary in Downing Street from 2005-2007, said the government has “completely lost grip” of the media narrative and communications
It was announced that Gray had resigned as the prime minister’s chief of staff on Sunday after becoming a “distraction” to the work of government.
In a statement, the former civil servant noted the “intense commentary around my position”, naming that as a driving reason she had chosen to stand aside.
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Leaving her No 10 role, Gray was appointed as the prime minister’s new envoy for regions and nations in what amounts to a significant demotion.
After the news broke of Gray’s departure on Sunday, the Conservative Party accused Downing Street of descending into “chaos.”
“In fewer than 100 days Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government has been thrown into chaos”, a spokesperson said. “He has lost his Chief of Staff who has been at the centre of the scandal the Labour Party has been engulfed by.
“Sue Gray was brought into deliver a programme for government and all we’ve seen in that time is a government of self-service. The only question that remains is who will run the country now?”
Gray resigned after weeks of hostile and vituperative briefings, including over her salary which the BBC revealed to be £3,000 more than the prime minister.
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John McTernan, asked what had gone wrong for Labour just three months after its landslide general election victory, told Times Radio on Monday morning that Starmer needs to urgently locate a “political narrative.”
“The government has completely lost grip, I think, a grip on their operations, a grip on the media grid and they don’t dominate communications and that has been because they have lacked a political narrative and the political drive and the momentum that drove them through the election”, he said.
He added: “That seemed to run out after the [commons] sitting weeks ended in July and we got into the recess of August. It just went from the country demanding change to a government delivering drift.”
McTernan also said Labour had made a “terrible miscalculation” by deciding to wait to hold its first budget until 30th October.
In delaying the unveiling of its first fiscal package, McTernan said the Labour government had created a “vacuum”.
He told Times Radio: “It feels like it has been a terrible miscalculation, a political miscalculation, to leave the budget for so long.
“The budget will be four months after the election. You define yourself in your budget because that sets what you are going to do to public services, what you are going to do to tax, what you are going to do to spending.
“And to leave the defining element of what you are doing in public services to be taking the winter fuel allowance from 10 million pensioners, that is the thing that stands there as the definition.”
He added: “The space that has been left between the election and the big decisions has left a vacuum and you need to fill a vacuum because the media, like nature, abhor a vacuum.”
Josh Self is Editor of Politics.co.uk, follow him on X/Twitter here.
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