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Coffee House Shots

Sue Gray out, Morgan McSweeney in

Coffee House Shots

The Spectator

Daily News, News, Politics

4.42.2K Ratings

🗓️ 6 October 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Keir Starmer has not yet reached the 100 day mark but already he has lost his Chief of Staff. This afternoon, Downing Street has confirmed that Sue Gray is leaving her No. 10 role. Instead, she will be taking on an ‘advisory’ role as the Prime Minister’s envoy for nations and regions. In a statement announcing her departure, Gray referenced the media attention she had received as one of the reasons behind her decision to quit.

Morgan McSweeney will take over from Gray in a move will be popular with parts of the Labour party and brings to a close the Gray vs McSweeney psychodrama. Will this steady the Labour ship? 

Katy Balls and Isabel Hardman discuss. 

Produced by Oscar Edmondson. 

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Transcript

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0:00.0

The Spectator magazine is home to wonderful writing, insightful analysis and unrivaled books and art reviews.

0:06.0

Subscribe today for just 12 pounds and receive a 12 week subscription in print and online,

0:11.6

along with a free 20 pounds John Lewis or Weight Rose voucher.

0:15.0

Go to Spectator. UK. Hello and welcome to Coffey House shots and spectators daily and

0:25.9

sometimes more than daily politics podcast and we bring you a special

0:30.4

Sunday edition because we just had the news that Sue Gray has left her

0:34.0

role as Chief of Staff in 10 Downing Street to be replaced by none other than Morgan

0:38.8

McSweeny, a long-standing labor figure who of course has been seen as her rival in recent months.

0:44.0

Isabel let's start with Sue Gray. Is this news surprising?

0:48.0

I mean on one level I think the pace at which things have moved is probably a bit of a surprise.

0:56.5

I don't think anyone's surprised that this is an acceptance that the Downing

1:00.6

Street operation has manifestly not been working, that something was going to have to give,

1:06.0

and that there seemed to be sufficient numbers of staff within the Down

1:10.9

Street operation who were highly valued by Kiestama, who were basically saying they were not going to work with Sue Gray, that it was going to be Sue Gray that would be the thing or person that would have to give.

1:22.0

So I think on that level that's the sort of not surprising thing.

1:26.7

I don't know Katie whether you're surprised at the fact it's,

1:30.7

I thought this was going to happen at the end of the autumn I have to say as opposed to you know

1:35.6

we're not back from conference season yet Parliament will only start sitting again on

1:39.9

Monday it feels as though things are happening much quicker than we all expected, particularly

1:45.7

in terms of the government getting into self-inflicted doldrums as opposed to difficult decisions territory, which we were all expecting from day one.

1:56.1

Yeah, I definitely think there's a sense of, it felt as though, Cie Gray's position had become

2:00.1

pretty untenable because she had become the story. And I know that it's something everyone says in politics

...

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