Sir Keir Starmer has questions to answer

Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, assured everyone when he appointed Sue Gray as his chief of staff that “nothing improper at all” had occurred. The senior civil servant, who conducted the “partygate” inquiry into alleged Covid law-breaking in Downing Street, resigned in March to take up her new post.

She was recently given the all-clear by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments (Acoba) to begin her job in September after a gap of six months. But a Cabinet Office inquiry has established that conversations between Sir Keir and Ms Gray amounted to a prima facie breach of the Civil Service code. For obvious reasons, as a senior official she should have declared her contacts with the Labour leader.

Cabinet Office minister Jeremy Quin said: “The rules and guidance that govern the conduct of civil servants are clear and transparent”. But the Labour Party seemingly thinks they do not apply to them. A party spokesman called the Cabinet Office statement “Mickey Mouse nonsense” and a “political stunt” by the Conservatives, adding: “All rules were complied with.” Imagine if the positions were reversed and this was (fancifully, it is true) a civil servant joining the Tories in Opposition after having secret talks with the party leader. Would Labour be so sanguine then?

Mr Quin said he wished to make clear that, regardless of the case involving Ms Gray – who was, ironically, in charge of propriety and ethics in Whitehall – “I remain confident in the impartiality of our Civil Service”. Yet there are plenty of Tories who would question that assertion and feel he would be hard-pressed to find many officials who do not harbour centre-Left leanings which govern their decision-making, subliminally if not overtly.

It is characteristic of the Left’s sense of moral superiority that they apparently think such rules can be ignored because they are self-evidently on the side of the righteous. Their response to the Cabinet Office findings is indicative of this arrogance. Ms Gray was found to have broken the code yet Sir Keir denied anything untoward had happened.

Both must have known undeclared conversations were wrong and no amount of bluster changes that. The question now arises as to whether Sir Keir misled MPs over the appointment and, if so, will there be an inquiry by the Privileges Committee, or do different rules apply to Labour? The smell of humbug is overpowering.