‘Look out for fireworks’: power struggle rumours between No 10 big beasts persist

Downing Street officials deny friction between Sue Gray and Morgan McSweeney, but negative briefings continue

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Keir Starmer told his staff on his first day in office their duty was to return politics to service and to end self-interest.

Yet it has taken less than a month for negative, personal briefings from within Downing Street to emerge in the press, suggesting all is not entirely well in the working relationship between the two big beasts close to the prime minister: Sue Gray, the prime minister's chief of staff, and Morgan McSweeney, Labour's election strategy guru.