Steph Driver, one of Keir Starmer’s longest serving aides, has resigned from her communications job in 10 Downing Street.
It marks another blow to the Prime Minister as he loses one of his closest colleagues just a few days before Labour’s party conference in Liverpool.
The Guardian reports that Driver left her job as director of communications despite pleas from the Prime Minister for her to stay. It follows the resignation last week of Paul Ovenden, director of political strategy, over a minor scandal. Starmer didn’t want to lose him either.
The PM recently hired Tim Allan, a Blair-era spinner, to be his executive director of communications, a role that outranked Driver’s. She had also recently taken a period of leave after suffering a bereavement.
Driver joined the leadership team in March 2021 as Starmer’s personal spinner. These were the dog days of opposition and money was so scarce in Labour that her salary was reportedly improvised out of various leafleting funds.
She stayed with him through the trials of the Hartlepool by-election, the “beergate” police inquiry and on to the triumph of last year’s general election.
The team of people around the Prime Minister continues to chop and change while the number of people who have long experience of working with him shrinks.
Matthew Doyle, a Blair-era flack, left the director of comms role in March of this year after 9 months in Government. He had previously spent a long spell at Starmer’s side through opposition. His departure followed whispered gripes about his performance in the role.
Driver stepped up from deputy director to full director of communications on Doyle’s departure. But Doyle was also effectively replaced by James Lyons, former deputy political editor of the Sunday Times, who became “director of communications for strategy” in March. He had previously joined the No 10 comms team in a more junior role in October 2024 after the sacking of Sue Gray.
Lyons left Government earlier this month after a fairly short stint. Again there were gripes about his performance as the Government continues to struggle in the polls.
Driver’s departure leaves No 10 with a reduced communications operation, and Keir Starmer with fewer trusted long-serving aides. Yet even those fiercely loyal to the Prime Minister now say the big problem in Downing Street is not communications alone.
[Further reading: The supreme folly of a Labour civil war]
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