9 February 2026

No 10 comms chief resigns, taking Westminster by surprise

Questions over whether the prime minister might himself depart are growing louder

Photo by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street

As the crisis engulfing Keir Starmer’s premiership continues into another day, Tim Allan, No 10 director of communications, has resigned: a development that has taken his colleagues across government, and those of us in the media, completely by surprise. It is a huge moment.

In a statement issued by Downing Street, Allan said: “I have decided to stand down to allow a new No 10 team to be built. I wish the PM and his team every success.”

Allan had only been in the position for five months. Despite picking a fight with the Westminster press pack by cancelling afternoon lobby briefings, most of his colleagues thought he was doing a good job in the circumstances he found himself in. He was the person responsible, for example, for ensuring Starmer reacted immediately and decisively to condemn Donald Trump’s comments about British troops in Afghanistan, and for a wider sense of calming down the febrile mood that had surrounded Starmer’s premiership at the end of last year. In the crisis of recent weeks that febrility has returned, of course, but Allan was never mentioned as a cause or singled out for criticism of its handling. His departure, right after that of Morgan McSweeney, is unexpected and feels highly significant.

Why has he gone? Did Starmer sack him or has he genuinely decided to go on his own terms? His senior colleagues say they don’t know. “It speaks to his skill as director of communications that nobody has a clue what it means,” one government figures observes.

Allan was not yet in post when Mandelson was appointed as ambassador to Washington, but he was a colleague of his in the New Labour years under Blair. Some wonder if it is a proximity to Mandelson that has prompted his departure, but it is a curious explanation if others, such as Jonathan Powell, who was in Number 10 for the Mandelson appointment, stay in place.

Others are speculating that Starmer has sacked him as part of a wider reset. Or, perhaps, Allan simply saw which way the wind was blowing. Questions over whether the prime minister might himself depart are growing louder.

What was always going to be a significant day in Westminster now feels even more so.