Keir Starmer’s director of communications Tim Allan steps down

Tim Allan, Keir Starmer’s director of communications, has stepped down after only five months in the job, his resignation coming a day after the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, also departed.

Allan said in a brief statement: “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.”

The resignation is another blow to Starmer’s position amid a furious row about the decision to make Peter Mandelson ambassador to Washington despite his close links to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Allan, a former deputy press secretary for Tony Blair, who went on to found the PR agency Portland, returned to Downing Street in September as part of the last shake-up of Starmer’s team, in which Darren Jones also moved to No 10 from the Treasury.

Allan replaced James Lyons, who had been director of strategic communications for only a year. Shortly after Allan arrived, Steph Driver, who was the No 10 head of day-to-day communications, quit following some concern that Allan had in effect been recruited above her.

Allan had been a somewhat controversial appointment, in part because of some of the clients taken on by Portland. But losing two senior staff members in less than 24 hours will increase the sense that Starmer’s Downing Street operation is in freefall.

McSweeney announced his resignation on Sunday afternoon after days of pressure from many Labour MPs, saying he took “full responsibility” for his advice to send Mandelson to Washington despite a relationship with Epstein that continued beyond the late financier serving a jail term for sexual trafficking.

While allies of Starmer hope the departure of McSweeney will assuage the anger of MPs, the loss of the man seen as the architect of Starmer’s rise to power is a huge blow and has turned attention to why the prime minister himself approved the Mandelson decision.

Senior Labour sources have warned that McSweeney’s departure leaves the prime minister dangerously exposed as he heads towards a series of policy and electoral challenges – including the Gorton and Denton byelection later this month – that could determine his political fate.

A source close to Downing Street said: “Keir has just lost his firewall, on Mandelson and a whole load of other issues. Where does he think the anger gets directed next?”

The Conservatives have attempted to keep the focus on Starmer. Speaking to the BBC on Monday, Kemi Badenoch said Starmer had allowed McSweeney to “carry the can” for his own decision.

The Conservative leader said: “Keir Starmer knew, he knew. It is his judgment and the fact that he has been dishonest, he was dishonest – he claimed not to know, then he changed his story and claimed that he had been lied to.”

Jacqui Smith, the skills ministers, who sits in the Lords, told Sky News it had been McSweeney’s decision to leave.

She said: “It was Morgan who thought about the position that he was in, and particularly, as I say, the extent to which he’d become the story, and decided that the best thing for the government that he had worked hard to ensure got into power was able to carry on doing the work for the country.”

In a statement on Sunday, McSweeney said: “After careful reflection, I have decided to resign from the government. The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself. When asked, I advised the prime minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice. In public life responsibility must be owned when it matters most, not just when it is most convenient. In the circumstances, the only honourable course is to step aside.”

He said the vetting process for appointments needed “fundamental overhaul” after the Mandelson affair. “This cannot simply be a gesture but a safeguard for the future,” he said.