Sir Keir Starmer’s former communications director has mentioned there’s “too much briefing” to journalists from inside authorities.
“I do think there is far too much briefing that happens,” he mentioned.
“In my experience, it is very rarely the frontline communications staff that are the people who are involved in a lot of the stuff that gets the loudest headlines, not least because we’re always the ones who have to pick up the pieces afterwards when those briefings happen.”
He added: “I believe it will be higher if there was extra space for politicians to have the ability to have trustworthy conversations in non-public with their colleagues and never have to fret that issues have been going to finish up being selectively put into the media afterwards.
“I do think it limits the decision-making ability of government. If you are in that situation where you can’t be confident that there are, as it were, safe spaces where you can have proper conversation.”
Mr Doyle mentioned that “there is a role for the official communications staff in Downing Street to be narrating for journalists what is going on, why it’s going on, why particular decisions are being made”.
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However whereas that lends itself extra to the fashion of a briefing, “the basic rule is that you shouldn’t say anything in a briefing, that you wouldn’t be happy for it to also appear as a quotation”.
Requested straight by Rigby if he was about to be handed a peerage, Mr Doyle didn’t reply.
It follows a report in The Guardian which mentioned Mr Doyle is on a listing of about 25 new friends anticipated to be created within the new 12 months.
Mr Doyle was Downing Avenue’s director of communications between July 2024 and March 2025.
Earlier than then, he labored as director of communications for the Labour Social gathering.
