How will Keir Starmer’s new-look Downing Street work?

Appointed directly by Sir Keir, Mr McSweeney will become the most senior special adviser (or “spad”) working in Downing Street, in charge of the political arm of the prime minister’s team.

Unlike Ms Gray, he will have two deputy chiefs of staff, Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson, promoted from within No 10.

Former journalist James Lyons has been brought in to lead a new “strategic communications” team, reporting to Sir Keir’s longstanding director of communications Matthew Doyle.

He is expected to play a key role in devising the “grid” of planned government announcements – an area that had, unusually, been under the command of Ms Gray.

But change is also afoot in the civil service arm of the organisation, whose occupants are not political appointees but have to work closely with them.

It has been announced that Nin Pandit, director of the No 10 policy unit since late 2022, will become Sir Keir’s principal private secretary (PPS).

One of the so-called “golden triangle” of senior civil service roles alongside the cabinet secretary and the monarch’s private secretary, she will provide a key link with other departments, as well as the Palace.

This important position, the most senior within Sir Keir’s private office, has been unfilled since the departure of previous occupant Elizabeth Perelman, amid reports of tensions over who should replace her.