Starmer's ex-comms chief says there is 'too much briefing' in government

Sir Keir Starmer's former communications director has said there is "too much briefing" to journalists from inside government.

Speaking to Sky News political editor Beth Rigby on the Electoral Dysfunction podcast, Matthew Doyle also did not deny reports he could be appointed to the House of Lords. "I do think there is far too much briefing that happens," he said.

"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 think it would be better if there was more space for politicians to be able to have honest conversations in private with their colleagues and not have to worry that things were going to end 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 said 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". But while that lends itself more to the style 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".

Asked directly by Rigby if he was about to be handed a peerage, Mr Doyle did not reply. It follows a report in The Guardian which said Mr Doyle is on a list of about 25 new peers expected to be created in the new year.

Mr Doyle was Downing Street's director of communications between July 2024 and March 2025. Before then, he worked as director of communications for the Labour Party..