Labour politicians raised concerns about Keir Starmer’s plans to give his former spin doctor a peerage in the weeks before it was confirmed, citing intimidating behaviour, particularly towards women.
Several MPs and peers spoke to their respective chief whips in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords after Matthew Doyle’s intended peerage was first reported in early December. Representations were made into the first week of January.
Despite this, Doyle, a veteran Labour aide who stepped down as Downing Street’s director of communications last spring, formally took his seat on 12 January. He was suspended from the Labour whip on 9 February, less than a month later.
Several sources, including MPs and former Labour staffers, told The Observer they had either witnessed or directly experienced negative behaviour, primarily but not exclusively towards women, dating back as far as the mid-2000s.
One female ex-staffer said they found him “very intimidating and aggressive” and was left “shaking” when on the phone with him. A female MP said they were “screamed at” down the phone.
A male former staffer said Doyle was “a bully – he shouted and screamed at people”.
However another former colleague who worked closely with Doyle for many years said: “Any boss has flaws and foibles, but Matthew is categorically not a sexist, and I never experienced any unreasonable behaviour.”
“We put [the complaint] pretty strongly,” said one MP who contacted the whips. “I was clear that I didn’t think he was somebody who was appropriate to enter the House of Lords… and I was very unhappy about his previous associations with [Sean] Morton.”
Morton, a former Labour councillor in Moray, north-east Scotland, was charged with possessing and distributing indecent images of children in December 2016. After appearing in court, he was immediately suspended by Labour. Despite this, Doyle worked on Morton’s campaign when he ran as an independent candidate in May 2017. Morton was convicted that November.
During PMQs last Wednesday, Starmer defended the decision to press ahead with the peerage, telling MPs: “Matthew Doyle did not give a full account of his actions.” The party has since launched an investigation but would not specify whether it involved allegations about Doyle’s behaviour.
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Florence Eshalomi, Labour MP for Vauxhall and chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government select committee, said: “There is a lot of concern among female parliamentarians that when we raise things we are not taken seriously, and that is part of the toxicity around the leadership in No 10… There is a lads’ culture, a boys’ culture, around Keir, and we need to make sure we have reset on that.”
Labour declined to comment on conversations between whips and their colleagues. It is understood no formal complaints were made at the time. Doyle did not respond to requests for comment. Doyle previously issued a statement apologising for his “error of judgement” working with Morton , which he said was due to Morton’s repeated assertions that he was innocent of the allegations made against him.
Photograph by House of Commons/UK Parliament/PA Wire