One of Sir Keir Starmer’s most senior aides has resigned after leaked messages revealed he had made lurid and explicit sexual comments about the veteran left-wing MP Diane Abbott.
Paul Ovenden, Starmer’s director of strategy, said he was leaving No 10 over an “inappropriate” conversation he had with colleagues while working as a Labour press officer in 2017. His departure is a further blow to the embattled prime minister as he faces continuing questions over his judgment in the Lord Mandelson scandal.
No 10 described the comments as “appalling and unacceptable”, while Ovenden said he was “deeply sorry for the hurt” they would cause.
Ovenden, who is close to the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, was one of a small group of Labour aides who were key to the “Starmer project” to make Labour electable again after Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership.
He was Labour’s deputy director of communications at the outset of Starmer’s leadership, before heading the party’s attack and rebuttal unit in opposition. Ovenden became Starmer’s director of strategy in January.
Sources said Ovenden had planned to leave Downing Street later in September, but had brought forward his departure after being confronted about the messages, which were obtained by ITV News.
The messages are understood to be part of a huge cache of internal messages and emails that were leaked in 2020. They showed senior officials in Labour’s headquarters were openly plotting against Corbyn.
The messages include Ovenden and a female colleague discussing sex acts involving Abbott. Ovenden recounted details of an event he had attended at which they had joked about having sex with Abbott as part of a game of “shag, marry, kill”.
In a statement, Ovenden described the exchange as a “silly conversation that I was party to with other female staff members”.
He added: “Though the messages long predate my current employment and relationship with the prime minister, I’ve brought forward my resignation to avoid distracting from the vital work this government is doing to positively change people’s lives.
“As an adviser, my duty is to protect the reputation of the prime minister and his government. While it is chilling that a private conversation from nearly a decade ago can do this sort of damage, I am also truly, deeply sorry for it and the hurt it will cause.”
A No 10 spokesman said: “These messages are appalling and unacceptable. As the first black woman to be elected to parliament, Diane Abbott is a trailblazer who has faced horrendous abuse throughout her political career. These kinds of comments have no place in our politics.”
Mish Rahman, a former member of Labour’s ruling national executive committee, said he had been aware that journalists were intending to report on the exchange at the time of the general election last year, but a story never appeared.
A Labour source insisted that the party was not aware of the exchange until this week.
In July, Labour suspended Abbott from the party for a second time after she said on radio that she did not regret her past remarks on racism. She said at the time it was “obvious this Labour leadership wants me out”.
Speaking to Times Radio before Ovenden’s resignation was announced, Abbott said “it will be over” for Starmer if he was not able to turn around the government’s fortunes by the local elections in May.
“I don’t want to say that we should have a new leader tomorrow, but we know there are going to be a big set of elections in May, including Scotland and Wales,” she said.
“And we know that everybody is saying, not least Scottish and Welsh MPs, that we’re going to do badly. And I think if we do as badly as people say, well, it will be the case then that Starmer’s future as Labour leader and Labour prime minister will be over, really.”
Abbott suggested that Starmer needed to sack McSweeney, who was instrumental in promoting Mandelson’s candidacy as Washington ambassador.
“I think he probably does [need to be replaced]. We’ve had a number of incidents. We had a reshuffle last week. And people believe that it’s McSweeney’s reshuffle. And one of the reasons people believe it is McSweeney put his wife [the Labour MP Imogen Walker] in the whip’s office. So people felt this was a reshuffle that McSweeney had dictated. And that’s one of the things that has upset MPs.”
Ovenden’s departure deprives Starmer of one of his key speechwriters weeks before a make-or-break address at Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool in September. Over the summer, he had been a regular presence at Chequers, where he worked with the prime minister and other aides on the drafting of the speech.
He also played a central role in preparing Starmer for election debates and the weekly sessions of prime minister’s questions in opposition, and was among the advisers pushing for Labour to reconnect with its working-class base. Though little known outside of Westminster, he was one of the longest-serving members of Starmer’s inner circle and his departure leaves McSweeney without his closest lieutenant.
In the run-up to last year’s general election, Ovenden was the architect of Labour’s attack campaign against the Tories. His attack and rebuttal unit landed more than 150 negative stories about the Conservatives, including the leak of racist comments made about Abbott by the healthcare magnate and Tory donor Frank Hester.
Ovenden’s resignation was met with shock and dismay by cabinet ministers and special advisers on Monday. One said: “Paul was an immensely talented political strategist. His loss will be immeasurable to the prime minister.”
The Labour MP Nadia Whittome said Ovenden’s “misogynistic comments” were “utterly despicable”.
Zarah Sultana, an MP who lost the Labour whip and is setting up a new left-wing party with Corbyn said it showed the government was “rotten to the core”. She said: “Everyone knows about the macho boys’ club Starmer surrounds himself with so it’s no surprise to see vile, misogynistic comments from one of his top aides.”
