{"id":29067,"date":"2026-04-22T17:34:38","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:34:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/?p=29067"},"modified":"2026-04-22T17:34:43","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T16:34:43","slug":"starmer-faces-questions-after-no-10-sought-job-for-doyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/22\/starmer-faces-questions-after-no-10-sought-job-for-doyle\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer Faces Questions After No. 10 Sought Job for Doyle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>LONDON (FN)<\/strong>, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has admitted that Downing Street explored the possibility of finding a job for his former aide Matthew Doyle, raising fresh questions about cronyism in government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Starmer told lawmakers that No. 10 had asked about potential roles for Doyle after he left his post as communications chief, but insisted that \u201cnothing came of it.\u201d Civil servant Sir Olly Robbins testified that he was asked to look for positions, including an ambassadorial role, and told not to inform then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy, which he described as \u201cuncomfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Doyle was later elevated to the House of Lords but has since been suspended from the Labour Party over links to a convicted sex offender. The revelation has fueled criticism from opposition leader Kemi Badenoch, who accused Starmer of running \u201can old boys\u2019 club\u201d despite pledging integrity in government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Labour MPs have also expressed unease, saying the episode undermines the party\u2019s credibility at a time when Starmer is already under pressure over the Mandelson vetting scandal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The controversy underscores the tension between Starmer\u2019s promise of probity and the perception of favoritism in appointments, a theme that could weigh heavily on his leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON (FN), Prime Minister Keir Starmer has admitted that Downing Street explored the possibility of finding a job for his former aide Matthew Doyle, raising fresh questions about cronyism in government. Starmer told lawmakers that No. 10 had asked about potential roles for Doyle after he left his post as communications chief, but insisted that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":29068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3699,2,2096,776,4,478,5,8,458,1138],"tags":[12607,12609,12608,12606,12611,2245,12613,12184,12610,12614,12612,2280,1780,1895],"class_list":["post-29067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa","category-business","category-economics","category-educational","category-featured","category-financial","category-international","category-jobs","category-legal","category-politics","tag-cronyism","tag-downing-street","tag-government-appointments","tag-house-of-lords","tag-integrity-in-government","tag-keir-starmer","tag-kemi-badenoch","tag-labour-party","tag-matthew-doyle","tag-nyesom-wike-if-tying-to-broader-cronyism-debates","tag-opposition-criticism","tag-political-accountability","tag-public-trust","tag-uk-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.funminews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/e0ecd4d0-3e4c-11f1-b55d-0f258dce1735.png.webp?fit=1024%2C575&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29067"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29067\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29069,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29067\/revisions\/29069"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.funminews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}