The hits just keep on coming for Sir Keir Starmer as a senior aide has quit after he sent sexually explicit messages about Dianne Abbott.
Paul Ovenden, the director of strategy quit Downing Street after messages were uncovered from 2017 about the former home secretary.
Ovenden exchanged email with a former colleague in 2017 where he retold a story of a game of “shag, marry, kill” involving Abbott where he said he would sleep with her, the Mail has reported.
Ovenden previously worked as a journalist for the Sunday Telegraph before he joined Labour.
A Labour source said, “Paul Ovenden was the best brain in the Labour Party and the role he played in the landslide election was immeasurable.”
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Speaking to ITV News Ovenden said it was a “silly conversation” eight year back, he said, “Before summer, I had announced to some of my colleagues my intention to leave government.
“Though the messages long pre-date 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 advisor, 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,” he added
To make matters worse for Starmer he has been warned he “will be gone” if the May local elections turn out as bad as Labour MPs fear it will be.
The Prime Minister is also having to deal the Peter Mandelson scandal regarding his relationship with the disgrace banker and paedophile Jeffrey Epstien.
Labour MP Richard Burgon warned that Starmer “will be gone” if the local elections are as brutal as many are expecting.
Burgon told the Today programme, “Lots of MPs are looking to the elections next May.
“The opinion polls suggest it’s going to be a complete disaster unfortunately and there’ll be elections in the Scottish Parliament, elections in the Welsh Senedd, elections in London, elections right across the country and the opinion polls at the moment suggest that as it stands it’s going be a disaster.
“I think it’s inevitable if May’s elections go as people predict and the opinion polls predict then I think Starmer will be gone at that time.”
Labour MP Helen Hayes added, “If those elections don’t go well, then that will be the time to ask questions… about the nature of the leadership and whether things can continue as they are.
Graham Stringer MP warned, “He [Starmer] seems to be unable to take quick, reasoned decisions and explain them politically. He doesn’t seem to have the basic skills that most politicians have.”
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