Fury has erupted after it was revealed that Sue Gray has taken a huge pay rise, and is now earning more than the Prime Minister himself.

Ms Gray, already a highly controversial Chief of Staff, is now earning a whopping £170,000.

This is £3,000 more than the Prime Minister himself, with one Labour source quipping: “Sue Gray is the only pensioner better off under Labour”.

Ms Gray was warned prior to accepting the huge sum that it would cause a scandal.

A source told the BBC, who broke the news: “It was suggested that she might want to go for a few thousand pounds less than the prime minister to avoid this very story. She declined.”

Sir Keir Starmer himself earns £166,786, a figure that’s largely gone unchanged for the past 20 years.

Sue Gray’s predecessor, Rishi Sunak advisor Liam Booth Smith, took between £140,000 and £145,000.

In 2021, Sir Keir slammed news that Dominic Cummings had received a £40,000 pay rise under Boris Johnson

The then-Opposition leader tweeted: “£40,000 per year pay rise for Dominic Cummings. £3.50 per week for NHS nurses. The mask has slipped.”

Since coming to office, the Prime Minister has also signed off a ‘rebanding’ of advisors’ salaries, meaning pay rises for all.

Bitterness among Labour advisors was compounded by the fact many only found out their salary offer after working in the job for some weeks, meaning they were stuck after discovering their pay cut.

Ms Gray has already been on the receiving end of a number of briefings since Labour entered power, however today’s pay revelation has sparked further indignation towards the most powerful woman in Whitehall.

A Government insider branded Ms Gray’s pay “the highest ever special adviser salary in the history of special advisers”.

Another told the BBC: “It speaks to the dysfunctional way No10 is being run.”

“No political judgement, an increasingly grand Sue who considers herself to be the Deputy Prime Minister, hence the salary and no other voice for the Prime Minister to hear as everything gets run through Sue.”

The news comes amid an ongoing sleaze row involving the Prime Minister and his wife, who have pocketed thousands in luxury freebies from donors – all while stripping pensioners of their Winter Fuel allowance.

Ms Gray has also been accused of hoarding power in Downing Street since the election, with claims she has deliberately moved fellow top advisor Morgan McSweeney’s desk away from the PM’s office to cut him out.

She was then briefed against with claims she had “subverted” the Cabinet by personally pushing funding plans for a new stadium in Ireland.

Following the BBC story, the Tories have now set out a number of questions for Sir Keir Starmer and the Cabinet Office, including whether the PM personally signed off Ms Gray’s new salary, and the increase in pay bands.

They also demand to know whether Sue Gray is a committee on the pay of advisors, and whether she played a role in setting her own huge salary.

Crucially they also ask whether Ms Gray is receiving any top-up of her salary from the Labour Party.