Starmer’s saviour? Insiders lift the lid on Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s new closest confidante
When Morgan McSweeney met special advisers on Tuesday evening, he is said to have made a “pitch perfect” speech that rallied the troops after a bruising few weeks.
A source in a government department said the chatter after the meeting was all “about Morgan’s appearance”.
“He acknowledged that being a spad has been more like a nightmare than a dream job. It seemed to go down well but of course they want action, not just words.”
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The unhappiness in Labour ranks among special advisers – political appointees who support ministers – over their pay was just one of the rows that culminated in the downfall of Sue Gray, the former partygate investigator whom Sir Keir invested so much personal stock in hiring.
She now finds herself as Sir Keir’s special envoy for the nations and regions, where she is not only expected to lose the £170,000 pay packet she was on – and which was leaked to the media in a successful attempt to damage her politically – but the unparalleled access she enjoyed to the prime minister.
For some, Mr McSweeney’s reappointment as chief of staff is the precise rescue remedy the party needed after its first 100 days in power were marred by the row over freebies and donations, sending Sir Keir’s personal ratings plummeting.
“Morgan is a much more political person with a vision of where the country should go and what we should be doing,” said one government source. “It’s wrong when people say Keir isn’t like that – it just wasn’t being translated properly.”
The source acknowledged that while not all the problems would be fixed “overnight”, with Mr McSweeney at the helm “there will be a lot more drive from the centre”.
“Look at how he changed the Labour Party. Morgan is a total workaholic who will create a greater sense of direction.”
Another supporter said simply: “He will undoubtedly be a force for good.”
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For other more sceptical observers, the public humiliation of Ms Gray has provided a convenient opportunity for Mr McSweeney to paint himself as the saviour of the Labour Party once more and fixer of all its problems – problems he allowed to fester in an apparent attempt to destroy a rival.
“You could critique Sue’s management style, you could say she didn’t facilitate access to Keir, you could say she took on too many things which generated backlogs and you could say had enemies in the Civil Service – but all of those things you could have said about anyone in that job,” one senior Whitehall figure told Sky News.
“Morgan would stoke things up subtly. He would let things go wrong so he could blame Sue and see her out.”
‘He will impose himself on Whitehall’
The picture that emerges of Mr McSweeney is that he is someone who can get things done – evidenced by his ability to bring Labour back from its worst ever election defeat in 2019.
But so far, this ability has only really been tested within party structures – not government ones.
Critics point out that Mr McSweeney has occupied the role of chief of staff before, when Labour was in opposition and lost the Hartlepool by-election – a moment so devastating for the party that Sir Keir himself considered quitting.
Mr McSweeney was then moved into the director of campaign role that he occupied until and throughout the election.
“Ultimately Morgan was moved out of the chief of staff role because he couldn’t run the shop,” said one source, claiming he struggled to deal with incoming challenges, managing individuals and dealing with the day-to-day logistics.
“The closest he has come to running an administration is Lambeth council,” they said, referring to his role in the London local authority where he won plaudits for defeating the hard left.
Mr McSweeney’s supporters dispute the idea that he was demoted from the chief of staff role and say this was only because he was needed to sort out party headquarters.
They believe that ultimately he will be able to reshape government how he wants it, just as he did with the party.
“Morgan knows what he is doing, he’d always take lots of soundings from people and places – but ultimately the decisions he made were his own,” said one senior Labour Party source.
“He towers over the party organisation and he’s earned that – the question is, does he have enough knowledge of the Whitehall wiring and machinery?”
They added: “My guess is he will reform the environment around him rather than adapting to it and becoming something he isn’t. He will seek to impose himself on it and make it an environment he can thrive in.”
Chief of staff must be ‘indistinguishable’ from PM
According to Alex Thomas, the programme director of the Institute for government thinktank and a former director in the Civil Service, the role of chief of staff is to “synthesise the political and the official”.
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“You are the last person in the room for the really big political decisions and all sorts of advice, and you amplify the prime minister across Whitehall and the whole of government,” he told Sky News.
“Chiefs of staff must be indistinguishable from the prime minister.”
The challenge that previous chiefs of staff have encountered, he said, is striking the right balance between “shaking things up, bringing in reforms and bringing people with you”.
Mr McSweeney may have the finger on the pulse of his tribe within the party, but what may prove more difficult is binding together the entire Labour coalition – which is far more unwieldy.
In her new position, Ms Gray could well build her own rival power base of metro mayors that could prove troublesome for Mr McSweeney if the central aims of Whitehall – for example, reducing public spending, or curbing the workers’ rights offer – clash with the needs of demographics outside of Westminster.
The power Mr McSweeney has displayed in being seen to have successfully ousted Ms Gray has prompted comparisons with Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s overbearing chief of staff who ultimately damaged his boss by pursuing his own agenda and alienating the wider party.
The fear among some insiders is that the treatment of Ms Gray – regardless of the mistakes and missteps she may have made in the job – could be a harbinger for their next target.
“Morgan’s faction has shown that when they turn their fire on you they will win,” said one source.
“When Keir has outlived his use to them, they will tell him his time is up.”