Sir Keir Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney has long been pulling the strings behind the scenes in Downing Street. With reset after reset seeing government officials booted out and replaced, McSweeney has remained – even winning a power struggle with former chief of staff Sue Gray.
But now – amid the fallout from revelations about Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and his subsequent sacking – the Downing Street spinner is facing his biggest test yet, amid claims he pushed for Lord Mandelson to be appointed in the first place.
There are also reports McSweeney pushed for the Labour grandee to remain in post as pressure grew this week – allegations Downing Street has robustly pushed back against.
Regardless, there are now questions over whether or not McSweeney is the right man for the job, with former Labour home secretary David Blunkett calling on Sir Keir to “widen the circle” of people around him.
In what will be seen as a reference to McSweeney, who entered Downing Street for the first time with Sir Keir, he said the Labour leader should gather around him “people with experience, people who are seasoned politicians, who he can test things with … Actually counterweighting the younger people, the less experienced people who gather around him.”
Meanwhile, former Tory foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind told Times Radio that it was “for the prime minister to decide whether he’s a suitable adviser for the future, depending on what did actually happen”.
The claims about McSweeney have left Starmer walking a tightrope. On the one hand, he is already facing questions about his judgement, so keeping McSweeney in post could raise even further problems for the prime minister if the allegations don’t go away.
But on the other hand, the prime minister has seen huge staff turnover in Downing Street, having tried (and failed) to “reset” the narrative repeatedly – so getting rid of someone who has been so instrumental in his leadership of the party could serve to make things even worse than they already are.
McSweeney is so closely intertwined with the prime minister himself that sacking him would raise further, deeply uncomfortable questions about Sir Keir’s judgement.
Any sacking would also come after the loss of both Angela Rayner and Peter Mandelson in the space of just two weeks. The optics are far from ideal.
It is likely for this reason that the prime minister threw his weight behind McSweeney on Friday morning, with his spokesperson insisting that “of course the prime minister has confidence in his top team”.
But it won’t be the first time the prime minister has insisted he has full confidence in a member of his team before sacking them the following day. After the loss of Mandelson and Rayner, both of whom supposedly had the confidence of the PM before they made their exits, it wouldn’t even be the first time this month.
So his backing of McSweeney says little about what could be next for the PM’s team.
But one thing is for sure: removing the Downing Street spinner would raise more questions for the prime minister than it answers.
