Category Archives: Morgan McSweeney

If No 10 briefer is found Keir Starmer will sack them, Miliband says

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Cabinet minister says PM would not have backed attacks on Wes Streeting but briefing is ‘longstanding aspect of politics’

Ed Miliband has said he was certain Keir Starmer would sack whoever had briefed against Wes Streeting, after a chaotic 48 hours in which No 10 launched an operation to shore up the prime minister against an anticipated leadership challenge.

The prime minister apologised to the health secretary in a phone call with him late on Wednesday. Starmer is facing mounting calls to sack his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, over the row.

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Andy Burnham says Britain needs ‘wholesale change’ as Labour MPs prepare for conference – UK politics live

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Manchester mayor urges Keir Starmer to reveal plans to deliver reform but denies he is plotting to replace PM

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has described Nigel Farage over his comment implying Donald Trump might be right about paracetamol posing a risk to pregnant women. (See 10.23am.)

Dangerous and irresponsible.

This man is a snake oil salesman and it’s time people stopped buying.

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Tories demand inquiry into claims Labour’s McSweeney misled elections watchdog

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Starmer’s chief of staff used ‘false excuse’ for failing to declare donations to his former thinktank, Tories claim

The Conservatives have called for an investigation into Keir Starmer’s beleaguered chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, after allegations that he tried to mislead the elections watchdog over donations to a Labour thinktank he ran while in opposition.

The organisation, Labour Together, was fined £14,250 by the Electoral Commission in 2021 over its handling of almost £740,000 of donations. The Tories have claimed that it used a “false excuse” of administrative errors.

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Starmer aide Morgan McSweeney under fire after Labour welfare rebellion

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Backbenchers feel PM’s chief of staff missed strength of feeling over cuts – and there are deeper tensions at play

Being the prime minister’s right-hand man is a position of extraordinary power and privilege. But when things start to go wrong, you are directly in the line of fire. So has found Morgan McSweeney, the political mastermind credited with helping Keir Starmer win his election landslide, in recent days as the Labour party has collapsed into moral fury over planned welfare cuts.

The softly spoken Irishman, now Starmer’s chief of staff, has become the lightning rod for the frustration of many Labour rebels who backed a wrecking amendment designed to blow up the big welfare bill next week.

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Starmer confirms willingness to make concessions on welfare bill, saying reforms must be fair – UK politics live

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‘We want to see reform implemented with Labour values of fairness,’ the PM says

In his final answer Starmer explained how he thought government and business should work together.

A true partnership is not two people or two bodies trying to do the same thing. It’s two people or bodies realising they bring different things to the table.

Government shouldn’t try to run businesses. It’s done that in the past and it doesn’t work particularly well.

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No 10 delays child poverty strategy with tens of thousands more facing hardship

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Exclusive: Flagship policy put back until at least autumn amid fears cost of removing two-child benefit cap will outweigh political benefit

Labour’s flagship child poverty strategy has been delayed until at least the autumn, the Guardian has learned, even though tens of thousands more children will fall into poverty as a result.

The decision to push back the strategy comes amid Treasury concerns about the cost implications of ending the two-child limit on universal credit and questions inside No 10 over the political benefits of scrapping it.

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No 10 talking to ex-Boris Johnson aide Munira Mirza about multiculturalism

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Contact could unsettle some in Labour given her past record on the issue including criticism of Lammy report

Downing Street has been holding discussions with Munira Mirza, a longstanding and often controversial aide to Boris Johnson who has repeatedly criticised ideas about structural and institutional racism, it is understood.

Although it is believed that No 10’s contact with Mirza has been limited to a handful of calls at most, and that she is among a range of outside voices Downing Street has spoken to, her involvement in any sort of discussions with the government is likely to spook some Labour MPs.

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Starmer’s top aide made low-key Brussels trip as No 10’s EU reset efforts continue

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Morgan McSweeney met EU counterparts before Christmas as Downing Street poised to hire new foreign adviser

Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, made a below-the-radar trip to Brussels last month, as No 10 prepares to appoint its own foreign affairs adviser to help bolster the Downing Street policy operation.

As the UK’s attempts at a “reset” with the EU continue behind closed doors, No 10’s most senior aide made the trip to meet counterparts in Brussels before Christmas.

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