This week’s Westminster main character is Morgan McSweeney – a high-risk position for any political figure to be in, but particularly dangerous for an unelected adviser.
Keir Starmer’s election coordinator turned chief of staff has become a target for Labour MPs’ anger at the welfare reform bill – on which the government now faces a rebellion that is veering on existential – and their general frustration at how quickly last July’s triumph has turned to ashes. The Times front page on Thursday (26 June) led with demands for “regime change”, for which we can read “McSweeney’s head on a platter”, served with a healthy side dish of humble pie.
Criticisms of McSweeney include that he is arrogant, beset with tunnel vision, detached from the Parliamentary Labour Party and wider Labour movement, and obsessed with Reform to the point of taking Labour’s core left vote for granted. Above all, there is anger that his influence over the Prime Minister has pushed a government with a majority which should imbue a sense of confidence into positions that appear weak, indecisive and markedly un-Labour.
Cutting welfare by £5bn at the expense of some of the most vulnerable people in society epitomises the sense that the government has lost its way. And Starmer’s strategy of holding firm and staring down the left of his party to cement his authority has had the opposite effect. As one minister reportedly put it, “Morgan is completely off his rocker.” Another MP noted it is rarely sustainable once an adviser becomes a household name. Surely McSweeney’s days must be numbered?
A controversial adviser who antagonises MPs, restricts access to the prime minister and leads their government into impossible dead ends… stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Maybe you’re picturing Dominic Cummings and his Silicon Valley “move fast and break things” approach to governing, or Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill indulging Theresa May’s worst bunker mentality instincts. Or perhaps you’re casting your mind further back to the rows over such contentious New Labour figures as Damian McBride and Alastair Campbell. If McSweeney does go, he will be the latest in a long line of shadowy power-behind-the-throne figures whose presence in Downing Street became a scapegoat for the travails of the prime minister, and whose departure was demanded as proof of a change of course.
Cummings is a particularly useful comparison, not in terms of style (McSweeney has so far not vowed to fill Whitehall with “misfits and weirdos”), but because he too won his boss a glorious election victory which then crumbled upon contact with actual government. Writing in the aftermath of his resignation (or sacking – delete as appropriate) in November 2020, almost a year since the election that was meant to stabilise British politics for a decade, Catherine Haddon of the Institute for Government pointed to a “pattern of botched communications, badly-handled announcements, mixed messaging and leaked briefings which have dogged this government”. If any of that sounds familiar, note the period of calm, decisive, well-communicated government that followed Cummings’ exit from No 10. Oh, wait.
The concept of the wicked adviser who tweaks the puppet strings and manipulates the poor king into making bad decisions dates back hundreds of years – think Rasputin, Cardinal Richelieu, or the Persian grand vizier Jafar ibn Yahya, thought to be the inspiration for the villainous Jafar in Aladdin. Taking aim at them is a powerful way to signal discontent with a regime without criticising the leader directly. McSweeney himself should know that – look what happened when he clashed with Sue Gray.