Labour ministers admit that Downing Street is so controlling that they can do nothing to manage the country. How long can this government last in that case?
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
Is the Labour government collapsing?
It's a question that needs to be asked because I have listened to Sam Coates, who is the deputy political editor of Sky News, say on his podcast that there isn't a single member of the Labour cabinet in the UK at present who believes that they have what he describes as agency to effect change in their own departments, or to act independently to deliver policy as part of a Labour government. And that appears to me to be a quite extraordinary position.
Let me explain this. What they are actually saying is that they are so controlled by what Downing Street wants that, as Labour ministers, they, frankly, have no autonomy whatsoever. They are simply told what they may and may not do by Downing Street, and they simply become functionaries whose task it is to communicate this into their own departments with no discretion left to them.
Now nobody who becomes an MP with the desire to become a minister, let alone a cabinet minister, wants to believe that when they reach that point where they appear to have power and have all the trappings that go with it from the title, Right Honourable onwards, is then going discover that in practice they have no power, influence, or control at all, and yet that is what these ministers are finding.
And as Sam Coates put it, when he introduced this piece, a lot of the time journalists like to claim they know what is going on in government when, frankly, they've had some hints. But in this case, he says this information is universal. No minister who will talk to him says anything else, and I suspect that a lot of ministers will talk to him.
He's also noticed something else. Every single Labour woman cabinet minister has been briefed against by Downing Street except Rachel Reeves. As he noted, Labour definitely has a problem with women.
I would go a little further. I would say Labour quite simply has a problem, and I think Sam Coates would agree.
The reason why is that Labour is actually out of control. So strong is the control fetish on the part of Morgan McSweeney, the Labour chief of staff, who seems to pull every single string that operates Keir Starmer, that he will not allow anyone in Labour to have any more autonomy than he actually allows the Labour leader, which is none at all.
Morgan McSweeney decides, and everyone does.
But Morgan McSweeney is an unelected person. He was not chosen by anyone. He was appointed by Keir Starmer as chief of staff at Labour on the basis of his supposed success in running local election campaigns. And as chief of staff, he has taken control of the entire Labour hierarchy of power.
And what we know about Morgan McSweeney is this. His one and only obsession in life is killing off left-wing politics.
He was the man who used Starmer to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn.
He was the man who set up Starmer to make a series of claims so that he might become Labour leader, including 10 pledges which endorsed the Corbyn strategy for Labour, and then made him abandon them all.
He's the person who has, since Keir Starmer has been in office, put in place all the ideas that have put Labour into the deep trouble, that it is now suffering with the electorate, from cutting the winter fuel allowance, to imposing benefit cuts, and to threatening austerity, and making Rachel Reeds talk all the time about the need to balance the books, and everything else that is making Labour so profoundly unpopular whilst delivering literally nothing at all of any appeal to anyone in the country as whole.
Morgan McSweeney is an electoral disaster, but so powerful is he, because he has the backing of Keir Starmer, who frankly does not know what to do for himself at any point in time, and therefore is utterly dependent upon someone who might have an idea in the form of Morgan McSweeney - so powerful is he that he can now dictate to every minister as well.
This creates a situation where the Labour government is effectively entirely disabled.
It cannot make decisions.
It is not functioning.
There is no way in which a minister can sit before their own departmental team and say what they think and believe it might be implemented because they have to seek permission from Downing Street first.
There is no way in which they can instruct their senior civil servants on what position to take on an issue because they have to ask the permission of Downing Street, or maybe the Treasury, first.
This is totally dysfunctional, and we're seeing the consequences.
We are seeing Labour, first of all, beginning to fight with itself. And secondly, we have seen, of course, that Labour lost something like 198 seats in the local council elections that were held in the UK very recently. People are rejecting what it is all about, and they have good reason to do so.
And actually, what's really interesting is the new First Minister of Wales is rejecting what Kier Starmer and Morgan McSweeney are all about. That first minister, recently appointed, has now said that she's going to reset Labour in Wales so that it has a distinct Welsh tone to it.
She does not accept the national line being dictated by Downing Street.
She is not going to accept that she must impose the sorts of constraints that Labour is demanding, whether that be on benefit cuts or anything else.
She's going to try to use the budget of her government to tackle the problems that Labour itself is creating, and she's doing so because she knows that unless she does that, she has no chance of standing up against the Reform agenda in Wales or that of Plaid Cymru in Wales, who are her two main political opponents?
We are suddenly seeing the reality that in Labour there are people who will stand up and say 'enough'.
How long will it be before the back benches in the Labour party begin to do the same, because they must know already that their chance of being reelected in what is now four years' time is very low indeed, because Labour is destroying that by its own actions? Morgan McSweeney is undermining their career prospects as MPs. Why are they going to be loyal in that case?
How long is it before more cabinet ministers leave?
Louise Haigh, who was the transport secretary and one of the very first ministers that Keir Starmer got rid of - inevitably, a woman - is now standing up and saying Keir Starmer is wrong, and that a move to the right is wrong, and I'm quite certain that a very large number of Labour MPs will think that, despite which that move to the right is very likely because Wes Streeting, Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer want it, because that's where Morgan McSweeney is politically.
There will be more defections.
There will be more rebellious votes.
There will even be MPs who will cross the House, who might either move to become independents or who will join other parties as a consequence.
Labour is collapsing because it cannot govern with the structure that it has put in place.
Labour is collapsing because it is moving to the far right, where nobody wants it, and people don't want it.
Labour is collapsing because its own ministers, including the First Minister of Wales, do not agree with it.
This is a crisis in the making. Labour looks like a government that is in the last gasp of its administration.
This is where the Tories were in 2023, but in fact, it's Labour less than a year into office.
Nothing will work for Labour unless it changes its fundamental way of working. It has to sack Morgan McSweeney. It has to run a cabinet government. It has to deliver policies that people actually believe in. It has to appease its own backbenchers. It has to appease its government in Wales. It has to deliver policies that challenge those of Reform and other parties who are opposed to it. It has to act as if it is Labour. At the moment, it's doing none of those things.
Labour has a choice. It has to decide to govern in the interest of the people of this country, or frankly, it should go to the country soon and admit it's game up for Labour.
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I am not really sure of the history of Welsh Independence, but it looks as though Kier Starmer has reawakened it.
He has
PC is leading Welsh opinion polls now
Good luck Wales. Go for it! And soon!
“He’s also noticed something else. Every single Labour woman cabinet minister has been briefed against by Downing Street except Rachel Reeves. As he noted, Labour definitely has a problem with women.”
Why should McSweeney and Starmer take any notice of women – they only make up 51% of the population!
They are small-minded, inconsequential men, frightened of women, and useless in government.
Begone LINO – you won’t be missed.
Thinking back to last year, I’m trying to remember where I saw the LINO slogan: “Vote Labour & get an Irishman, right winger & Zionist calling the shots & telling the PM what to do and think”. Yes I can see how UK serfs voted for that.
Let’s imagine we are in Ireland and a Brit & Hamas supporter is telling the Irish PM what to do and think wrt to Israel & Palestine & how to run Ireland. I suppose Israel would declare war.
The only fly in the ointment is the suspension of the winter fuel allowance – politcally inept & with Reeves from accounts fingers all over it.
Thus the two main political parties for various reasons are heading for total & complete destruction. In the case of LINO – perhaps that is McSweeney’s aim – who knows?
Starmer & McSweeney delenda est – the former a traitor to his country.
You wrote, Richard, “Morgan McSweeney is an unelected person”.
I have seen a report that this ‘unelected person’ was proud of having identified Kier Starmer as a potential party leader, before campaigning for his election to that role.
Certainly, Morgan McSweeney created a group of Labour MPs, Labour Together, most of whom are now in the government. He raised a lot of money for that group.
Quite a long time ago, McSweeney ran a website to combat hate speech. (I don’t like hate speech either.) He has expressed strong disapproval of the policies advocated by Jeremy Corbyn. In McSweeney’s eyes, was Corbyn’s most serious crime to have been a prominent supporter of the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign?
Could McSweeney be an advocate for our government’s bewildering support for genocide?
I’d like to see the PM referred to as Sir Keir Starmer at all times by bloggers. He avoids the Sir as he wants to appear relatable and working class which is true up to a point. But please include the Sir as if McSweeney is looking in it will make him feel uncomfortable as it projects the wrong image of his boss.
Thank you, Rocco.
Starmer? Working class?
He went to Reigate Grammar School, which for just one year of its existence and when Starmer was there was not fee paying.
He grew up in Oxted and supported Crystal Palace, not Arsenal. His father owned the tool making factory and some acres of farmland nearby.
To cheer myself up, I’ve just watched all seven episodes of Adam Curtis’ ‘Trauma Zone’ which looks at the unravelling of the Russian communist era up to the emergence of Putin.
I fined parallels with today’s Britain quite worrying – my view as most of you know my view which is that the rich run the country now through an avatar government that is in their back pocket and are still helping themselves to our public sector and government money (the CBRA/high interest rates) to enrich themselves.
Britain has an oligarch problem too, not just Russia! Yes! And that is why things have stopped working, rather liked what happened in post communist Russia. If the pound had not been more credible than the rouble, I dread to think what would have happened.
Trauma Zone introduced me to a Russian MP called Galina Starovoitova. She was many things, a military engineer and ethnographer keen on the rights of minority groups but she says this quite stunning statement:
‘Democracy is a very dangerous way of ruling’. She said that democracy is a ‘controversial’ idea.
The context of this is of course Russia, but she also was looking at the history of democracy – how it aided Hitler and nationalists in Russia and elsewhere.
It is her perspective – like Carl Schmitt’s – that I find fascinating, as these insights go straight to the marrow of what democracy actually is and do not sugar coat it. In my view, rather than denying democracy, they give us the opportunity to renew it and make it stronger – if we would but listen and have a go.
Riffing of Ghandi’s views on western civilisation, democracy in the West/Global North is good idea and we should try it!
Starovoitova was shot and killed in 1998, a huge potential loss for the country (yes she was associated with Yegor Gaidar – the father of shock therapy and Yeltsin, but the more thoughtful people like who were snuffed out were a big loss).
So your post resonates with me.
The Labour membership has already split – it’s now almost halved since Corbyn, and is continuing to lose members (according to Labour List in February) at around a net departure every 10 minutes – over 150 every day. Its councilors, mainly on the left, are also defecting. It’s only a matter time, I believe, before the Parliamentary party splits.
The changes to winter fuel payments are estimated to save around £1.5 billion per year. That is a big number, but small when you consider the UK’s economy as a whole (GDP of £2.5 trillion), or the public spending which is a bit less than half of GDP. The amount is essentially a rounding error, and this small allocation of funds to pensioners could easily be resourced if there was the political will. Even looking at the total social security spending on pensioners, around £140 billion, the saving is around 1%. Tiny.
A similar argument could be made about abolishing the two child cap, which would be a huge step towards reducing child property. It would cost about £2.5 billion. Or reversing the changes to disability benefits, which could be a similar sum.
But it has become totemic. The fiscal rules must be met. We must make hard decisions. Even if it means putting some people into (or further into) poverty. But the public are not buying that messaging. The political cost is out of all proportion to the financial saving.
The ‘savings’ achieved by ending the universal WFA and keeping the 2 child cap completely ignore the multiplier effect. Those on low incomes who receive additional money spend it. In spending it they boost the economy, give money back to the Treasury via VAT and help maintain businesses and the people employed in the businesses from which they buy, further boosting government income by corporation tax, PAYE and NI. So the alleged savings of these 2 appalling policies are very, very exaggerated.
Agreed
It’s interesting to note that Labour’s current state is in the hands of a son of a very strong Fine Gael family and who’s cousin is or was a political advisor to former Taoiseach Leo Veradkar.
With such a solid grounding in centre-right politics, no wonder Things are as they are.
It’s a bad management mindset of control. Good management is about enabling your staff and allowing them to blossom. For me Mr Starmer has always seemed to be a ‘HR Manager’, and a visionless (inspirationless) one at that where the organisation is more important than the business it executes.
My measure is – Would I want to work for this guy or the business?
Unfortunately – Spot on, Richard.
Could you give us a link for the Coates podcast please Richard? I’ve just skimmed todays and yesterday’s editions and couldn’t find it. Thx.
I agree with the post, it certainly describes Starmer’s mode of operation, from the moment he entered politics as the creature of McTeam in 2015. Dissent is not permitted. At least, not until now. I haven’t read the Pogrund/FT book about him but it seems to confirm what I saw as an interested Labour member during the Corbyn years and the coup to capture the party and the country that brought him to office in all his authoritarian destructive and callous incompetence.
But a power struggle won by the Red Wall group won’t be an improvement. More like a burglar throwing steak (winter fuel payment, & a harsher line on immigration and asylum) to keep the red wall guard dogs quiet while the usual suspects continue to raid the safe as they have been doing for >40 years.
It was a couple of days ago..at least
Sorry, I just heard it as an observation, and it sunk in
Never has “The Thick Of It” seemed more accurate than it does now.
All very worrying. The parallels with Trump’s capture of the GOP are becoming apparent.
So Morgan McSweeney is to Kier Starmer what Dominic Cummings was to Boris Johnson? Well that ended well for all concerned.
If Labour does implode as is thought likely where does that leave us? We certainly don’t want an election now and a Reform landslide. Our country desperately needs governing and the current cabinet is lacklustre without their hands being tied. The one thing I particularly dislike about Labour is their belief in Labourism, that only a Labour government can solve things and their refusal to work collaboratively with other parties. If they split I’m not sure there are enough left wingers in government to sort things out. Many of the new intake were selected for their loyalty not their talent.
Excellent, and on the button as always.
I’d add that it’s struck me for some while now that there are parallels here between Johnson and Dominic Cummings and Starmer and McSweeney. Indeed, I’m not even sure there’s that much difference between the approach and the two, or indeed their politics – though McSweeney appears to play his ideological cards closer to his chest than Cummings ever did – perhaps because he saw what happened to him.
And let’s just remind ourselves of a central Cummings idea for how the government should be run. Spoke and Wheel: the centre keeping tight control and ensuring ideological direction on all policies through clearly defined spokes out to departments, with overall policy direction and ideas coming from Cummings and his deputies/acolytes (Johnson famously admitting he wasn’t much interested in such “minutia”), who were placed as “political commissars” (special advisers) in each department to ensure ideological rigour was maintained.
Isn’t that pretty much what we’re seeing now with Labour under McSweeney and Starmer? In this manifestation the PM admits he has no ideological underpinning on which to base any thinking on policy or how government should operate, except “problem solving”, and so the vacuum is filled quite happily by someone who does – albeit a million miles away from what a LABOUR party should be about.
Anyway, a recipe for disaster unless they change course, but I can’t see that happening without a new leader and complete clear out of the upper echelons of the Labour party as it now is. There’s four years still to go so in some ways plenty of time. But given the complete control of the government and party by McSweeneyites and Blairites and don’t see much of an opportunity for that to happen.
Thanks
Morning Richard,
As ever a great topic for discussion. I’m interested in your view point given all that you said about McSweeney why we have such a policy with regards to people arriving and claiming asylum?
I think it is no stretch of the imagination to say that the majority of people claiming asylum are polar opposites of McSweeney! What is the game plan?
I admit I am not sure what you are asking me
Thank you, Richard.
Richard and readers may be interested in something similar: https://unherd.com/newsroom/labour-is-heading-for-a-new-civil-war/.
Thanks
I was not at all shocked that Reform won in Runcorn. What genuinely shocked me was that Labour almost won. I simply do not understand why anyone would vote for the current Labour party, which in no way resembles the historic Labour party. All Starmer and McSweeny are doing is ushering Reform and Farage into power. A prospect beyond bleak.
There is a very strong pressure to vote tactically “to keep Reform out”.
In 2019, the message was vote Labour to “KTTO” (Keep The Tories Out).
Given that Labour (according to the Red Wall MPs) want to move into the political space formerly occupied by the Tories, this strategy needs explaining a little more honestly.
Membership of the Labour Party requires a huge number of what they call “agile manouevres”, to keep up with all the U turns, and broken pledges. They should issue seasickness pills with the membership card.
I am currently reading (slowly, it is densely populated with facts to ponder) “Get In” by Maguire and Pogrund. It is excellent at delineating McSweeney’s fingerprints in every pie.
1. McSweeney’s view of Labour voters comes from reading thousands upon thousands upon thousands of social media posts – apparently “we” are swayed by values, not beliefs, are conservative socially and fiscal-minded economically. He backs this up with focus groups.
What I think he has missed is that contented people don’t complain on social media. He has a skewed sample.
2. McSweeney achieved electoral success by targeting selected voters in selected wards and constituencies. He did “just enough” to win the seats, ignored large numbers of voters if they were “surplus to requirements”, and whole constituencies if they were unwinnable. Scotland was seen as the necessary road to a win.
3. Starmer has no autonomy either, until and unless his autocratic sense of personal authority is threatened. Then no dissent is brooked. He doesn’t want to get his hands dirty, and anyway, he doesn’t know how to. He wanted to be Prime Minister, McSweeney saw that, and we are living with the consequences. McSweeney is certainly the gatekeeper. I believe he read Machiavelli in his crib.
Also, don’t forget, Starmer had to do a training course on “unconscious bias”. I don’t think much stuck with him.
I have one quote noted from the book, Chapter 5:
“McSweeney said that Labour must pass four tests for power. First “fix the culture of the party” and build “the moral foundations for credibility”, then “reverse the decline of working-class voters” in England and “rob the SNP of their majority” in Scotland.”
Oldspeak: get rid of the hard-left like Corbyn and Abbott, and sweep antisemitism under the carpet.
The book’s good. I wish I could read faster than I already do.
Thanks
I generally agree MacSweeny equates to Dominic Cummins (Rasputin even) and needs to go but I am intrigued
“McSweeney said that Labour must pass four tests for power. First “fix the culture of the party” and build “the moral foundations for credibility”, then “reverse the decline of working-class voters” in England and “rob the SNP of their majority” in Scotland.”
I dont see the automatic link to what you say next
Oldspeak: get rid of the hard-left like Corbyn and Abbott, and sweep antisemitism under the carpet.
Those 4 things could actualy quite right
(1) fix the culture – yes stop being sectarian, stop the infighting, links up with progressive in any party – go back to the 2011 idea that labour needs refounding (rebuild its federated structure so organisations broadly left and progressive feel that they can/should affiliate)
(2) moral foundations – yes keep faith, keep left, be for the many not it the few (btw Im not a Corbyn fan) work out how to challenge lobby and how to handle power, plan how this will be approached in government, tell the story
(3) reverse the decline in working class votes – yes by political education, persuasion (not retail selling/manipulation/triangulation but proactive – working out together what needs done and the reflecting it in policy), encouraging cooperatives and TU member ship, etc.
(4) rob SNP of seats – yes its true even in in 1974 minority labour had 31 seats in Scotland – doing 1-3 would probably make it happen as a by-product.
So the questions are these;
– did Blair kill labour is it now just ‘c’ a Conservative Party so far gone its unrecoverable – this is the problem with what is called social democracy at large
– how can the party transform to new social & political realities – if it cannot a new organisation on the left is urgently needed and I urge all people of good faith to abandon it
(The general case https://brianfishhope.com/part-4-act)
(A specific proposal https://brianfishhope.com/tactics/organisation)
– at what point did the useful words become a smokescreen, is MacSweeny a front man and if so who for?
@ Brian Fish
I hope I am not abusing the blog to exercise a lengthy right of reply.
“McSweeney said that Labour must pass four tests for power. First “fix the culture of the party” and build “the moral foundations for credibility”, then “reverse the decline of working-class voters” in England and “rob the SNP of their majority” in Scotland.”
(1.) fix the culture
McSweeney’s view: if infighting is the problem, remove the infighters. Sectarianism? Control the Unions, shut out progressives that do not agree with McSweeney’s plans, control Party grassroots democracy. Run Constituency organisations from the centre.
(2.) moral foundations
McSweeney’s plans: Common Good Labour Ltd (Chuka Umanna and Tristram Hunt of the Change group along with Blue Labour man Maurice Glasman), founded to stop Corbyn even before he was nominated, was the embryo of Labour Together Limited.
In March 2016 Jon Cruddas, Lisa Nandy and Steve Reed – close ally with fellow Croydonian David Evans – (all part of McSweeney’s inner circle) were appointed directors of Labour Together, along with Sir Trevor Chinn, one of the two funders of the company, the other being hedge fund maestro Martin Taylor. (You might remember Chinn was the donor to Starmer’s leadership campaign whose money wasn’t declared until after that election.) McSweeney took over as Secretary from July 2017 until April 2020. There’s no libel here, it’s all in Companies House. It might be libelous to refer to it all as Tammany Hall politics, not building “a moral foundation”. Your mileage might vary.
(3.) reverse the decline in working class votes
Labour Together reported on the 2019 election to the Party, where David Evans (assistant General Secretary to Blair and mate of Steve Reed) had just been installed as full Party General Secretary after demands from Starmer. At around this time Labour Together was being influenced by Selina Todd’s “The People: the Rise and Fall of the Working Class” and sought to redefine *the people*, not by class, but by their (my comment: “unchallenged”) values.
In my book, that’s pandering to the socially conservative voter, not seeking to educate the electorate in the democratic socialist principles of the Labour Party. Co-operatives? Trades Unions? Evans, with Blair, had worked hard to remove the power of democratic decision-making favoured by such groups. However, democratically, if the Party membership decides that is the way to go, so be it. It might be too late now, too many have ceded power to the money.
(4) rob SNP of seats
Labour does not need, numerically, to win in Scotland.
I can’t answer your general questions, although I have thoughts, but my on-the-streets campaigning days are over. Couch politics isn’t much use. I *will* read your links.
Your killer question:
at what point did the useful words become a smokescreen, is MacSweeny a front man and if so who for?
I’ll name no names, I will refer you to the people who feature in my account above and in this summary from opendemocracy. I can’t prove it – to my satisfaction – but the personnel involved seem to link back to 1994. I’m not sure when *McSweeney* began to be funded – as he certainly has, and for a long time.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/uks-pro-israel-lobby-in-context/
Excellent post. Whilst acknowledging your assessment of Craig Murray’s shortcomings, it’s interesting to read his parallel assessment of the recent election results and his assertion that Starmer / McSweeney are deliberately destroying Labour
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2025/05/the-strange-death-of-social-democratic-britain/