McSweeney quits as PM’s chief of staff, saying he takes ‘full responsibility’ for advising Mandelson appointment

Laura Kuenssberg
Presenter, Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg

The PM “is facing into the storm as the most talented campaigner in modern politics leaves his team. He would not be PM without Morgan, I wonder if he’ll be PM for much longer now”, a Labour source says.

There’ll be enormous amounts of chat about McSweeney’s exit in next couple of days – but this really is important beyond soap opera, for four big reasons.

For one, the PM really, really relied on his political instincts – much, much more than Johnson on Cummings, May on Barwell, or Cameron on Llewellyn.

Second, McSweeney knew how to win and was central to rebuilding Labour after the party was hammered in 2019. Third, losing a vital ally shows how deep Starmer’s problems are – McSweeney was one of the PM’s last plays to hold his critics at bay.

Finally – don’t underestimate the disruption of changes like this, especially when the government is already struggling. Starmer’s critics have a scalp, so what now?

Even the final decision for him to quit is causing turmoil.

Just before we went on air at 09:00 this morning two sources told us that this was not the plan and nothing was changing – and senior minister Pat McFadden even said there’d be “no point” getting rid of him, on air.

Even cabinet ministers have been shocked by this afternoon’s decision, and assumed, as McFadden suggested this morning, that it was not going to happen.