The architect of Labour’s electoral
feasibility – well, according to the right wing press. The theory is that now that the moderator has gone – the end is in sight. Any regrets for his resignation, or worth the cost to keep the project on course?
Morgan McSweeney
They didn’t need an architect, any non-looney opposition would have won against the End Times Tories.
If he’s the guy that’s guided the “come to us, potential Reform voters, we’re the natural place for disaffected Conservatives!” policy, then good riddance.
Good riddance. He’s part of the problem. In their first week rather than mobilising a plan for delivery be thought starting a turf war with Sue Gray was the priority. He seems to think Labour can win the next election by triangulation with Reform rather than by delivering voter priorities. They’re better of without him.
The challenge is that voter priories aren’t necessarily what Labour woukd like them to be. Some interesting data in the Sunday Times today highlighting a few of the changes in voter views and perceptions in recent years.
Over 40% of people now disagree that government should spend more on benefits, with just over 25 % thinking they should. Trickily for Labour, that 42% isn’t just drawn from Tory or Reform voters, ( indeed, many of the latter are to be found in the 25%).
Meanwhile, in 2022 voters were 32% more likely to view immigration as being of economic benefit. In 2026 that 32% gap has been wiped out.
And inequality was ranked least important of 8 key issues, with working class voters the least concerned.
What does this all mean ? Well, I guess that all of the parties will have concluded from the last election that you can win by a mile with a pretty small percentage of the vote. So perhaps all you have to do is preach to the converted and se are your core vote. Then again, the last election also demonstrated that a sitting government can suffer a huge loss to a rival that isn’t actually very popular.
Meanwhile, I was interested to read Rishi Sunak’s view that’s a result of AI “your life and our economy will look radically different by the next election”. Now Sunak has skin in this particular game, but If he is half way right, then whoever takes over from McSweeney will need to get a handle on what that means pronto.
Yes I agree and the challenge is to make the arguments supporting the chosen policy. Views of voters may actually be symptoms of another problem and it’s the job of the politicians to make the case and win the argument.
He’s not responsible for the Conservative vote dropping from 13.9M in 2019,to 6.8M in 2024.
Was that 13.9M a vote to “get Brexit done” and not an endorsement of any political party?
“Get Brexit Done” was a very successful campaign slogan for the Tories. The electoral pact with Farage helped massively too. 6.8M was a disaster, which had nothing to do with McSweeney. He can take part of the credit for the drop in the Labour vote from 10.2M in 2019 to 9.7M in 2024 though.
Perhaps it’s time to question the role of special advisers in the political process. These are unelected and unaccountable individuals who seem to play an outsized role in the political decision-making process. Just think of Cummings and how his crackpot ideas were instrumental in harming this country. McSweeny is the latest spad to have had too much influence on his boss, the broader party and their political agendas.
The media need to focus more on these influencers and the power they hold or else the country will inevitably find itself heading once again into a harmful political cul-de-sac.
They’re just consultants. The criticism should be aimed at those who brought them in. Next you’ll be suggesting ministers actually understand their brief and what they think about it. Crazy talk.
It’s the other way around, I think you’ll find, with Mandelson/McSweeney/Labour Together/Labour Friends of Israel bringing in Keir Starmer. They are the architects of current Labour Party policy.
Labour Together is a very powerful think-tank within the Labour Party, formed to bring Labour right-of-centre and to squeeze out the left-wingers. It’s heavily funded by prominent pro-Israel lobbyist Sir Trevor Chinn, who also extensively funds Labour Friends of Israel. He’s also a major funder of Conservative Friends of Israel.
Starmer, Reeve, Lammy, Streeting and Nandy are some of the 13 Labour MPs who are declared recipients of his donations.
Keir Starmer was selected by Labour Together as their amenable candidate for party leadership. Labour Together have been setting the policy and Starmer, Lammy, Reeve etc. are the ones who present it.
I had understood the major criticism of Starmer was that he has no strategy, doesn’t stand for anything and is constantly u-turning. Here I learn that he is actually the pawn responsible for mindlessly rolling out the policies of a shadowy think tank controlled by the you-know-whos.
Don’t know what to think 🤔
Mmm
Hard to see that in terms of what they’re doing
Home building
Workers rights
SEND provision
Defence
Rail nationalisation
Reverse on welfare
2 child limit removed
NHS something or other Streeting witters on about
Move closer to Europe
I didn’t vote for them but it seems like a reasonable social democratic agenda (given what they inherited) if they could stop the squabbling and improve the comms.
Their challenge is that a) a significant number of people don’t believe they can afford these policies and b) many people aren’t averse to helping people in need but are wary of what they perceive to be a bunch of people lining up behind those they believe to be deserving of help, e.g the large number of substance misusers claiming PIP.
Sure, so they need to make the system work and make the arguments. They wanted to do this. Now they should get on with it and cut the squabbling.