Morgan McSweeney

There is a mutual loathing, which is kind of, you know, it does need underlining.

There is a mutual loathing between Starmer and Mandelson.

And I think it predates Mandelson's appointment and the subsequent sacking and the subsequent grief that is caused.

that Starmer wanted to keep Mandelson at arm's length.

And Mandelson was forever trying to be part of the inner circle because, you know, that's the oxygen you breathe if you're Peter Mandelson.

You have to be part of the inner circle where decisions are being made.

And he kept on trying to ingratiate himself in that inner circle.

And his attempts were being rebuffed.

And I think that Mandelson, you know, found that very difficult and found, you know, why isn't Starmer more interested in me?

And you had Morgan McSweeney, who would facilitate...

promotion of Peter Mandelson even though you did learn from McSweeney that Keir Starmer wanted the next ambassador in Washington to be a political appointment and he wasn't going to decide who that should be until after the presidential election.

Is that everything that could go wrong has gone wrong?

But they were told along the way.

Yeah.

And that's why I think this is so difficult for Keir Starmer right now.

There's a Commons debate on whether this whole matter should be referred to the Privileges Committee, the same committee that did for Boris Johnson when Harriet Harman was the chair of that committee.

And you've got Labour now kind of whipping and saying,

You mustn't support this.

We mustn't have this go to a privileges committee.

The fact that Starmer is in this position is pretty much largely of Starmer's making of the terrible judgments that were made in that period in November, December, January.