Morgan McSweeney, Sir Keir Starmer's former chief of staff, has said Labour did not do enough to prepare for power in the run-up to the general election. In his first media interview, McSweeney told the BBC's Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast that the party failed to have sufficient conversations about the new era it would be governing in.
Labour's lack of preparation
McSweeney, who served as Downing Street chief of staff and senior Labour strategist, said: "I think that we didn't prepare enough for what kind of world we were going to be in. We are now in a very different era than when Labour was last in government, and I think we didn't have enough conversations at the top of the party about what that meant, how to prepare for it, what that meant for the state, how the state needed to be reformed, because in lots of ways the state is really out of shape and is unable to deliver for people."
He added that people across the country are "frustrated" and have seen politicians break promises repeatedly. "You have to deliver quite quickly for people for them to see the change quickly, and I think we didn't come in with enough of a theory about how we would do that, and why that was important," he said.
Moving to a new chapter
McSweeney, who remained a private figure during his time in Downing Street, has only made one other public-facing appearance, when he spoke at the Foreign Affairs Committee in April to answer questions about his role in appointing Lord Peter Mandelson as the US ambassador. Asked why he chose to give this interview, McSweeney said: "I need to move on to a new chapter in my life, and to do that, I need to close the old one, and to make clear that that's happening."
He said he loved working for the Labour Party and a Labour government, calling it "an incredible privilege." He added: "I loved managing election campaigns, and that means that you don't have a public voice, and you should not be a visible character. That didn't work out well for me. I became more and more visible the longer I stayed in the job, but I thought I needed to become a bit more public to let people know who I am, and to close a chapter on the past."
No plans to return to politics
McSweeney told the BBC he has no plans to return to frontline politics and is "professionally moving in a completely different direction now." He expressed interest in "the future of democratic security, the impact AI will have, what the Russians are doing in eastern Europe, what is happening with these tech giants, and the risk that that brings." He added: "I have no intention of coming back to British politics in the foreseeable. I can't say forever, but certainly for the next few years."
However, he did say he had been out door-knocking for Labour during the Holyrood election in Lanarkshire, where he lives with his wife Imogen Walker, the Labour MP for Hamilton and Clyde Valley.
