It is often said that there would be no Keir Starmer without Morgan McSweeney. McSweeney helped to make Britain’s prime minister, and when the Number 10 chief of staff quit in February, taking the blame for the disastrous choice of Peter Mandelson as Britain’s US ambassador, it felt like the beginning of the end.
And so it turned out. Until now, McSweeney has not talked to the media about his remarkable role in getting Starmer into power and his front-row seat as the whole thing fell apart. But over giant slices of “Mr Lava Lava” spicy pizza in a north London pub, he is ready to speak frankly about the Starmer administration and his traumatic exit.
“Literally in the last few days I didn’t eat at all, I was drinking water,” the quietly spoken Irishman recalls of his final week in Downing Street as he agonised over whether to quit.