Fergus Finlay: The most powerful Corkman in Britain has his first big challenge
Staff, Of Downing Street's Mcsweeney Chief New Morgan
Do you remember the famous newspaper headline: The has its eye on Russia? It dates from the end of the 19th century, and derives from a rather mad editorial that claimed a small local newspaper was going to, from now on, “still keep its eye on the Emperor of Russia and all such despotic enemies … of human progression and man’s natural rights”.
The editorial and its headline went around the world and into newspaper legend. To this day, journalists everywhere quote the — even though it ceased to exist a hundred years ago.
So I’m going to suggest that this august newspaper should decide to follow in the same proud tradition and start a practice that I’ll call “The keeping its eye on Morgan McSweeney”.
Who the hell is he, I hear you ask. And what’s he got to do with us? Well, Morgan McSweeney is the most powerful Corkman in Britain, and right now he’s got a make-or-break challenge on his hands. This is a guess, but I suspect he will be the one senior member of the British government who reads the regularly, or at least has it brought to his attention when necessary. So, if anyone in Ireland wanted to offer Morgan McSweeney a bit of friendly advice (and I do), there couldn’t be a better place to do it than right here.
In case you don’t know, Morgan McSweeney, born and raised in Macroom, Co Cork, has just been appointed chief of staff to British prime minister Keir Starmer. He comes from an Irish political family, with councillors and the like and even a special adviser to Leo Varadkar. He joined the Labour Party in the UK after — it seems because of — Tony Blair’s work on the Irish peace process. Now he’s risen to the top — Macroom’s representative in 10 Downing Street.
You can take the boy out of Cork, of course, but you can’t take Cork out of the boy. The greatest political organiser I ever knew was a Corkman, Pat Magner, and I’m guessing if Pat was still around he and McSweeney would get on like a house on fire. For most of his career, Pat preferred to work in the background, just like McSweeney. Pat was a voracious reader and student of politics and history, as McSweeney is too. Pat was also close and friendly with the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, whose decency and character he greatly admired.
And whenever the Irish Labour Party got into trouble — in government or in opposition — Pat tended to be the one Labour leaders sent for.
Well Starmer is in trouble now. Just about 100 days in government and already there’s a huge amount of rebuilding to be done. Out with the old, in with the new. He has now replaced the chief of staff he appointed at the start, Sue Gray, with the dyed-in-the-wool party man.
There are all sorts of rumours about infighting and splits. I don’t know enough about the inner workings to be able to figure that out. But Sue Gray (by all accounts brilliant in her way) has been a career civil servant and a highly distinguished one. They’re a class of people for whom I’ve always had respect, but if any political leader in Ireland had told me back in the day that he was going to pick a career civil servant as chief of staff of his government, I’d have promised him faithfully it would end in tears.
Civil servants administer. They advise, they caution, they implement, they carry out, they manage, they work their way from A to Z. The brilliant ones do it brilliantly and often leave an indelible mark.
It’s the job of a Prime Minister to bring those things together. Achievement and success come from good politics and better administration. That can only happen if the leader and his or her immediate team is completely focused on it.
So what’s happened so far? Two opinion polls came out this past weekend in Britain that sort of answer that question. One says that Labour and the Tories are each at 27%. That’s pretty mind-boggling, given what happened to the Tories a few months ago. But there’s an even more interesting one which asks people what they can remember about Labour’s first 100 days. Sixty-five per cent of the people polled — that’s two out of every three — said they could remember nothing positive, or simply didn’t know.
Pat Magner would tell you what that means. It means Keir Starmer and the Labour Party have made a complete dog’s dinner of their first 100 days (Pat had a more colourful phrase that he would deploy at moments like this). And if they don’t want those 100 days to form an unshakeable pattern, they have to change the narrative right now.
Actually they have to go a bit further — and this is where I hope some of Morgan McSweeney’s relatives are making sure he gets the . They need a new narrative. They need to start from scratch, with a new vision, internalised across the government, and a clear direct accessible message to go with it.
Britain needs a national plan — a plan for its for its recovery. A massive, multi-faceted plan that makes sense to ordinary people. Labour must produce it. McSweeney must mastermind the production and force the internal discipline to sell it. And it must be based on one simple recognition — it has to be about ending alienation. Don’t talk about bringing people together — build a plan to do it.
They have to think big, much bigger than they have been thinking. My impression of Keir Starmer from a distance is that he’s a man who likes to concentrate on tasks — one task at a time, one little bit of incremental progress at a time. If you look at their social media, you’ll find lists of things that “Keir Starmer has done so far”. They’re all grand, and maybe if you have the capacity to absorb a big long list of little bits and pieces you might feel real progress is happening.
But it’s like jotting down musical notes and random words on a page and hoping they’ll add up to an uplifting song. Paul Simon always has a theme in his head when he starts to write — 'The Sound of Silence' didn’t come from random words. Morgan McSweeney’s first big job is to persuade Keir Starmer to find a theme — not change, which he’s clinging to now, but national recovery. Everything — health, housing, education, AI, jobs, borrowing, immigration, relations with Europe — fits into that theme and can be built into a detailed published plan.
You’re never going to make Starmer look exciting. But a real overarching project for him to sell to the country? For a genius from Macroom, that oughtn’t to be a biggie.