Parliament can sometimes be an illuminating place. The latest testimony on the Mandelson scandal to the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee has revealed that the legendary figure of Morgan McSweeney – the man credited by Sir Keir Starmer with rebuilding the Labour Party, and who, mostly unseen and unheard, was assumed to be a cross between Stalin’s sinister KGB henchman Lavrentiy Beria and the wildman Begbie in Trainspotting – is, in fact, a mild-mannered, soft-spoken and thoughtful individual.
It had been supposed that it was the prime minister’s former chief of staff who had pushed for his old comrade Peter Mandelson to be made ambassador to Washington at all costs. It turns out, in the McSweeney version, that not only was Lord Mandelson not his “mentor”, but a mere adviser, and that he too had been betrayed by him, not told the truth about the Epstein connection, and taken for a fool. He took responsibility for the blunder and resigned, but he was also careful enough to make clear that it was, of course, the prime minister’s decision to give him the job… Et tu, McSweeney?
