Sir Keir Starmer's former chief of staff has conceded that Labour failed to properly prepare for government – and that cutting winter fuel allowance for ten million pensioners was a politically damaging mistake that defined the administration's early months.
In his first broadcast interview, Morgan McSweeney told the BBC's Nick Robinson that the party had not given enough thought to how the world had changed since Labour last took power in the 1990s. "We didn't prepare enough for what kind of world we were going to. We are now in a very different era," he said on the Political Thinking podcast.
“Morgan McSweeney admits Labour failed to prepare for government and calls winter fuel cut a damaging mistake.”
McSweeney, who ran Labour's 2024 election campaign and followed Starmer into No 10 as head of political strategy, admitted that by early 2024 he had started to realise the scale of the problem. "We hadn't done enough to prepare for government and we got exposed for that I think early," he said.
The fallout was immediate. Asked about the decision to cut winter fuel payments for ten million pensioners within the first month, McSweeney called it an early mistake. "It was means tested at too low a level… it defined the government in a way that really did us a lot of damage."
McSweeney stepped down earlier this year after his role in the appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US. He acknowledged he failed in his duty but insisted: "I didn't make that decision." He remains "still processing" Starmer's dramatic downfall just two years after leading Labour back into office.
He said he agreed to the interview to correct what he considered inaccurate media coverage. "When I left and I started to meet new people… repeatedly people were saying to me you're not who I expected you to be," he said. "I need to move onto a new chapter in my life and to do that I need to close the old one."
One of his main lessons, he said, is that "preparation is far more important to strategy when it comes to just about any aspect of politics." Whether the party has learned that lesson in time for what comes next remains an open question.