Crisis meetings are going on in Downing Street at the highest level. Senior No10 staff are working overtime on damage control…
It has been noted by observers inside No10 that some high-level meetings are taking place without the Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney. The PLP’s demands for McSweeney’s head have this week reached fever pitch over his role in appointing Peter Mandelson…
Insiders tell Guido that some top-level staff inside Starmer’s operation have privately discussed a removal of McSweeney and are advising the PM on that basis. A Downing Street source said: “It’s unclear how Morgan will react and still unclear if the PM will do all of this.” Starmer has resisted pressure from top Blairite aides to sack the McIavelli before…
Starmer watchers have long tried to game how long the PM would survive without the man who delivered him to Downing Street. Tom Baldwin is licking his lips…
Guido hears Downing Street staff are looking wearily at proposals produced by activist ex-PM Gordon Brown for vetting reform. The ex-PM is this weekend running an intensive political cover operation for Starmer, insisting both he and the PM were both “betrayed” and “misled” by Mandelson…
Brown proposes, among other things in his personal wish list, implementing an independent anti-corruption commission appointed by parliament, US Senate-style parliamentary grillings of appointees to major posts, and statutory powers for the new ethics and integrity commission. Guido hears discussions are also taking place with regard to changes to the No10 political operation that would bolster the influence of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Downing Street…
Speaking at his press conference on the Pride in Place programme which was obviously all about Mandelson, Starmer said:
“Tomorrow’s front pages are unlikely to be about the Pride in Place programme.”