Is Keir Starmer an HR manager who’s squatting in Downing Street?

A new book by Westminster insiders paints an unflattering portrait of a prime minister under the thumb of his all-powerful chief of staff who, if government popularity ratings don’t improve, could soon start the search for his replacement – but the truth may be even more remarkable, says Andrew Grice

A fascinating new book, published next week, telling the inside story of Keir Starmer’s leadership, paints an unflattering portrait of the prime minister.

It claims Morgan McSweeney, now the Downing Street chief of staff, suggested Starmer behaved “like an HR manager, not a leader”, while another senior adviser said Starmer wrongly thought he was “driving the train” because his aides had sat him at the front of a driverless one.

For Starmer, such revelations are wounding. They would matter less if Labour had not had such a wobbly start in government.

Some of the damning quotes are out of date, from the period before Starmer’s 2021 nadir and his decision to go for broke. They probably elevate the power of advisers above their real status. Indeed, some Labour figures jokingly describe Get In, by the well-connected Times journalists Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund, as “a biography of Morgan McSweeney”.

Their book shines a light on the relationship between leading politicians and their influential advisers. Although Margaret Thatcher was technically correct in saying “advisers advise, ministers decide”, some senior aides get above themselves – notably Dominic Cummings who, just weeks after helping Boris Johnson win the 2019 election to get Brexit done, discussed replacing him as PM.

Although McSweeney was the architect of last year’s remarkable election victory, I don't think he has overreached in the way Cummings did. Perhaps McSweeney allies were overzealous in briefing the book’s authors about his undoubted abilities and in doing so, inadvertently portrayed him as a puppet master. That is demeaning for the “puppet” – Starmer.

Yet there is no doubting McSweeney’s muscle. The Irishman scraps and always emerges as top dog. Anyone who came between him and Starmer – such as Sam White and Sue Gray, two previous chiefs of staff – was ousted and replaced by McSweeney; in Gray’s case, after a power struggle that destabilised Labour’s first few months in office.

Some Downing Street staff are said to owe their allegiance to McSweeney, who raised their pay, rather than Starmer, because he initially appointed Gray, who cut their wages.

The puppet-master theory is given credence by the suggestion McSweeney chose Starmer rather than the other way round – to front McSweeney’s personal crusade to end the Corbyn left’s dominance and take back control of the party. As one Labour insider told me: “Keir was chosen to see off Corbyn. No one thought we could win a general election at the first attempt. People expected Morgan to then switch to someone like Wes Streeting.”

Wicked whispers in Labour land suggest that if Starmer’s dire personal ratings continue to slide, a question will arise: should he lead the party into the next election? For now, this is fanciful, and it will likely remain so; unlike the Conservatives, Labour does not do regicide.

Yet the book is a reminder Starmer, not a conventional politician and someone who came to his second trade late in life, may lack friends and allies if there is a wobble about his premiership. In opposition, Gray had to twist his arm to ensure he talked to Labour MPs and even members of his shadow cabinet. (“Why should I do that?” Starmer asked.)

However, Gray does not come out of the book well. Everybody, including Starmer, thought she had drawn up a plan for government and was merely keeping it close to her chest. But there was no such blueprint, and this led to the Starmer government’s rocky start. I’m told Gray was distracted by office politics – her power struggle with McSweeney – and so didn’t have enough time for real politics.

Another Gray legacy, still a problem for Starmer today, is that No 10 is unusually underpowered; seven months after the election, the PM still lacks heavyweight advisers on the economy and foreign affairs.

Allies of McSweeney insist he remains 100 per cent behind Starmer. Yet the book will inevitably set Labour tongues wagging about whether the two men might split one day. Their political views are not identical: Starmer is seen as to the left of McSweeney, a workerist with links to the Labour right.

McSweeney believed Labour’s instincts had become “conservative elitist, too willing to defend failure provided those failing were its friends: lawyers, activists, columnists”, the book says. (Close to home for the lawyer Starmer.) Labour was “a party of the status quo” and the received wisdom of metropolitan England, which its traditional voters despised.

This is the heart of the matter. McSweeney’s top priority remains working-class voters in the red wall. For months, he has been arguing for Labour to be an “insurgent" government to see off the growing threat from Nigel Farage – a theme now taken up by ministers, as I reported this week.

But McSweeney’s internal critics think his relentless focus risks alienating the middle class by being too tough on immigration and too cautious on rebuilding EU links. The danger is greater now the Liberal Democrats offer an attractive prospectus to such voters. I'm told there is “a battle for Keir’s ear” over this fundamental question.

Tony Blair won three elections with a coalition of the working and middle classes. He was accused of taking working-class voters for granted and New Labour lost the support of many. Starmer must ensure his anti-Farage strategy does not make the same mistake among the middle class.