Mandelson and McSweeney: a partnership forged on winning and crushing the Labour left

Morgan McSweeney denies Peter Mandelson Composite. Composite: Shutterstock/EPAView image in fullscreenMorgan McSweeney denies Peter Mandelson Composite. Composite: Shutterstock/EPAPeter MandelsonAnalysisMandelson and McSweeney: a partnership forged on winning and crushing the Labour leftJessica Elgot Deputy political editorFormer chief of staff who helped bring Mandelson out of Labour shadows for Washington post to be questioned by MPs on vetting processMon 27 Apr 2026 16.00 EDTLast modified on Mon 27 Apr 2026 16.02 EDTShareLike many Labour stories, Peter Mandelson’s and Morgan McSweeney’s both start at Lambeth council.Mandelson was in his mid-20s. It was 1979, and he was a new councillor under the leadership of “Red” Ted Knight. He came to despise the local party, describing the Lambeth Labour party’s leadership as “contributing very little to the economic development of south London, instead politicising everything, attacking the police and the Tory government, and making the council go broke.”Lambeth council was one of New Labour’s success stories, a successful recapture of local politics from the left. But by 2002, it had lost control of the council.It was McSweeney – at a similar age – who fought to retake the council from the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats on behalf of his then boss Steve Reed. That was a partnership that was forged in local politics, which would later see both found Labour Together, in order to build a movement to retake the Labour party from Jeremy Corbyn.On Tuesday, McSweeney will finally get his say at the foreign affairs select committee about the man who was described as his mentor and who he helped place in one of the most prestigious roles – US ambassador. It was a judgment call which cost him his role as the prime minister’s chief of staff.For his part, allies of McSweeney say he will want to “correct the caricature” of himself in the press, including how close he was to Mandelson. Friends say he is irritated by the description of being Mandelson’s “protege” which they see as being Mandelson wishing to portray himself as far more vital to the project than he was.What might McSweeney and Barton reveal about Mandelson vetting scandal?Read moreBut if that is the case, McSweeney will also have to explain exactly why it appeared so vital to appoint the twice-disgraced former Labour cabinet minister as US ambassador, including overriding convention and process.Close observers of Mandelson and McSweeney often remark that the two men had significantly different politics in Labour terms. Mandelson’s emphasis on internationalism and social liberalism was rebuffed by the Starmerites who rejected this as the politics of a past era – and preferred a focus on community and security. Mandelson, for example, despised the Employment Rights Act and would brief against it to journalists.But the pair had two mutual professional interests that overrode their political differences – firstly, destroying the Labour left and secondly, a ruthless pursuit of winning.Mandelson and McSweeney had met sometime before McSweeney’s time in Lambeth. He was a junior administrator at Labour HQ, under Mandelson, and then in the attack and rebuttal unit. But they were reintroduced much later in their political careers by the Labour peer Roger Liddle – another veteran of Lambeth council – in around 2017.View image in fullscreenPeter Mandelson with Roger Liddle, left. Photograph: Martin Argles/The GuardianThey remained in very regular…

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