{"id":554848,"date":"2026-04-28T10:15:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/554848\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T10:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T10:15:09","slug":"starmers-ex-chief-of-staff-morgan-mcsweeney-giving-evidence-to-mps-on-mandelson-follow-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/554848\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer&#8217;s ex-chief of staff Morgan McSweeney giving evidence to MPs on Mandelson &#8211; follow live"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/core\/website\/assets\/static\/news\/incident-types\/light-mode\/analysis.77b314ef10.svg\" alt=\"Analysis\" height=\"2.5rem\" width=\"9.8125rem\" draggable=\"false\" class=\"ssrcss-h608ny-ContributorImageComponent e2hr5uu0\"\/>Today&#8217;s big political moments don&#8217;t stop at the Foreign Affairs Committeepublished at 11:09 BST<\/p>\n<p>11:09 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-qs9kpv-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/b9eb2a7b-b156-46ad-b4fa-fb47dc1b0972.jpg.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Chris Mason<br \/>Political editor<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Greetings from a Transport for Wales train trundling from Crewe<br \/>\nto Cardiff &#8211; a reminder that today\u2019s big political moments don\u2019t end with the<br \/>\ntestimonies to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee or the debate in the<br \/>\nCommons later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Tonight, there is a 90-minute live TV debate on the BBC<br \/>\ninvolving the six leading parties contesting the elections to the Senedd, the<br \/>\nWelsh Parliament.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">All this amounts to a nightmarish backdrop for Labour in the<br \/>\nWelsh elections, the Scottish elections and the English local elections.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Not because millions of people are devouring every detail of the<br \/>\nLord Mandelson saga, I\u2019m sure many are not. But because it loiters like a big,<br \/>\ndark, threatening cloud over everything else the party wants to focus on.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">What stood out for me from Sir Philip Barton\u2019s testimony? <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He worried at the time that Lord Mandelson\u2019s connections to<br \/>\nJeffrey Epstein \u201ccould be a problem in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But he wasn\u2019t consulted in advance &#8211; despite his vast diplomatic<br \/>\nexperience, including in America.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"> In fact, he found out<br \/>\nvery late that Lord Mandelson was being made ambassador to Washington &#8211; just<br \/>\nbefore it was announced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His view was that it was unusual for someone to be announced<br \/>\ninto a role before the vetting process had been complete. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He distinguished between the real pressure to get him out to<br \/>\nAmerica ASAP and, he said, there being no pressure relating to the substance of<br \/>\nsorting his vetting. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">And, perhaps unsurprisingly, his swerved some of the juicier<br \/>\nopportunities he was given to wade into the various political rows around all<br \/>\nthis that are still swirling &#8211; the sacking of his successor Sir Olly Robbins<br \/>\nchief among them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He did, rather helpfully for the next witness, the Prime<br \/>\nMinister\u2019s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, say he did not recall<br \/>\nMcSweeney ever swearing at him to get a move on in sorting Lord Mandelson\u2019s<br \/>\nvetting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today&#8217;s big political moments don&#8217;t stop at the Foreign Affairs Committeepublished at 11:09 BST 11:09 BST Chris MasonPolitical&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":554849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-554848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=554848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/554848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/554849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=554848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=554848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=554848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}