Morgan McSweeney says advising Starmer to appoint Mandelson was ‘serious error of judgment’ – UK politics live | Politics
Morgan McSweeney says advising Starmer to appoint Mandelson was ‘serious error of judgment’
Morgan McSweeney is giving evidence now.
He starts with an opening statement, which he begins by recognising the harm done to Jeffrey Epstein’s victims.
He talks about the importance of public service.
double quotation mark I’ve spent much of my working life trying, in whatever role I held, to make this country fairer, stronger and more successful.I have always believed public service is a privilege. It brings responsibility and scrutiny, but it also brings a meaningful chance to improve people’s lives. That is what motivated me in government.
He moves on to Mandelson.
double quotation mark The appointment of Manderson as ambassador was a serious error of judgment. I advised the prime minister in support of that appointment and I was wrong to do so.As I said in my resignation statement, I resigned because I believe responsibility should rest with those who make serious mistakes. Accountability in public life cannot apply only when it is convenient.
The prime minister advice relied on my advice and I got it wrong.
Key events
McSweeney says government officials under pressure to act quickly – but that’s not pressure ‘to lower standards’
Referring to claims Downing Street put pressure on the Foreign Office to approve Mandelson’s vetting, McSweeney says in January 2025 getting Mandelson’s appointment confirmed wasn’t one of the most important issues facing the government.
He goes on:
double quotation mark I think it’s important that we unpack this idea of pressure because there’s been a lot of conversation about it.There’s pressure in government every day, and most that pressure comes from within.
Every civil servant minister, [the staff] I worked with, woke up every morning feeling pressure to make the country better, wanting to move faster – that’s where the pressure comes from.
And No 10’s job in all of this is to make sure that the prime minister’s decisions are acted on quickly.
But there is a “real difference” between that, “asking people to lower standards,” McSweeney sayd. “And we never did that.”
McSweeney says false claim he swore at officials has caused him ‘great deal of stress’
McSweeney says he is very glad that Philip Barton has confirmed that McSweeney did not swear at him. (See 9.36am.)
He says:
double quotation mark This swearing rumour is it is something that has caused me a great deal of stress for a number of months.I do not know why people do this in politics, put around untrue rumours. They phone lots of journalists. Those journalists then phone lots of politicians … It’s damaging for people’s reputations. And I think it’s unfair for staff who can speak for themselves.
Here is a Guardian video from McSweeney’s opening statement.
Thornberry asks McSweeney to clarify the apparent discrepancy between what he said at 11.50am and what he said at 12.23pm.
Sweeney says at the time he put those questions to Mandelson he thought Mandelson was telling the truth.
It was only after the Bloomberg emails were published in September 2025 that he realised Mandelson had not told the truth.
He apologises if he was not clear in his earlier comments.
McSweeney says he did not try to get Mandelson appointed as favour, or because he regarded him as ‘hero’
McSweeney told the committee that he did not try to get Mandelson appointed ambassador as a favour for a friend, or because he regarded him as a “hero”. He said:
double quotation mark In every advice that I gave to the prime minister, hand on heart I thought I was operating in a motive in the national interest.In politics, over decades, you know a lot of people. In 20 years in politics, I’ve had to fire friends from jobs. I’ve had to turn people down who were desperate for jobs, who were closer friends of mine than Mandelson, who really wanted jobs in No 10, or people who thought they were going to be ministers, because I’ve always tried to operate in national interest …
This was not some hero I was trying to get a job for. I thought that his skills as EU commissioner would help us to get the trade deal that I think the country needed, because we were very, very exposed after Brexit and getting that trade deal right was very important.
Thornberry is asking again about the questions McSweeney asked Mandelson about his relationship with Epstein.
McSweeney says he put the questions in writing because he thought Mandelson was more likely to tell the truth if he were replying in writing. And that way there would be a record.
Q: Did you tell the PM that you did not think Mandelson was telling you the full truth?
McSweeney says he did not say that to the PM.
Q: And did the PM say, if that was a problem, the DV will pick it up.
No, says McSweeney.
He says that at that point he thought Mandelson was telling the truth.
He also makes the point again that, because of the Met investigation, he cannot say what Mandelson said in his replies.
McSweeney says he had no plan in place for Mandelson failing vetting
McSweeney said that, if Mandelson failed his vetting, his appointment would have been withdrawn.
double quotation mark I didn’t have a contingency plan [for Mandelson failing vetting] in place, but was always aware that somebody could fail security vetting, was always aware that that was a possibility for any appointment that we made.
Asked if he thought Mandelson might fail vetting, McSweeney said:
double quotation mark No. And if it had happened, we’d have withdrawn the ambassadorship. It would have been a political embarrassment.
Q: Going back to Matthew Doyle, if the Foreign Office was looking for a job for it, it sounds as if he would been certain to get it?
McSweeney does not accept that.
Thornberry intervenes. She asks McSweeney if he has ever heard the term “jobs for the boys”.
McSweeney pushes back. He says Doyle was actually losing his job.
And he says No 10 also tried to find opportunities for women who were leaving Downing Street jobs.
Q: Did the foreign secretary ever say appointing Mandelson was a bad idea?
Not to me, says McSweeney.
Q: Did David Lammy think appointing Mandelson ambassador to the US would be a good or bad idea?
McSweeney replied:
double quotation mark Like everybody else, he could see that there was cons and risks, and like everybody else, he would have said I had reservations to … He’d have discussed them iteratively with the prime minister.The prime minister would have got would have taken the foreign secretary’s views very seriously.
McSweeney says Foreign Office just asked to consider possible diplomatic jobs that Matthew Doyle might want to apply for
Q: Why was the Foreign Office told to look for a diplomatic job for Matthew Doyle without telling David Lammy, the foreign secretary?
McSweeney says Doyle’s time in No 10 was coming to an end.
The PM wanted to give him the chance of getting an alternative government job.
He says that the Foreign Office was asked about possible jobs that Doyle could apply for.
If he had applied for one of those posts, as that point Lammy would have been told.
The matter was kept relatively secret because it was an HR matter.
Referring to how Mandelson described his relationship with Epstein at the time of his appointment, McSweeney said:
double quotation mark [Mandelson] realised that it was a mistake. He deeply regretted it. He broke it off, many, many years before. He wasn’t advocating for the guy or defending the guy in any way. And you take all of these things into consideration.What then emerged as the relationship, in September last year, was not the relationship that I was led to understand. It was very, very, very different.
McSweeney says the Cabinet Office’s due diligence process through up information about Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein. It was a matter of public record that Mandelson had stayed in Epstein’s home after Epstein was first convicted of child sex offences.
McSweeney says he then put questions to Mandelson about that in writing.
He says he cannot comment on the reply because that is now being used by the Met police as part of their investigation into Mandelson.
McSweeney says at time of appointment he thought Mandelson’s relationship with Eptein was ‘passing acquaintance’
McSweeney said, at the time of the appointment, he did not realise that Mandelson had been close friends with Epstein.
double quotation mark The nature of the relationship that I understood he had with Epstein was not a close friendship.How I understood it at the time was a passing acquaintance that he regretted having, and that he apologised for.
What is emerged since then was way, way, way worse than I had expected at the time.
And it was when I saw the pictures, when I saw the [Bloomberg revelations] in September 2025, I have to say it was like a knife through my soul.
Mandelson was first person to suggest himself for US ambassador’s job, McSweeney claims
John Whittingdale (Con) is asking the questions now.
Q: Who first suggested Mandelson should be ambassador?
McSweeney replies:
double quotation mark I think the first person who put Mandelson’s name forward was Mandelson.
McSweeney says Mandelson did not give him ‘full truth’ about Epstein – but PM thought vetting would resolve this
As part of the Cabinet Office due diligence scrutiny, Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein came up. McSweeney was asked to contact Mandeslon about this, and Matthew Doyle, the PM’s then communications chief, also contacted Mandelson about this too.
Thornberry asked it that was an appropriate way to deal with this.
McSweeney said he agreed that was not appropriate. He went on:
double quotation mark When I look back on it, I certainly think it would have been much, much better if I’d asked PET [the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team] to ask those follow up questions.I guess my thinking at the time was if I put follow-up questions to him in writing, and that if a senior member of staff did that, that he would feel more obligated to give the truth and the full truth.
I didn’t feel that I got that back from him.
But it wasn’t my decision. It was the prime minister’s decision and he saw the DV [developed vetting] as part of that decision.
UPDATE: I have amended the headline in the light of how McSweeney clarified what he meant at 12.29pm.
Q: How did Mandelson become the lead candidate?
McSweeney says there were two strong candidates on the shortlist for Starmer: Mandelson and George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor.
Q: You went to the US in early December 2024 with Jonathan Powell. You were told there was some opposition from the Trump team to Mandelson being appointed. Why was Mandelson chosen?
McSweeney suggests the Trump team did not talk about Mandelson. But they did think Karen Pierce, the serving ambassador, was doing an excellent job.
But there were a lot of people saying Mandelson would be a good appointment, he says.
McSweeney says he regarded Mandelson as the lead candidate “because of his experience as an EU trade commissioner and the political skills that I thought he could bring to the table”.
