Who broke Britain? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which experts and writers debate the issues that concern them about modern Britain.
• You won’t know James Bevan, but you should know what he did to this country• Boris Johnson wrecked Britain. But this man left even deeper scars• The hardcore socialist whose ruinous idea is why Liz Truss became PM• The ‘Red Tory’ behind one of the most anti-feminist ideas in British politics• Martin Lewis: the money-saving expert… who accidentally cost Britons billions• The cooking revolutionary who overthrew traditional British dishes• Modern British dating is a car-crash – and Cilla Black is to blame• The American woman who ripped the heart out of Cadbury
Sir Keir Starmer famously denied that there was any such thing as “Starmerism”, but there certainly was something that might be called “McSweeneyism”, a project which explains much about the Prime Miniter’s rise and fall.
Morgan McSweeney was Starmer’s chief of staff from October 2024 to February 2026, when he resigned after he was blamed for the calamitous appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington. He will not be present in Downing Street to witness the unravelling of the Government he did so much to foster and shape. Yet more than anybody else, he represented the zeitgeist – the spirit and direction – of the Starmer administration. He was its guiding force before and after its general election victory in 2024, and was responsible – perhaps more than Starmer himself – for the self-inflicted mistakes that ultimately destroyed it.
