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

Like 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. …