Labour failed to prepare for power, admits PM's former top aide

Here is the latest breaking news from around the world: Labour failed to prepare for power, admits PM's former top aide Figure caption, Morgan McSweeney: We hadn't done enough to prepare for governmentByPaul SeddonPolitical reporterPublished14 minutes agoSir Keir Starmer's former chief of staff has conceded that Labour failed to properly prepare for power in the run-up to its landslide general election win. In his first media interview, Morgan McSweeney told the 's Nick Robinson he did not yet have all the answers for the prime minister's dramatic downfall just two years after he led the party back into office. But he admitted Labour had not given enough thought to how the world had changed since the party was last in power in the 1990s.

He added the party should have been "way more optimistic" in its first few months, and had been unable to deliver results quickly enough to satisfy voters. He told the 's Political Thinking with Nick Robinson podcast: "We didn't prepare enough for what kind of world we were going to. We are now in a very different era than when Labour was last in government.

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"I think we didn't have enough conversations at the top of the party about what that meant, how to prepare for it, what that meant for the state. "You have to deliver quite quickly for people, for them to see the change quickly. And I think we didn't come in with enough of a theory about how we would do that.

"McSweeney ran Labour's successful 2024 election campaign and followed Sir Keir into office as his head of political strategy. He has kept a low public profile despite his instrumental role behind the scenes, but was thrust into the limelight earlier this year when he resigned over his role in Peter Mandelson's appointment as the UK's ambassador to the US. McSweeney said he was "still processing" Sir Keir's political demise, but identified a lack of preparation as a key factor in the government's early troubles, adding that Labour's time in opposition "went quickly".

What went wrong for Starmer: Morgan McSweeney gives his side of the storyPolitical Thinking with Nick RobinsonAvailable now Listen on SoundsHe said that there had been a widespread expectation that Labour would require at least two elections to return to power after its crushing defeat in 2019, and "quite a lot of people" thought it needed a plan for defeat rather than victory in 2024. He recalled that during planning meetings early that year, he "did start to realise that we hadn't done enough to prepare for government". McSweeney replaced top civil servant Sue Gray as Sir Keir's chief of staff in Downing Street three months after Labour's return to office.

Asked about Gray's role in the preparations for government, he replied it was "not about one individual", adding: "When I say we weren't prepared, I really do mean the Labour Party more generally". "I take my own responsibilities for that, rather than blaming one person".

The story has become one of the most prominent items on the global agenda.