CCHQ is dead, long live CCHQ. It seems reports of the Conservative attack machine’s death have been greatly exaggerated, as it trains its guns on the PM’s top advisor this week.
Working hand in glove with the Daily Mail, the Tories have obtained a leaked email to Morgan McSweeney, the PM’s chief of staff (2024-present) and former head of the Labour Together campaign group (2017-2020). The Mail’s splash today alleges that McSweeney may not have been totally honest when facing an Electoral Commission investigation into the funding of Labour Together four years ago. Conservative party chair Kevin Hollinrake has asked both the Electoral Commission and the police to look into the case.
The Tories smell blood because a) they’re giddy after a blood bath in which the PM lost his deputy, his top ambassador and his director of strategy and b) McSweeney is more vulnerable now than he was a few months ago. Soon after the election the papers decided he would be the Rasputin of this government, a hypnotic and mysterious power behind the throne. That can be flattering when times are good, but a curse when things go wrong. All manner of grievances have now been put at his door: Labour’s bad ratings, the rise of Reform, the Mandelson resignation, the welfare fiasco, etc. But how much trouble is he really in?
The story centres on an Electoral Commission fine from September 2021, when it turned out that under McSweeney’s stewardship Labour Together had failed to report almost £740,000 of donations over a number of years. The Commission investigated and fined the organisation to the tune of £14,250. It accepted Labour Together’s explanation that the failure to report donations was due to an “admin error”. (Sceptical observers have noted that, at the time of the reporting failures, Labour Together was trying to plan an internal fightback against Corbynism without attracting the attention of Corbyn’s allies.) There were fresh revelations in 2023 after an investigation by the Sunday Times which highlighted McSweeney’s involvement in the affair.
Then, two years of silence until the Conservatives began attempting to revive the story in recent days. At first it looked like old news. But with the leaked email, CCHQ seem to have today found something that gives the story legs. Or legs enough for the Daily Mail to splash on it (with the Telegraph and Times following it up with varying degrees of prominence).
In the email, from Labour lawyer Gerald Shamash to McSweeney in 2021, Shamash probed McSweeney on the previous explanation he had given for the failure to report the donations. He also recommended that, if the story didn’t hold up, he could instead submit a defence of “administrative error”. The Electoral Commission has at least seen the leaked email but doesn’t seem particularly interested. Their spokesperson said the case had been “thoroughly investigated” and “sanctioned accordingly”. It would be a surprise if they reopened the case on the basis of the email alone.
On the police point: the Tories are technically within their rights to bring this to their attention, since all offences under the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act (PPERA) are potential criminal offences. But I suspect it was done because it provided a good news line for today’s Mail front page rather than because they think there’s a chance of an investigation. So, if the Commission and the Met leave this one alone, where does the story go? Tomorrow’s chip paper is one option.
It’s harder than usual for the Conservatives to keep up the pressure now that we’re in a conference recess. If there had been a PMQs today, the Tories would no doubt have leapt on this. Perhaps Kemi Badenoch could have tied the PM in a few knots, as she did recently over the Mandelson Affair. But if the pressure is to be sustained, CCHQ will probably have to keep up a steady stream of leaks to shop to the right-wing papers.
As I said, reports of its death have been greatly exaggerated after a demoralising year of redundancies and failure. But even in its heyday, I think CCHQ might have struggled to keep this story going.
[Further reading: Inside the Tony Blair Institute]
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