Morgan McSweeney has resigned over the Mandelson affair, leaving the role of Keir Starmer’s chief of staff open. Rumours are already swirling about who will replace him.
The New Statesman breaks down the runners and riders for one of the most powerful positions in Britain:
Louise Casey
She is known as a “Whitehall troubleshooter”: a figure both Labour and Conservative administrations have turned to to sort out the knottiest of political problems and most sensitive of institutional issues. Under Starmer’s government, she has been tasked with looking into grooming gangs and social care. Under previous administrations, she has probed the Rotherham grooming gangs, served as Victims’ Commissioner, and investigated Metropolitan Police in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder, among many other roles dating back as far as the 1990s, when she was appointed Tony Blair’s “Homelessness Tsar” following a career working for homelessness charities.
A fearless critic of the institutions she is charged with investigating, Casey has long been discussed as a potential appointee to Starmer’s Downing Street, but some have suggested she would be best placed as cabinet secretary, the country’s most senior civil servant.
Vidhya Alakeson
Alakeson, currently joint deputy chief of staff, is in charge of policy and delivery within Downing Street. Formerly Starmer’s director of external relations, she managed Labour’s relationships with business and other stakeholders in opposition, having joined his team in 2022.
She divides opinion inside Number 10. While one insider describes her as “the best of the best”, another says she “blows in the wind and is completely incapable of making decisions and sticking to them.”
Jill Cuthbertson
Starmer’s other deputy chief of staff, Cutherbertson is described by one insider as a “more unifying figure” than Alakeson. A longstanding Labour adviser, she served as private secretary to both Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband before working for Starmer. “No one can do high-stakes political logistics like Jill,” one insider says.
Jonathan Powell
Powell, currently National Seecurity Adviser and the prime minister’s most senior foreign policy adviser (dubbed “the real Foreign Secretary”) performed the chief of staff role for Tony Blair and is plainly experienced enough to do the job. The question is whether he would want it – many suspect he wouldn’t – and where that would leave Starmer’s foreign affairs team, if Powell was diverted from focusing on Trump and Ukraine to all of the wider domestic issues the prime minister is grappling with.
Tom Baldwin
Starmer’s biographer has long been seen as a potential replacement for McSweeney, even though those close to him joke he would be more likely to appointed as goalkeeper for Manchester United. A former director of communications for Ed Miliband, he is seen as close to Starmer and his thinking, which could be a help in the job. His appointment would signal a possible shift of direction on Reform – where Baldwin has encouraged a more vocal stance – and on Europe, with Baldwin seen as keen for Starmer to adopt a more pro-European stance, including potentially advocating rejoining the single market.
[Further reading: British politics says goodbye to Morgan McSweeney]
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