Article 2: Just Warming Up – Serious Revelations soon – McSweeney and Walker Establish and Widen Their Support Base at Westminster

Not long after the General Election Sue Gray quit her role as Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s chief of staff. Her departure came after she was caught up in rows over her pay, which at £170k is higher than the Prime Minister’s, and claims of tensions with other staff. Retaining her salary she will take up a newly created post as the PM’s envoy for nations and regions. She was replaced by Morgan McSweeney, who was previously chief adviser to the PM.

Starmer’s political mastermind was duly rewarded for his campaign planning and delivery which delivered a landslide victory for Labour. But tempering the plaudits the number of votes gained by the party was well below that achieved by Jeremy Corbyn in the 2019 GE.

The deciding factors assisting McSweeney was the abysmal performance of the Tory Party whose voter base collapsed under the assault of the fledgling Reform Party and the unpalatable antics of a number of SNP, WOKE, MP’s whose “Stonewall” led LGBTQ commitment scunnered the Scottish electorate.

And what of his wife Imogen, the former actress and philosophy graduate of Edinburgh University, whose political career, to date had been carefully nourished in London.

She was “parachuted” into the safe Hamilton and Clyde Valley constituency, just up the road from her and her husbands newly purchased, near £1m home in the Clyde valley.

But London Labour’s manipulative “shoo-in” was very nearly derailed by local party activists who preferred their man, Gavin Keatt. Walker’s victory was narrow, 62 votes to her opponent’s, 55.

Noteworthy was the hustings count which much favoured the local man but Walker won through with a larger number of postal votes prompting one wag to remark; “Voter ID and no postal voting is the only way to be sure of an honest outcome.” An astute observation or a hint of skulduggery!!!

Her coffers boosted by a £10k campaign donation from her husband’s “Labour Together” organisation she went on to win the seat easily defeating a very young and uninspiring SNP WOKE candidate with a majority of 9,472.

Walker had only just settled into her new office at Westminster when she received a call from Rachel Reeves, the newly appointed “Chancellor of the Exchequer” who congratulated her friend on her promotion to the post of Parliamentary Private Secretary to herself. Walker’s well used “eyes and ears” skills are a known and useful asset.

Rumbles in the Jungle – Accusations of Cronyism

Walker was at the centre of a “cronyism” row after she was allocated a Westminster office located near to her husband’s place of work, in addition to an office in another part of the parliamentary estate which she shares with a fellow MP. And this despite her only being elected as MP for Hamilton and Clyde Valley in July 2024. The recently appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to Chancellor Rachel Reeves enjoying the perks of the job perhaps.

A disgruntled senior Labour source said: “the way in which MPs’ offices are allocated has long been a mystery. The decisions are made by the whips as part of the dark arts which they use to reward some and punish others. It shouldn’t be like this. Occasionally office allocations by the whips give raise to serious accusations of favouritism or nepotism because the MP is related to someone more senior. This should not happen, especially when more senior MPs get worse treatment.”

Back to Hamilton

And an opportunity for advancement opened up for Walker’s defeated opponent, Councillor Gavin Keatt (who took on the role of her caseworker) after the recent death of SNP MSP Christina McKelvie which means there will probably be a June by-election in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse.

Labour Together Think Tank

Steve Reed from Lambeth Council and Morgan McSweeney formed the think tank in 2017. McSweeney was appointed director of the influential policy group with the primary aim “to move the Labour Party from the hard left” and replace the then leader, Jeremy Corbyn. McSweeney ruthlessly removed supporters of Corbyn soon after his arrival in the leader of the opposition’s office after Starmer’s leadership victory in 2020.

McSweeney’s wife Imogen Walker received £10,000 from the organisation which donated £210,000 to members of Starmer’s top team in 2024. The group was fined by the Electoral Commission for failing to declare £730,000 in donations.

Sarwar’s Dilemma – toe the line or your’e out – or packed off to the Lords like daddy

Relations with the increasingly right wing Westminster based Labour politicians and the left leaning Party members and leaders in Scotland is always tense and unproductive with cracks appearing early on when Scottish MSP’s failed to support Starmer’s decision to cut winter fuel payments.

Scottish leader Sarwar was all over the place in his failed attempts to steady the ship and a number of Labour MSP’s voted with the SNP when the Scottish Parliament voted by 99 to 14 in favour of a motion (ignored by Westminster as expected) insisting the Labour government at Westminster change course and reverse its decision to means test the support.

The perpetual diminishing of the electorate and its politicians by Westminster is not, as yet compelling enough to persuade a majority of Scots to consider the option of independence but the British body politic is mindful of the fall of of Rome and other similarly ill-fated empires which were poisoned with nepotism and cronyism and withered morphing into kleptocracies masquerading as democracies. Scots would be much better off as an independent nation.