He spends his time doing a six-hour commute from home in Lanark, the town south of Glasgow where he lives with his family, to Labour's HQ in Southwark. Despite the distance, he is in many ways the ultimate Labour insider - one who has made it his mission to transform the way the party appeals to the country.
As Labour's elections guru and Keir Starmer's closest aide, McSweeney has near-unrivalled influence. He is credited by many for Labour's all-but-certain victory in the election next month. McSweeney is adored by many staffers and by shadow cabinet ministers alike, with some party figures retaining more affection for him than the leader. The highest form of praise in Labour HQ is: "Morgan loves it."
But his popularity is not universal. His long crusade to expunge Corbynism from the Labour party has made him a bogeyman of the left. He has shown little sentiment for those candidates and activists pushed aside in his pursuit of that aim, and has a penchant for ruthlessly promoting friends and allies. Many of them have been parachuted in as candidates in safe seats.
McSweeney's allies are unapologetic. "Morgan's the saviour of the Labour party," one former colleague said. "Remember all those fuckers who abandoned the party [under Jeremy Corbyn] for Change UK or for fake jobs with Boris Johnson. Morgan stayed in the party and pulled us out of the mire, by raising money, commitment, strategy and most of all his own bloody sweat. People would do well to remember that ... And lots of the people who got safe seats you can criticise all you like, but they are also the ones who put in a shift to get us here when so many others opted out."
"Without him I don't think any of this could really have happened," a well-connected party figure allied to McSweeney said. "Prior to the 2020 leadership campaign, it was basically him that worked out that Keir was the non-Corbynite candidate that could win."
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