# McSweeney: the man who made Starmer and his ties to Mandelson Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/pod-save-the-uk-6318799/mcsweeney-the-man-who-made-starmer-and-his-ties-to-mandelson Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/pod-save-the-uk-6318799/mcsweeney-the-man-who-made-starmer-and-his-ties-to-mandelson.md Podcast: [Pod Save the UK](https://stenobird.com/podcast/pod-save-the-uk-6318799) Published: 2026-02-12T04:00:00+00:00 Episode link: https://audioboom.com/posts/8860082 Audio file: https://clrtpod.com/m/pscrb.fm/rss/p/prfx.byspotify.com/e/arttrk.com/p/CRMDA/mgln.ai/e/284/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/audioboom.com/posts/8860082.mp3?modified=1770897567&sid=5166011&source=rss Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/pod-save-the-uk-6318799/episodes/mcsweeney-the-man-who-made-starmer-and-his-ties-to-mandelson Duration seconds: 3316 ## Resource Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet circles the wagons as he survives another hellish week in office. One that saw the loss of his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and his director of communications, Tim Allan, as the scandal over Peter Mandelson's ties to sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein rages on. Nish and Coco are joined by Paul Holden, the “unofficial biographer” of Morgan McSweeney, to discuss his key role in the rise of Keir Starmer to power and his close relationship with Mandelson. Plus - reports that Labour Together hired a PR firm to investigate Paul and others looking into its funding under McSweeney. Also, comedian Stuart Goldsmith on the serious business of being funny about climate change and why it goes all the way to the top of British intelligence. CHECK OUT THESE DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS AURA FRAMES https://www.auraframes.com Code: PSTUK WISE https://www.wise.com GUESTS Paul Holden, Investigative Journalist and author of The Fraud Stuart Goldsmith, Climate Comedian USEFUL LINKS The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy https://orbooks.com/catalog/the-fraud/ Stuart Goldsmith www.stuartgoldsmith.com CREDITS Sky News / YouTube Sky News / YouTube GOP Oversight / YouTube Sky News Australia / YouTube Pod Save the UK is a Reduced Listening production for Crooked Media. Get in touch - contact us via email: PSUK@reducedlistening.co.uk Like and follow us on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@PodSavetheUK Instagram: https://instagram.com/podsavetheuk TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@podsavetheuk BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/podsavetheuk.crooked.com Facebook: https://facebook.com/podsavetheuk X: https://x.com/podsavetheuk ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/pod-save-the-uk-6318799/episodes/mcsweeney-the-man-who-made-starmer-and-his-ties-to-mandelson/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/pod-save-the-uk-6318799/mcsweeney-the-man-who-made-starmer-and-his-ties-to-mandelson.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.