As we reported on 8 February, Keir Starmer’s chief-of-staff Morgan McSweeney resigned in disgrace. What is it they say about rats and sinking ships?

Tim Allen – Blairite leaving the Labour right sinking ship. When self-serving careerists like Allen are crying off, you know Starmer is finished. The writing is on the wall.

— Simone (@Slimbo32) February 9, 2026

How long will Starmer last now?

As Skwawkbox wrote for the Canary:

Keir Starmer’s appalling chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, has quit. According to ‘mainstream’ media, Starmer hopes this will ease the pressure that he has been under from the ongoing Mandelson scandal. If he really thinks this, he’s more hopeless than we thought – and that’s a tough bar to cross.

We don’t think Allan going will help either. At the same time, it’s certainly not going to hurt. Like most of his colleagues, Allan is another washed up Blairite with nothing to offer besides spite and failure.

People have highlighted that Allan is just one in a long line of comms directors:

Tim Allan – Keir Starmer’s *fourth* director of communications since July 2024 – has quit his role.

He says: : “I have decided to stand down to allow a new No10 team to be built. I wish the PM and his team every success.”

— Ashley Cowburn (@ashcowburn) February 9, 2026

A complete inability to hold on to a communications director hasn’t done much for Labour’s communications. Regardless of who’s in charge, it’s never reassuring to see four different people fighting over the steering wheel.

Here’s what HG wrote for the Canary in September 2025:

Keir Starmer has appointed Tim Allan as Downing Street’s new director of communications. Allan is a former trustee of Sex Matters – an anti-trans group.

According to the Financial Times, Allan has previously worked for Kazakhstan and Qatar, along with Vladimir Putin’s government.

He also worked as the deputy director of communications for former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair, under Alastair Campbell. Blair even called him ‘more right-wing than me’.

A transphobic errand boy to Putin and Blair – this is who Starmer wanted in charge of his comms?

It’s no wonder this ship is sinking.

Journalist Kevin Schofield said the following about Allan:

Tim Allan was brought in to No10 in September to replace the highly-effective and widely-respected Steph Driver and James Lyons.

Now gone. https://t.co/hEitd1A0g6

— Kevin Schofield (@KevinASchofield) February 9, 2026

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We must have blinked and this period of ‘effectiveness’ and ‘respect’ that Starmer’s operation enjoyed.

Chaos with Keir

Speaking of Starmer, it was rumoured that he planned to step down today. That no longer seems to be the case – not for the moment at least:

Wait, has he even done a U-turn on his own resignation? pic.twitter.com/rdqaA9hlIj

— Jonathan Pie (@JonathanPieNews) February 9, 2026

We don’t know who’ll step into the comms role next, but good luck selling this absolute clusterfuck of a government to the British public.

Featured image via Terry Ott (Wikimedia)

And hey, what 90s throwback is complete without a Friends nod?

In the minute-long advert, dubbed Good Will Dunkin’, Ben shares the screen with some of 90s TV’s most recognisable faces, including The Fresh Prince’s Alfonso Ribeiro, Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander and Joey Tribbiani himself, Matt LeBlanc.

After trying out Joey’s “how you doin’?” catchphrase – with mixed success – the Friends references just keep on coming, with Ben’s “girlfriend” Jennifer Aniston stopping by in denim overalls.

Check out the full advert for yourself below:

Back in 2024, Jen teamed up with her former co-star David Schwimmer for a star-studded Uber Eats campaign which saw them riffing off their professional relationship.

Meanwhile, in addition to the American football game itself, the NFL broadcast featured a show-stopping Super Bowl halftime set from Bad Bunny, which featured a host of celebrity guests, while singer-songwriter Charlie Puth kicked things off (not literally of course…) with his rendition of the US national anthem.

But while many of his musical peers hit the Super Bowl stage in designer gear, Bad Bunny went in a very different direction for his performance.

It turns out his entire outfit – an all-cream ensemble featuring a shirt-and-tie combo overlain with a football jersey with a subtle “64” detail – was designed by the Spanish high-street retailer Zara.

“Acho, PR es otra cosa!”

Dr Ayesha Girach, Medical Lead, Sanofi UK & Ireland

Sanofi is proud to partner with experts across the multiple sclerosis (MS) community to set out the immediate priorities for change in MS care.

At Sanofi, we believe that no one living with MS should need to navigate care alone or face unnecessary delays and gaps in support. Yet, for too many people, this is still the reality.

That’s why we brought together leading voices from across the MS community, including clinicians, patient advocates, and people living with MS, to understand challenges within the MS care pathway and identify opportunities for meaningful improvement.

In 2025, we hosted two impactful roundtables led by Dr Waqar Rashid, a Consultant Neurologist at St George’s Hospital. Together, we’ve explored what is working, what isn’t working, and what needs to change to ensure everyone with MS receives the care they deserve.

This resulted in the development of a robust, evidence-informed consensus statement that reflects the realities of current MS care and lays the groundwork for impactful change, identifying three key priorities:

1. increasing the accountability and empowerment of multidisciplinary teams to better manage patient needs
2. transforming MS services to ensure that clinicians’ time is most effectively used across the MS clinical network
3. improving patient and primary care access to local services

The vision set out in the consensus statement directly aligns with the government’s ambitions to better and more effectively meet the changing health needs of people across the country. As the NHS enters a new phase of reform and a decade of delivery ahead, there is now a window for decisive action to create a system that is proactive, personalised, and built around what matters most to people living with MS.

We are grateful to Katrina Murray for the opportunity to launch this consensus statement in Parliament, alongside the experts, patient groups, and people with lived experience who made this work possible.

Parliamentarians and policymakers now have the opportunity to champion a vision for MS care that enables healthcare providers to deliver for patients. By bringing people together, we can realise the opportunity to turn shared ambition into real change for people with MS.

About Sanofi

Sanofi has been committed to supporting the MS community for almost two decades, working in partnership with healthcare professionals and patient organisations across the UK to ensure MS is understood, monitored and managed in line with current science.

At the heart of our work is a commitment to protect what matters most to people – whether it’s the ability to keep working, stay active or be present for family, our goal is to help people living with MS retain their independence in the ways that matter to them, for as long as possible.

Katrina Murray, Member of Parliament for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch

I was delighted to sponsor the recent parliamentary launch of the Future of MS Care consensus statement, reflecting my ongoing interest in chronic and long-term conditions and the significant impact of multiple sclerosis (MS) in Scotland. Over 150,000 people in the UK live with MS, and nearly 7,100 people are newly diagnosed every year.¹ MS is particularly prevalent in Scotland, which has one of the highest rates of the condition in the world, with an estimated prevalence of more than 200 per 100,000 population.² It is now the most common disabling neurological condition among young adults in Scotland.³

No statistic can capture what it means to live with MS. While every experience of MS is unique, the frustration of delays, fragmented care, and the sense of being left to navigate an overwhelming system alone are all too common. Too many people face barriers at the first step of diagnosis,⁴ which can contribute significantly to patient anxiety and poor long-term engagement with services.⁵ For those living with progressive forms of MS, the challenge continues with accessing treatment from a neurologist,⁶ while women’s specific needs are often overlooked, despite the fact that they are three times more likely to develop MS than men.⁷

Yet, in the face of these realities, what stands out most is the strength and determination of the MS community. I have been very much encouraged by the ambition and insight shared by the MS community to drive improvements across the care pathway. Genuine improvement in MS care necessitates involving people living with MS to best understand the 360-degree nature of living with a chronic condition to shape their services.

Working with Sanofi gave me the opportunity to connect with people from across the MS community, as Parliament came together to consider how MS services can better deliver care that meets the diverse and changing needs of those affected.

A particular interest of mine is the need for improvements in MS diagnosis. As more people are diagnosed with MS every year, it is vital that the diagnostic pathway evolves and delivers responsive, timely care for people at what can be an incredibly vulnerable point in their MS journey, and I fully support the vision for a transformed diagnostic journey set out in the Future of MS Care consensus statement.

Now, more than ever, is the time to be bold. With the government’s 10 Year Health Plan and the upcoming update to the Women’s Health Strategy, we have an opportunity to make long-lasting change. We must aim to build a health system that’s not just responsive, but patient-focused.

There is real value in clinicians, patients and policymakers coming together to set out joint ambitions for the path forward. Parliamentarians from across the House of Commons must come together to listen to the voices of the MS community, work with them to rethink what good care looks like, and make their vision a reality.

To learn more about the ongoing work on the Future of MS Care Project, please contact WA Communications at [email protected]

This article has been produced and funded by Sanofi UK and Ireland. It has been co-authored by Katrina Murray, Member of Parliament for Cumbernauld and Kirkintilloch, and Dr Ayesha Girach, Medical Lead, Neurology, Sanofi UK & Ireland.

MAT-XU-2600327 (V1.0) | February 2026

References

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1. MS Society (n.d.). MS in the UK. Available at: https://www.mssociety.org.uk/what-we-do/our-work/our-evidence/ms-in-the-uk [Accessed February 2026]
2. Public Health Scotland (2024) Scottish Multiple Sclerosis Register 2024. Available at: https://webarchive.nrscotland.gov.uk/20241112193230/https://publichealthscotland.scot/publications/scottish-multiple-sclerosis-register-smsr/scottish-multiple-sclerosis-register-smsr-report-2024-figures-from-january-to-december-2023/ [Accessed February 2026]
3. Public Health Scotland (2025) Scottish Multiple Sclerosis Register (MSSR) – Overview of SMSR. Available at: https://publichealthscotland.scot/resources-and-tools/health-strategy-and-outcomes/scottish-national-audit-programme-snap/scottish-multiple-sclerosis-register-smsr/overview-of-smsr/ [Accessed February 2026]
4. Uher T, et al (2023) Diagnostic delay of multiple sclerosis: prevalence, determinants and consequences. Mult Scler, 2023; 29 (11-12):1437-1451. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10580682/ [Accessed February 2026]
5. Giovannoni G, et al. (2016) Brain health: time matters in multiple sclerosis. Mult Scler Relat Disord. Suppl 1:S5-S48. Available at: https:// pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27640924/ [Accessed February 2026]
6. MS Society (2022) My MS My Needs. Available at: https://www.mssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/2023-05/My%20MS%20My%20Needs%202022.pdf [Accessed February 2026]
7. MS Society. Women and MS. Available at: https://www.mssociety.org.uk/about-ms/what-is-ms/women-and-ms [Accessed February 2026]

1 min read8 min

In a statement on Monday, Allan said he had resigned to allow Starmer to build a “new” team in 10 Downing Street.

His resignation comes just a day after Morgan McSweeney resigned as the PM’s chief of staff on Sunday over his role in the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador.

Allan was in the job for just five months.

“I have decided to stand down and allow a new No 10 team to be built. I wish the PM and his team every success,” he said in a statement.

Starmer is fighting for his political life amid severe pressure over his decision to bring Mandelson into government despite being aware of his links to Jeffrey Epstein.

More follows…

Dr Stephen Goss is a freelance historian, lectures in history and politics in London, and is a Conservative councillor in Reading.

Last week the Republic of Ireland’s recently installed President, Catherine Connolly, visited Northern Ireland.

Since the 1990s, there has been nothing unusual about Presidents popping across the border to encourage peace and negotiation, to cement peace and consociationalism, or talk about peace and reconciliation. In keeping with this, President Connolly’s visit duly included, amongst several other appointments: ‘Youth Action Northern Ireland’s Peace and Reconciliation Centre’; a reception for ‘Women in Community Leadership’; the ‘Black Mountain Shared Space’; and no doubt deliberately, both the Museum of Free Derry (describing the Civil Rights Movement and Bloody Sunday) and the Siege Museum (telling the history of the Siege of Londonderry during the Glorious Revolution).

Yet President Connolly’s visit was rather different. Firstly, it was longer than any of her predecessors, lasting an unprecedented three days. Secondly, she had declared in her inauguration speech that her initial official visit would be to Northern Ireland. In it she stated:

“I look forward to paying my first official visit to the North and meeting with people from all communities and celebrating the rich heritage and traditions of all who live there. I am particularly conscious of Article Three of the Constitution, which sets out in detail the firm wish of the Irish people, the Irish nation to have a united Ireland, albeit in the conditions set out very clearly in the Article on consent. As President, I will foster an inclusive and open dialogue across the island in a manner that highlights and recognises our similarities and respects our differences.”

President Connolly paid lip service to respecting differences and consent, but chose to emphasise Irish unification. As well she might, given that she asserted in her election campaign that Irish unity was a ‘foregone conclusion’ and that she would serve as a voice to promote it.

Contrast her remarks with those of her immediate predecessors. In Mary Robinson’s inauguration address in 1990, she explicitly reached out to Northern Ireland with a message of friendship and reconciliation. She pledged to extend the hand of friendship and love to both communities in the ‘other part of the island’, doing so ‘with no strings attached, no hidden agenda’, and to encourage mutual understanding and tolerance across traditions.

Mary McAleese, at her inauguration – unsurprisingly, as the only Northern Irish President to-date, elected during the Peace Process (1997) – made Northern Ireland and the theme of reconciliation central. She asserted that ‘building bridges’ would be the defining theme of her term, rooted in the idea of overcoming divisions on the island. The bridge across the River Boyne – of 1690 Battle fame – is now named after her… She honoured the work of peacemakers on both sides, insisting that no side has a monopoly on pain, and invited people to work in partnership to build an Ireland where differences are met with generous respect.

At neither of his inaugurations did Michael D. Higgins feel the need to mention Northern Ireland at all.

Both Marys emphasised friendship, inclusive recognition of all communities, and the moral necessity of moving away from violence toward mutual understanding and a shared future. They framed the President’s attitude not as political pressure but as a human and moral appeal for healing and partnership on the island.

While in Northern Ireland the new President made two speeches of note. One in the new Belfast School of Art Building and the other at the Guildhall in Derry. It is quite clear from both efforts she should not attempt to extemporise (or try and read without her glasses), but the scripted content is worthy of note. President Connolly proclaimed:

“Northern Ireland now represents a beacon of light to the world in how decades-long conflict can be resolved and reconciliation fostered… We can and should take real pride in the success of the Good Friday Agreement [sic], knowing that this is recognised far and wide as a model for peaceful resolution of conflict.”

This column has previously warned against peace in Northern Ireland as a ready-made template for ending intractable violence elsewhere. The President went on to say ‘I look forward to viewing John Hume’s Nobel Peace Prize, shared with David Trimble’.

The Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 was – rightly – awarded jointly. David Trimble was not some addendum. There would not have been an agreement were it not for Trimble’s bold leadership and success in persuading the unionist majority.

Following her remarks at the Guildhall in Derry – which unduly (and repetitively) focussed on the architecture and functionality of the building – Connolly was criticised by the DUP MP for East Londonderry, Gregory Campbell. Campbell complained that she had not once referred to the city as Londonderry, bemoaning it as a great insult and ‘a missed opportunity for reconciliation’.

As usual the DUP have made an obdurate objection thereby making unionism look petty. Yet there is a serious point to be made.  Unlike the ‘spirit of the Good Friday Agreement’ so often asserted, parity of esteem is not an abstract idea; it is one of the fundamental principles of the Agreement.

Both the British and Irish governments committed to exercise their authority in Northern Ireland with rigorous impartiality. Last year Dublin re-iterated this, stating that its approach to Northern Ireland would ‘continue to be built on trust, parity of esteem, and respect’. It was understood by negotiators and by subsequent governments that parity of esteem would be more than a slogan; it would be a safeguard against the triumphalism that comes from treating one community’s constitutional goals as inevitable.

President Connolly’s choice of emphasis (framing Irish unity as a ‘foregone conclusion’) risks unsettling that carefully calibrated balance. Parity of esteem depends not just on formal recognition of rights, but on disciplined language that treats different constitutional aspirations as equally legitimate in the present. It requires restraint from those who speak with authority, because any suggestion that one outcome is inevitable makes the other community feel undermined and irrelevant.

By contrast, British governments (particularly the current one which seems bent on giving away sovereign territory) have long understood that neutral language is essential to upholding parity of esteem in practice. No British Prime Minister – and certainly not the King – would describe continued union with Great Britain as inevitable or a certain conclusion while visiting Northern Ireland. Nor would they publicly assert that another constitutional outcome is a fait accompli. Their public rhetoric consistently reflects the Agreement’s emphasis on consent and parity of esteem, even on contentious issues.

The President’s own words therefore provide the most appropriate standard by which her visit should be judged. Connolly told her audience in Belfast, ‘we won’t always agree. We will have different perspectives and, of course, different aspirations for the future. All of those perspectives and aspirations are legitimate’. If that is so, then legitimacy must apply not only in theory but in practice, and not only to aspirations she personally favours. Parity of esteem is hollowed out the moment one constitutional future is treated as settled while another is implicitly framed as on borrowed time.

If President Connolly does not recognise this, she will do more damage than good.

Keir Starmer’s director of communications has just resigned, only one day after the prime minister’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney stepped down.

In a statement, Tim Allan said: “I have decided to stand down to allow a new No10 team to be built. I wish the PM and his team every success.”

This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.

Has sacrificing the critical advisors ever worked? It depends, I suppose, on how one defines ‘worked’. Theresa May managed to limp on for a couple of years after the departure of Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill, but her authority was broken. Does that count?

Perhaps Sir Keir Starmer will cling on following Morgan McSweeney’s exit (and, it is sincerely to be hoped, that of Jonathan Powell). As in May’s case, one might argue that this would simply be an exercise in prolonging his misery. But the circumstances aren’t entirely similar; whereas May at least started out with a distinct vision for her premiership, Starmer did not.

Certainly, Conservatives hoping for – or trying to precipitate – the Prime Minister’s resignation should be clear-eyed about the potential consequences. Not because any of the hopefuls out on manoeuvres in the press would deliver any lasting revival of Labour’s fortunes, but the opposite: a change of leadership is likely to see the party retreat even further into its castle in the sky, indulging the whims of backbenchers even as reality closes in around it.

To put it another way, the status quo is about as right-wing as any Labour government in the current parliament is going to get. Even if the Parliamentary Labour Party were more disciplined and less self-indulgent, the fact that the final choice of the leader rests with the party membership militates against any candidate prepared to tell hard truths or try to sell difficult choices. There seems little prospect of Shabana Mahmood’s bare-minimum changes to indefinite leave to remain surviving a leadership contest, let alone a victor emerging with the will or means to combat the unsustainable trajectory of this country’s public spending.

There is some little irony in Starmer’s outriders warning that the markets would react very badly to his ousting; everyone hates being in hoc to the bond vigilantes until they’re the reason you can’t be sacked. But the warning is not wrong. However bad this Government is proving – and that is very bad indeed – it is by no means the worst we could get.

Nor is there likely to be a general election. Constitutionally none is required, and politically it just seems highly unlikely that any new prime minister would choose to go to the polls when hundreds of Labour MPs are sitting on slender majorities and Reform UK is still in first place. (The Conservatives, at least if they think Kemi Badenoch’s recent rally in the polls has legs, might quietly welcome this, although they wouldn’t say so.)

Perhaps a new leader in those circumstances would accelerate the collapse in Labour’s position, making life easier for the Right at the eventual 2029 general election. But the trade-off would be that the scale of the problems facing the country – and thus, the unpleasantness of the decisions a future government would have to make to fix them – would be that much worse. Which is an ill omen, given that neither the Conservatives nor Reform are currently exhibiting much willingness to face up to those problems in their current form.

Were we the southern European country whose politics ours increasingly resembled, this is about the point where the European Central Bank would step in and appoint the prime minister for us. Happily, our democratic system is stronger than that; less happily, that means we have nobody to save us from the consequences of our choices.