The blog quotes Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP for York Central, as welcoming Morgan McSweeney’s resignation but saying more needs to be done to tackle factionalism within the party:
"It is a start, but we need to know how decisions have been made in the Labour party, including the role of Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney’s ‘kitchen cabinet’, and how this whole culture will turn away from the factionalism to an inclusive culture which seeks to listen and engage MPs and prevent future errors over policy."
And the then it provides some context for her remarks:
It has been reported that McSweeney convened a "kitchen cabinet" of like-minded Labour figures who met on Sunday evenings at the London home of Roger Liddle, a Labour peer and old friend of Mandelson.
Liddle was made a peer in 2010 and took the Labour whip. You wouldn't know it from his Wikipedia entry but he was once a leading light of the SDP.
He was an SDP member throughout its existence (1981-88) and served on its national committee. He was then a Liberal Democrats until the mi-1990s,
Liddle was a parliamentary candidate for his old parties, fighting Vauxhall in 1983, the Fulham by-election in 1986, and Hertfordshire North in 1992.
He had been a special adviser to Bill Rodgers when he was a Labour minister before the 1979 general election and left Labour with him.
But later, with the rise of New Labour, Liddle became a close associate of Peter Mandelson and rejoined the party. In the days when I was on the Lib Dem federal policy committee and had a Commons press pass, he seemed to be at every political event I attended.
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