So what to make of the latest state of play over Mandy?
I'd say it's really clear: Team Starmer is utterly determined to tough this out, and they reckon they can do it: their man is no conscience-stricken wimp, likely to flake on them one fine morning. Grim determination is no guarantee of success, of course: but (a) it is at least a necessary condition of success; and (b) these are scheming, desperate people with a lot of levers available to them.
> the way things developed in Parliament on Wednesday shows that Team S's going-in point was to resist document disclosure, period. They were thwarted procedurally by the unholy alliance of Badenoch + Rayner, but we know what is plainly their aim: not to release docs.
> they are 'framing' like crazy to the media, and it still largely gets swallowed whole. As well as "It's all about Mandelson's lies - to my staff (not me, of course)" and "I wanted to release the docs yesterday" (see previous post), we read:
- "There will be no leadership challenge, because ... [Rayner = tax dodger, still under investigation // Burnham = disqualified // Streeting = Mandelson-best-buddy // etc]."
- "PC Plod has a serious point about not prejudicing their investigation / potential charges being brought."
- "So-oo many docs - this is going to take months and months."
Etc etc. Yup, they are going for that oldest, most intellectually dismal, most sordidly shameless tactic of all: playing for time - and it's often successful. Let me give you a recent parallel: a case I have been reading up lately from my own patch (energy). A big corporate - Drax plc - had a run-in with an employee-whistleblower whom Drax fired, and who brought an employment case, early in March last year. Halfway through the unusually lengthy Employment Tribunal, they settled: by all accounts it amounted to a capitulation by Drax. Meejah organisations sought release of the court documents - which, had the case continued, they'd have had access to, it was a public hearing. Drax has stonewalled for nearly eleven months, only finally releasing the docs under a court order at the end of Jan. And even now, the docs are (a) not the complete set, and (b) in some cases, heavily redacted (on the usual grounds: "commercial sensitivity / privacy / yadder yadder"). In which time Drax has managed to secure 4 more years of juicy new subsidy, and a 40% increase in its share price, from which many execs will benefit materially, in cash.
If a corporation can behave like that, how much more easily can HMG, with all the resources of the State and the added killer pretext of "national security" (see below)? My prediction: we ain't gonna get anything much before those May elections - and we'll never get anything they truly don't want us to see.
Which brings us to La Toynbee, whose general run of risible Guardian offerings is occasionally but reliably punctuated with something half-worthwhile. Here's her latest. You need to look past the usual fatuous fawning - the idea that Starmer is "a decent PM" (she once idolised Gordon Brown, too - and Tony Blair before him) to get to the blunt & forthright expression of utter disgust at the "send-him-to-the-Tower treachery and treason". And here's a little nugget (my emphasis):
... he gave a wretched display of it in the Commons with a fatal attempt to hold back some vital documents on Mandelson’s vetting and appointment. Never mind that it was for sincere security reasons – mainly fear of what abuse of the US president the papers might contain – Starmer failed to measure the ferocity of the storm on his own benches
That Trump angle - another subtle bit of Team Starmer framing? Well, maybe: but it's a neat idea I hadn't seen aired elsewhere.
My prediction stands: many months of Strategic Starmer Stonewalling to come. Don't change your New Year predictions for 'name of PM on 24.12.2026' just yet awhile. Meantime - more popcorn!
ND
UPDATE: her Gruaniad colleague Aditya Chakrabortty slaps down La Toynbee's characterisation of Starmer as a 'decent PM'.
The refrain that Starmer is a “decent” man does not fit his record of deceiving his way to the top of the Labour party, sitting on his hands during the massacre in Gaza or clamping down on protest against it.
Oh, those feuding Graun writers !
35 comments:
Who cares? Pulling in the Plod is SOP - delay/concealment as you say. Same with Drax. Government is a dirty business and has nothing to do with logic. The cost? Merely shifting money from one government pocket to another. Opportunity cost? Not interested in better uses for taxpayer's money or time. And TBH Rayner or Badenoch would be just as useless and the markets are a bit jittery. Steady as she goes.
Occasionally I fork out on Private Eye, some amusement but also depression, so many examples of new and ongoing examples of uselessness, corruption and malfeasance with no hope of anything ever being cleaned up.
I brief
You leak
He breaches Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act.
Yes Minister
Herr Starmer has no morals. He could be caught live shagging a five year old and he would not resign because it is unrelated to his job, which he thinks he is doing so well in.
He will need to be removed by force although the party hardly has anyone who could really lead.
It's true that the Mandelson appointment process perhaps contains some abuse of Trump - and simultaneously of Mandy. How about "we need someone with experience of handling a fractious five year old" ?
How about Brown's outburst. Good bit of radio!!!!
The thought occurs that Dimon and JPM Chase are the next port of call for Plod.
That could get interesting.
Watched the opening of the Limpics. Very elegant and stylish as you would expect. Only quibble, some of the speakers needed The Hook. TLDL.
I see an Englishman wee'd a comment on ICE in the snow. He must have had a good bladder and plenty of beer. A silver medal already.
I write this tripe on Notebook and it behaves slightly differently recently. Could I have got the new version that phones home? They're welcome.
If all these Labour types care so much about someone having consorted with a criminal who abused some small number of American girls years ago, why are they indifferent to the tens of thousands of British girls abused by Pakistani gangs in the recent past and, I assume, continuing into the present?
Misdirection? What are they trying to hide?
At this point it looks to be delaying the inevitable. Like a boring version of the start of the first Indiana Jones, he's trying to dodge all these traps, and at the end, it's still going to be taken from him.
His next arrows-from-walls moment is the by-election, if he survives that, the giant rolling stone ball of the May elections awaits.
He has been very fortunate, Big Ange is having to navigate the HMRC before she can challenge, Streeting too close to Mandy, and Burnham blocked - for now.
He spent years savaging Boris for doing much the same as he is doing now - a sign on his desk, "The Buck Stops Anywhere But Here" - but without the saving grace of having enough charm, or the jovial public profile, to get away with it as long.
Given how much he detests Johnson, it must grate that he's turned into the putty-faced, soul-of-a-traffic-warden equivalent.
He might survive 2026 due to each faction of the Labour Party wanting to ensure no other faction gets their choice in, and sacrificing McSweeney and Reeves, but his chessboard is decidedly light on pieces already.
He's a dead man walking, he can survive, but not govern, and as that sinks in as the next election inches closer, someone will make a move, out of desperation if nothing else.
I guess while there's life there's hope. But all the upcoming "events, dear boy, events" are likely to be unpleasant ones.
It would be funny to watch Labour contortions if say a Trump-backed oil firm found a YUGE deposit of oil and/or gas in UK waters, but I think that's pretty unlikely.
There's the geology, L shaped, running down from Lancs, across the south east, then under the Channel into Belgium/the Netherlands.
All kicked off in Balcombe about 10 years ago.
Only been known about since the '30s.
There is YUGE amounts of oil & gas in the North Sea. Have a look at the graph here https://youtu.be/UuWTrpQFYUE?si=vF2pmeyWZeHzjnPV&t=513 which shows the decline of UK production versus Norwegian. The reason for the difference, the total disregard for the energy security of the UK by successive governments. Outcome, the most expensive energy in the world with taxpayer cash being spunked on industry to subsidise the energy bills that the same idiot politicians caused.
What have Jim and Sir Humphrey to say.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtPGMlFIBLg&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Forphansofliberty.blogspot.com%2F
OT - I see Musk has now removed Russia's ability to use third party Starlink, which has gone down badly as it's hobbled them quite a lot, to the point their Poundland Piers Morgans are wanting to nuke space.
An interesting counterfactual is if this had happened some time earlier.
As to why now, there are those who claim it has only recently become doable, whilst others note that there's a big IPO on the horizon and investors might not have been so eager otherwise.
No idea which, but Russia now wants its own Starlink, best of luck with that.
If Starmer stalls on releasing the documents then maybe some public spirited individual should gather all of the publicly available documents that Starmer should have known about into a MandelWiki. Access to servers out of reach of the High Court and the acquaintance of a top notch libel KC would be an advantage. A gallery of himself with array of dodgy characters would be an amusing supplement.
McSweeney gone
That's one sacrifice down, and will probably provide cover for the by-election too.
Reeves to go in May, with Miliband in? He's all out of sacrificial lambs then, and he and Mili can make the perfect plasticine pair. The Morph and Chas of politics! Oh my, what a time to be alive.
The King's sidekick is dead, long live the King's sidekick (TBD).
All very tiresome, the usual outlets bang on about how useless Starmer is. Water off a duck's back, Starmer's crew play the same music. All low grade employment for hacks to keep the political plates spinning and supporters on-side. The dead-tree press, the websites, the blogs, all part of a ritual paid for by the polly funders (and us taxpayers). Important to keep the music playing and the drum majorettes ra ra ing, otherwise we might think. If we start to think it is all an expensive waste of time - game over. Don't let them think - ever.
Chip chip chip away at the marble edifice that is the party in power. Makes something to do, a makework scheme for the news industry. But Starmer is not going to fall, we can put up with his ugly mug for a good while longer. Maybe in a year or so the party commanders will front up another face. Depends what the computer says.
I see Starmer's intervention on "Brit" Jimmy Lai was successful - they reduced his sentence to only 20 years!
"Ooh, UK bond prices just fell a little more, as news broke that Keir Starmer’s director of communications Tim Allan has resigned."
"Today MPs will debate Russian interference in our politics and democracy."
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4098082/Astonishing-undercover-video-captures-diplomat-conspiring-rival-MP-s-aide-smear-Deputy-Foreign-Secretary.html
That Russia thing is, I'm fairly sure, a dead-cat distraction ploy from the bunker.
OMG, look over there, the Russians are interfering in our politics!! (We need 2TK and his Strong Government to save us!)
A bit like arguments in academe, so vicious because they matter so little.
Some Security Committee is making a fuss over the Mandy appointment. Nobody has ever cared about this committee before so why are they making trouble. On the lines of s'not fair, that's our job.
All this fuss about Andrew allegedly slipping info to Epstein. A while ago while Andrew was Golden Boy and untouchable. I'm sure HMG knew but - untouchable, hardly worth dragging up - unless Andrew can be rehoused in The Tower. Not worth the lawyer's fees.
Then why would the Scots get involved? The only effect is summer holidays for all us chavs will cost more. Surely even the Scots don't want Badenoch in the chair. Starmer, though dire, is better than the other offerings.
So vicious because it matters so little.
"Anas Sarwar says his first loyalty is to Scotland"
He mis-spelled Anas Sarwar.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/feb/09/eu-urged-not-roll-back-green-agenda-revive-faltering-economy
"The EU economy has been under pressure over the last year amid Donald Trump’s US tariff trade war."
Nothing at all to do with losing their cheap energy, so there!
They cured cancer last week.
I read about it.
Cancer IS cured.
Or it will be. Just as soon as Labour adding some funding for some DNA/A.I. Megacomputer time research bears fruit in the form of a miracle drug. It will be.
So..cured cancer! Well done TTK.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/feb/08/british-steel-scunthorpe-future-unclear-uk-government-jingye-options
Apparently electric scrap-melting furnaces are "more efficient". Doesn't that depend on the price of electricity?
"In 1970, the country produced 28m tonnes of steel. That fell to 4m tonnes in 2024, and to only 2.5m tonnes last year – the lowest output since the reign of Queen Victoria."
No pits, no steel, no tinplate - no wonder Welsh rugby is in a state. China produced a billion tons last year, nearly all made with coking coal in blast furnaces. We're doomed !
I have my doubts the ISC will illuminate Parliament or the public very much. A sort of constitutional long grass.
I thought the whole idea of Intelligence and Security was to say very little - and that misleading.
Looking more widely we are disappointed in Starmer. We also know Badenoch would do no better. We can see our Parliament employing armies of lawyers and skilled bureaucrats - to lie to us. Which would not be so bad if lots of useful productive things were being done to compensate - but no, useful is not allowed or more cheaply done elsewhere.
I see elsewhere that AI is now expert at doing a snow-job on the politicians, academe, job hunters and employers and the regulators. AI enabled lawyers are creating a huge expensive ecosystem of AI generated claims and counter claims and appeals. Those poor souls who are supposed to sort the wheat from the chaff are utterly overwhelmed or soon will be. The black hats are winning. We are up to our necks in dross (or worse).
Jim - I well believe that, having seem some quite astonishing AI-generated legal assessments of relatively complex situations. They may not be as good as the work of a KC - but quite good enough to require a response and get the shakedown on the road for a shonky solicitor (of which, let's face it, there are many).
Perhaps the most frightening product of AI I've seen.
Been pondering on initials DPP
Disgusting Political Prat ?
Dozy Party Pooper?
Surely theses can be bettered by this collection of academics?
Try Looking up McSweeney family and money from Irish Government on AI.
Re the Guardian feud, didn't Starmer say it was all good cutting off electricity and water to Gaza?
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/5HQYfsUAf3s
"A siege is appropriate, cutting off power, cutting off water Sir Kier?"
"I think that Israel does have that right ..."
Anon, yes indeed, he famously did. And it was the official Labour line for several days, not just a slip he quickly corrected. Emily Thornberry, for example, went on to give a lawyerly exposition of the point. Only later did he mendaciously claim to have corrected it straight away. (We've written about this before - http://www.cityunslicker.co.uk/2024/05/starmer-and-his-shameless-way-with-words.html )
To be fair General Shea of NATO said the same thing about cutting off power and water to Serbia. Words to the effect of "they can have power back if they accept our five points".
Dear Blogger, a typo seems to have crept in to your allusion to "those effing Graun writers".
'It's the same the 'ole world over, aint it a bleedin shame...'
Recent events have revealed for all to see just how rotten and money grubbing and power grasping the upper reaches of society are. The police and security services grubbing around in the muck protecting and covering up. They have to, their jobs depend on covering up. 'Nuf to make a chap Socialist. Sex, money and power, that's what makes the world go round.
In other news I see Mr Trump has got Cuba on its knees. So what does he do now? Made quite pleasant holidays and cigars and rum, not likely to become a missile base, useful source of cheap labour, so why bother mucking it up. Pulling wings off butterflies was more useful.
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