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
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.
ReplyDeleteOccasionally 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
What have Jim and Sir Humphrey to say.....
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtPGMlFIBLg&embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Forphansofliberty.blogspot.com%2F
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.
ReplyDeleteHe 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" ?
ReplyDeleteHow about Brown's outburst. Good bit of radio!!!!
ReplyDeleteThe thought occurs that Dimon and JPM Chase are the next port of call for Plod.
ReplyDeleteThat 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.
ReplyDeleteI 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?
ReplyDeleteMisdirection? 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.
ReplyDeleteHis 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.
ReplyDeleteIt 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.
DeleteAll 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.
ReplyDeleteOT - 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.
ReplyDeleteAn 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.