A huge blow was delivered to Starmer’s struggling Chagos deal today in an inadvertent briefing to The Guardian newspaper. The story – which Guido understands emerged from Powell’s team – was intended to signal he would not replace Morgan McSweeney as Chief of Staff. Powell is so far the only Mandelson confidant to survive his master’s implosion, as McSweeney was forced to leave Downing Street in the wake of the Epstein scandal…
The newspaper reported: “Powell’s allies say his decision not to take forward discussions about the job – the same role he undertook under Tony Blair’s premiership from 1997 to 2007 – was largely motivated by an intention to return to the mediation consultancy that he set up in 2011, with little interest in returning to a job he has already done.” That was meant to be a throwaway line to distance Powell from Mandelson, but it’s problematic…
As Guido has revealed, Powell’s consultancy Inter Mediate (which he founded in 2011) – to which he has “an intention to return” according to The Guardian – has deep links to China. Powell held a series of meetings with Chinese front Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the Grandview Institution via Inter Mediate – it is not clear what if any financial relationship developed between the two. China hugely stands to benefit from the Chagos giveaway, it is in the interests of Chinese policy…
Powell has told a confusing story about the status of Inter Mediate – on occasion the organisation has maintained it is a charity, though The Guardian story repeatedly refers to it as a consultancy. During Powell’s government service as a taxpayer-paid special adviser as National Security Adviser, he has maintained his profile on the Inter Mediate website. The organisation released a triumphant statement when he was made NSA by Starmer. Sloppy accidental briefings are exactly the kind of thing that unravels, and this stench could bring down the Chagos deal with it…
Absolutely no one in the liberal media or government establishment is winning from the Sunday Times splash today: it reveals Starmerite campaign group Labour Together outrageously commissioned covert research on two of its journalists in order to undermine their coverage of the organisation. Labour Together paid £36,000 for the work from lobbying firm Acpo, which suggested reporting into Labour Together was the product of a Russian hack…
The research – commissioned by Labour Together’s then-director Josh Simons, now a minister – attacked investigative reporter Gabriel Pogrund in particular. It was basically a waste of money as no stories actually emerged from the work – but its ethical status is deeply dubious. Labour Together is the brainchild of now exiled former No10 chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, whose ‘dark arts’ tactics are now being dumped on hard by surviving advisers in Downing Street. This dispute is putting rocket fuel on factional Labour politics…
The Sunday Times reports of the dossier: “It was prepared by Tom Harper, Apco’s senior director and a former Sunday Times employee.” It goes on:
“Harper wrote that he had examined the “sourcing, funding and origins of The Sunday Times story” using documents and “discreet human source enquiries”… quoting a supposed Sunday Times source who alleged there was an “odd” mismatch between Pogrund’s faith and what they falsely described as his political and ideological position.”
This sorry tale of media and political skulduggery is complicated by the fact that Harper’s wife is the Sunday Times’s current political editor. Multiple levels of Westminster are losing their minds over this village infighting story, which means little to the public…
Whenever Starmer addresses hacks he goes on in exalted terms about how important the profession is and the deep degree to which it should be protected – despite the fact that he pioneered the unsuccessful prosecution of journalists as DPP. This episode reveals the relentlessly insidery nature of elite Labour politics and journalism – much worse than that on the right. As the country burns, the Labour media and political elite are disappearing up their own…
Speaking on the Labour chaos over the last few weeks, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told The Guardian:
“You call it a sh*tshow, I say it’s unforgivable…It does look to people outside that we’re more interested in ourselves and less interested in preventing chaos. […] We’ve not done enough, and this has got to be the moment of reckoning where we say not just what are we here for, but who are we here for?”