Mandelson is no longer on police bail. The Met:
“A 72-year-old man arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office has been released under investigation. The investigation remains ongoing.”
That means they don’t think he’s a flight risk any more since arresting him after a tip off from Hoyle on Monday. There is no fixed date for his return to the police station…
Just announced by the government. Ofgem CEO Jonathan Brearley is on excellent terms with Miliband – they are friends from the last Labour government…
The move will embolden Miliband in his clean energy disaster run. It now also ruins the Ofgem review, whose aim is to “revisiting the role of the regulator to ensure that it can support an energy market where innovation and high standards help drive better products and services for consumers, giving them more options to make choices more suitable for their circumstances.“ The review is run by DESNZ, which will now be headed up by the man who ran Ofgem since 2021…
Bearley is not rated by everyone in government, either. A DESNZ source said: “It was his f**k up in not investing in stuff that has made bills go up.” Fail upwards…
Starmer’s latest TikTok somehow attempts to turn his legalistic inaction on Iran into hard military edit. It doesn’t work…
The PM uses the video to claim: “long before the US and Israeli action last weekend, we had already deployed additional military capability to the region.” The inaction is clearly a sore point…
Even more bizarrely the shots of Wildcat helicopters and other armed forces with Starmer’s voice overlaid are accompanied by the intro to Money for Nothing by Dire Straits. At the Lobby briefing of political journalists Starmer’s spokesman was unable to say if the PM approved the choice of track, saying “the PM’s position on defence spending has been set out very clearly” and he wouldn’t “get into internal processes.” That ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it…
Entries in the comments…
The House of Commons standards committee has recommended redacting the Register of Interests of Members’ Staff, which lists who MPs have on the payroll and to whom they are granting permanent access to the parliamentary estate via a pass.
After staff unions complained about “safety” the committee has recommended “redacting the names of all MPs’ staff and replacing them with their job titles, as well as removing from the register anyone who has no financial interests to declare.” Rendering it useless…
GMB has claimed credit:
Starmer promised a “transparency revolution” when he entered government. Pointless…
It isn’t. In other news Lammy is soon to be part of geopolitics club at his local school for some extra learning…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”
