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The large Labour Party society LGBT Labour has removed all of its House of Lords ‘patrons’ from its website. Presumably because one of them is Peter Mandelson…
This is what the section used to look like:
That entire section is now gone from the website. A great purge is taking place in Labour, from front to back…
Angela Rayner will be the headline guest speaker at Mainstream’s spring reception next month, with MPs, hacks and “friends from civil society and across the labour movement” invited to a central Westminster location (TBC) to discuss “[building] principled, practical and popular Labour politics for the country”. Mainstream was founded last September by Compass group and Open Labour, with the support of Andy Burnham just as he prepared to dump on Starmer at party conference. Its mission is to prevent Labour’s “clear drift to the right” under Starmer…
Rayner is rallying the troops against Starmer in broad daylight. If he’s even still in situ by the time she speaks…
New figures out from the ONS show public sector productivity is flatlining under Labour after failing to recover from Covid:
- “Our latest annualised estimates of total public service productivity in the UK show growth of 0.8% in 2023, revised down from 0.9%, and 0.0% in 2024, revised down from 0.3%.
- Total public service productivity was 3.4% lower in 2024 than the 2019 level (compared with 3.0% lower, as previously published).
- Healthcare public service productivity was 7.9% lower in 2024 than the 2019 level (compared with 7.8% lower, as previously published).”
The public sector is now as large as it has ever been. Labour continues stealing from the productive private sector to hand out cash to unproductive public sector workers. Death spiral…
It’s been nearly a week since Starmer posted to TikTok. Before the Mandelson debacle engulfed his premiership over the weekend, the Prime Minister-turned-influencer was sharing glossy montages of his foreign jollys and awkward memes more or less every day. Sometimes twice a day.
Now he’s on the brink of total meltdown, things are a bit quieter. It would be a real tonal mismatch to apologise to Epstein’s victims while ‘NOW OR NEVER’ by TKandz & CXSPER plays underneath (don’t worry, Starmer has never heard of that song either). Guido misses the content. Keir, come back…
UPDATE: Starmer finally returns after ten days in hiding. He’s back…
Co-conspirators will have noticed Starmer and his ministers beginning to direct blame onto the officials responsible for vetting Mandelson. Shameless…
This is a deliberate strategy. Guido hears after this week’s crisis meetings senior Downing Street are attempting to target FCDO permanent secretary Olly Robbins for signing off on Mandelson’s appointment despite there being doubtful material in the vetting. The argument will be that it was a decision for him and not the PM. Which is complete b*******…
Guido hears Downing Street’s strategic masterminds are also looking for a way to put blame on the then head of the Propriety and Ethics team Darren Tierney. This is more difficult – a government source says “the diligence note made clear what was known at the time and it was Keir’s judgement…” Whether this wheeze will be swallowed by furious Labour MPs into the weekend is unclear…
Those familiar with Mandelson’s appointment process will remember that Morgan McSweeney went out of his way to push it through the blob – putting hours into meetings with the PET team and FCDO to get his mentor through the door. The people Morgan tried to sideline are now to be blamed…
There was a time not long ago when Starmer boasted about ‘carrying the can’ in any organisation that he leads. He said of his time with his staff as DPP: “When they made mistakes, I carried the can. I never turn on my staff and you should never turn on your staff… I will carry the can for mistakes of any organisation I lead.” Can anyone remember if his nose grew to the size of the Golden Gate Bridge when he said that…
Speaking at his speech on how to achieve “progressive capitalism” Wes Streeting fired a dig and Andy Burnham:
“Bond markets are not bond villains and fiscal rules matter.”
