The pound is now down 0.5% against the euro, with one pound currently worth €1.15 after Morgan McSweeney resigned yesterday. The pound also dropped 0.1% against the dollar. Meanwhile, 10-year gilts climbed to above 4.54% – up three basis points. Jane Foley, a foreign exchange strategist at Rabobank, told Bloomberg:
“The market will be very wary of UK political jitters particularly if it starts to look likely that the next PM may come from the left wing of the Labour party.”
The markets are already pricing in a new PM. The line that a change of leader would trigger a bad reaction won’t stick…
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…
Starmer’s position is not secure into the weekend. Labour MPs continue to call for him to sack his chief of staff and ‘Starmerism’ architect Morgan McSweeney over his close relationship to Mandelson and insistence that his mentor was given the ambassador job. While many Labour MPs have confined their criticisms to a barrage of anonymous quotes to Lobby hacks, a growing number are going on the record. So far the following backbenchers have called for the McIavelli’s sacking:
If McSweeney goes, Starmer’s days will be numbered…
Kemi Badenoch has offered Labour MPs to meet with Tory whips to discuss a vote of no confidence in Keir Starmer. Worth a try…
Labour has whacked up prices on multiple items across its party store over the past year, with inflation-busting hikes to the likes of stickers, rosettes, campaign posters and clipboards. These are today’s prices compared to February 2025…
“I’m Voting Labour” Sticker: £6 to £6.50
8.3% increase.
Listen, Change, Win Clipboard: £8 to £10
25% increase.
Labour Red Rosette: £2 to £3
50% increase.
Labour A2 Correx Poster: £40 to £45
12.5% increase.
They’ve added some fresh items more recently, like a “Making Work Pay” leaflet which costs a ridiculous £40. The 2024 manifesto remains at £12.50, so technically that’s lost some value. As if anyone didn’t know that already…
Starmer let Mandelson quit Labour last night rather than go through the awkward business of expelling him, following yet more revelations about the Dark Lord’s enduring friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Guido thought it useful to remind co-conspirators of just how many versions of events Mandelson has offered over the years:
“The only people that were there were the housekeepers, never were there any young women or girls, or people that he was preying on or engaging with in that sort of ghastly predatory way that we subsequently found out he was doing. Epstein was never there.”
He added “I think the issue is that because I was a gay man in his circle I was kept separate from what he was doing in the sexual side of his life.”
Mandelson may have resigned the Labour whip, but he remains a peer. Asked whether he will be removed from the Roll of the Peerage, Labour ministers have so far stonewalled – offering only that he is “currently on a leave of absence from the House of Lords” since he was appointed as US ambassador. The government would have to propose and pass a specific piece of legislation to remove his peerage. How long will Starmer let him cling on to his peerage is the next question…
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.”