Best Of

FPT to Turbotubbs.....

If I was the suspicious type I might have thought Starmer himself was the lawyer who gave Ange the advice! This has worked out perfectly for him. He's got a shiny new team none of whom eat peas with their knife. From a government POV this couldn't have worked out better. Angie was never up to the job and despite protestations Starmer's much more comfortable without that particular loose cannon swinging around Downing Street.....

....No the story is about Ange herself and the snobbery that brought her down. The Telegraph and Mail have been campaigning against her for months. Pure snobbery. Someone on here yesterday called her 'Gobby'. I'm afraid that's what females from her background who are climbing the ladder are having to put up with.It is so depressing.... Just another scalp for some double barrelled nobody at the Telegraph

If Labour and its supporters tell themselves that "snobbery that brought her down" then they're screwed. Rayner did something minorly wrong, but for a value that is eye-watering for many voters. She denied wrongdoing, and then tried to blame others. She was in denial. All MPs (of all parties, not just Labour) need to learn lessons from this. Many are too thick, or greedy, or self-important, to do so.

The government's media management, and management of its MPs, is awful. They need to fix this. They need to develop a few simple messages and deliver them effectively. Since Starmer is incapable of the messaging, they need someone else. Lammy isn't it.

I don't think Rayner did deny wrongdoing. She fessed up, and wanted to pay the £40k. And she promptly and quite graciously accepted the findings of the Independent Adviser, falling on her sword immediately and admitting she'd been negligent.

Rayner was naive and did not do this deliberately

Her problem was she didn't address it immediately and then blamed her solicitors and of course her own track record of condemning this type of behaviour

However, I think her supporters need to wonder who was leaking information not just to the Telegraph and Mail but also the Guardian

The initial leak of the Hove purchase was possibly a tip-off from an estate agent or member of the public, possibly via a reporter on the Hove Gazette (a fictional construct) because it has always been true that a local reporter with a juicy story's first thought is not hold the front page but is this my ticket into Fleet Street?

Once the fact of the Hove purchase is out, it immediately raises the question for any political hack, why is a northern MP who works in London buying in Hove? And from then it is either a hot gossip item because of her links to Sam Tarry who is based down there, or a political story because it hints at a chicken run.

So from the purchase all the way through to the reporting, this is not about separate conspiracies but a series of accidents forming a Greek tragedy.

Her choice of Hove is interesting. A world away from her drab origins in a Manchester slum to go to a rainbow flagged city that is perhaps the most socially liberal in the country. Her appearances on the Dance DJ and Pride events is not fake PR, she actually likes that stuff.

I suspect that there will be even more copying Farage and Trump by the Starmer team now that an important voice on Culture War issues has been relegated to the back benches.

Now we should ask the media to check if Ed Milliband has any dodgy housing issues.

Was Ed the one with two kitchens or was that David? I can't be bothered to check but according to TRiP, Ed Miliband was one of those who came out of the expenses scandal as squeaky-clean.

Ed had the two kitchens and yes he didn't do anything out of the ordinary with his expenses.

I always assumed the ”Two kitchens” thing was just coded anti-semitism. The endless reprinting of the picture of him eating a bacon sandwich likewise. Yes, it could be read as simply talking about a politicians property ownership, or a funny picture of them eating, but the underlying point was to remind readers that the Millibands were Jewish without saying so in a way that could be called out.

You may, obviously, think that I’m being wildly conspiratorial here, but given the Mail’s & other right wing press history I think it was probably deliberate in that alt-right edgy “look how easily triggered you are by my nodding & winking to anti-semitic tropes without actually saying them” kind of way.

Actually it was 3 kitchens.

They had a mini-kitchen off the lounge upstairs for refreshments-whilst-lounging.

And there was an extra one in the basement, because iirc they had reincorporated a previously separate flat into the main house.

To frame it in PB-speak:

When you're explaining that your second kitchen is not really a kitchen, you're losing #EdsUneasyDiner
— Jonathan Freedland (@Freedland) March 12, 2015
https://x.com/Freedland/status/576109733884649472?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

EdM knows what it's like not to know where your next meal is coming from.
— John Rentoul (@JohnRentoul) March 12, 2015
https://x.com/JohnRentoul/status/576089772021690368?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

I really think papers should spend more time writing about MPs with second jobs rather than second hobs!
— David Prescott (@DavidPrescott) March 12, 2015
https://x.com/DavidPrescott/status/576083880312209408?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

Sky

France's prime minister has failed in a last-minute bid to save his job, with the country's National Assembly ousting him in a confidence vote.

Francois Bayrou - who entered office just nine months ago - is required to submit the resignation of his minority government after losing Monday afternoon's vote.

Also from the BBC

French Prime Minister François Bayrou has lost the vote of confidence he called in his government.

France's National Assembly has voted by 364 votes to 194 to eject him from office and bring down his minority government. Another 25 MPs abstained.

Macron will almost certainly now have to appoint a new PM from the left given the Left block has most seats in the National Assembly and keeps rejecting spending cuts. Which likely means higher taxes, especially on the wealthy and higher earners, rather than the spending cuts Bayrou and Barnier had proposed

It’s a mess. Even if the left try to govern, LFI and the socialists don’t get on, to say the least, and it’s hard to see a coalition with the centrists being an easy one.

It appears the most likely outcome is Macron trying to appoint a new government. But I really can’t see how this doesn’t end in new elections at some point.

There SHOULD be new Presidential elections, as Macron is clearly many years past his sell-by date and utterly discredited. Just as Starmer only got in because people wanted to punish the Conservatives, Macron only won his second term because Le Pen was still considered beyond the pale by enough Frogs.

But of course that particular turkey would never vote for Christmas.

So he'll try to appoint another government which will solve nothing in the vain attempt to stave off new legislative elections, which will solve nothing.

Putin is probably exhibit #1 against Presidential systems, and Trump may be #2, but Macron is catching up fast as #3.

The French constitution has always had a rather odd hybrid presidential/parliamentary system that was always open to this sort of messy impasse where nobody can really govern but nobody but the President can resolve the situation. After the last bit of (nowhere near as messy) cohabitation, they’d really tried to fix it ever arising by timing legislative elections straight after the presidential elections (because why wouldnt you give the president a mandate after you’ve literally just voted for him) but that worked - until it didnt and Macron didn’t get a majority. And then Macron’s curious decision to dissolve parliament mid term made matters worse to the power of 1000.

New Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood first interview
- rules out running for deputy leader
- says UK will suspend visas for counties that don’t do return deals
- spells out long standing support for ID cards
- says will go further than Yvette Copper on boats
- styles herself the “whatever it takes” Home Secretary

https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/1965006144427966678

Supporting ID cards is no good.

Why don't you like ID cards - we've covered this a lot in the past and it solves a lot of problems that we have with migration - as it would allow people to confirm they can work and live in the UK...

I do find it very strange that the people who dislike ID cards the most also seem to dislike migrants illegally working but can't work out why they are able to work illegally.

ID cards does Jack Shit to stop illegal working.

Requiring proof of right to work in the UK has been the law for the past twenty years.

Cash in hand criminal employers are why people are able to work illegally and ID cards don't answer that.

So what questions do they actually answer or will this be like other stuff, like money laundering regs, something that causes hassle for normal people and the crims get around it ?

Gives more power to the authoritarian state, does nothing for the public.

Anyone hiring anyone illegally can be prosecuted under existing laws, there's literally nothing new that ID cards would help with there.