Best Of

Why on Earth did Sir Keir say he had full confidence in Mandy yesterday? Utterly bizarre

Last Week and this week shows how wise Kemi was at PMQs. Criticism of Kemi from the left is inherently racist, little better than saying Blacks who are Conservatives are Uncle Toms.

Does the Prime Minister have confidence in Angela Rayner ? Yes, err no.
Does the Prime Minister have confidence the the Ambassador to the US ? Yes, err no.

The President of the NFU has welcomed the appointment of the new Defra Secretary as whoever she is, she cannot be worse than Steven Reed - true obviously. That shows how much Labour thinks about Housing and Local Government. How long before local government agrees with the President of the NFU, not long I guess.

Does the Prime Minister have confidence in Steven Reed ? Yes, err, you must be joking !

Mandy is a really good scalp for Kemi to have bagged.

Maybe she can yet turn it around.

Whatever you think about Mandelson and his sometimes poor judgement overall he is competent at the jobs he does, whether as Business or NI Secretary or in his most recent post as DC Ambassador. He is also ruthlessly effective as a campaigner, it was Mandelson who helped Kinnock bring back Labour from the abyss after their 1983 Foot led rout, it was Mandelson who played a key part in New Labour's landslide of 1997 and it was Mandelson who helped Brown narrow the gap in 2010 enough for a hung parliament, hence he never sacked him. Mandelson also worked behind the scenes on Starmer's 2024 win after the defeats of the Corbyn and Ed Miliband years.

He is gone for now but he may be back, as he has been before. Not as an elected politician or grand Ambassador, but as an effective behind the scenes man

What I don't get is why Mandelson was so keen to curry favour with Epstein? What was in it for him?

That’s a difficult question to speculate on without risking the descent of lawyers.

I think it's a mistake to think Epstein's pull was solely sex.

He also had money, and as the Bloomberg article that trawls through Ghislaine's emails shows, he was not shy about using it to curry favour with people who had none.

So, Bill Richardson (former NM Governor) got to use a private plane, and Bill Clinton got a $35k watch (and yes, I'm sure there were plenty of poor Republicans that got to live the high life too.)

And it's not like Mandelson doesn't have form about accepting hospitality from -say- Russian oligarchs.

‪@headfallsoff.com‬

every time there's political violence discourse i think about how jo cox was assassinated in broad daylight by a fascist who shouted "britain first" as he shot her, and now nine years later her party is dedicating every moment in power to placating the ideology of her murderer

https://bsky.app/profile/headfallsoff.com/post/3lyjfuonko223

One of the saddest things in modern UK politics is the way Jo Cox has been elevated, whilst David Amess has been relatively forgotten. Both murdered by political/religious extremists.

What an utterly stupid post. Bringing political partisanship into the disgusting murders of two MPs because of their political allegiance is ludicrous.

I know the Amess family are frustrated with both this and the previous Government but "Cox has been elevated, whilst David Amess has been relatively forgotten" is a depressing and untrue comment. I haven't forgotten either and I can tell you where I was when I heard the news about each of them.