An author selling out his own neighbourhood for ££."
+++
Yes, quite disgraceful, and such hackneyed prose
"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of having his mobile phone stolen"
Is this meant to be wit?
I guess my stalker will be satisfied, seeing as the column has generated 500+ comments, was on the front page all day, and is one of the most read articles of the week, despite being but 600 words long, but frankly I'd be ashamed of churning out this bilge
And yet I live in London and see nothing of this apparently pervasive sense of decline and disorder. How odd!
It's an elephant-on-a-toadstool article, with about 2 or 3 bits of anecdata and world-shaking conclusions.
I think it's just what happens when the writer is prematurely 86.
I would say that London is untidy, expensive and with low crime relative to many big cities round the world. With lots and lots of public transport.
If like rural Dutch towns (of a certain type) with polished cobblestones, and every shop front polished and freshly painted, it’s not for you. Note that such places are usually very empty.
I've lived in London most of my life and it's a great city. It was when I got here and is even more so now. The Right's continual smearing of it as a rathole is political not factual. If you're pushing a parochial nativist vision for the country the last thing you want is for its capital city, encapsulating a very different vision, to be viewed positively.
You did, however, get there, what, 40 years ago, when it was possible to buy a house. My objection to London is not that it is crime ridden or full of foreigners, but that, even with my middle class job and assets which enable me to live in one of the nicer suburbs of one of the UK's more expensive cities, if I lived in London, I couldn't afford to live somewhere which wasn't depressing. There is much about London which is amazing, true, but like most people I spend most of my non-working time in my home suburb, and if my home suburb was dreary, the fact that it was attached to one of the most remarkable cities in the world wouldn't be of much comfort. Also, you're tucked away in the far corner of the country away from most of the most attractive bits of the UK.
So when I make my list of 'given the resources I have, where in the UK might I choose to live', London ranks quite low.
It's important to remember that the entire thing is manipulated, in order to protect Trump and distract attention from him, by the corrupted DoJ and other departments.
For example extra prominence given to Bill Clinton, redaction of "Trump", and other tactics.
Over 460 Epstein Files on Trump Removed - Yes, THAT ONE TOO
On Jan 30th, there were 5,361 files when you searched for Trump. Today, February 2nd, 4,896 files remain.
My guess is that we won’t get American justice and transparency on Epstein until Trump is gone and maybe dead - so about 3-5 years
By then most of the implicated men will be very old and quite powerless and a new generation will tell the truth. Whether it is Dems or GOP hardly matters
But the truth will come out. Just not now while the old guys have just enough power, still, to redact and refuse
I think it is quite likely that a new generation will be doing exactly the same things.
Consider that the ideology of the Hegseths and the Millers promotes women as being consumables. Those are values that facilitate abuse.
I disagree strongly. Not because humans have become nicer and billionaires have stopped being kinky and hedonistic but because I don’t think an Epstein could get away with it now. Stuff would leak on social media very quickly
It might happen in a truly closed society like China or Iran but even there I wonder
What we're finding out from the Epstein files is just how normal this sort of behaviour is - the sexual abuse is just one part of people in the elite doing each other favours in secret. With respect to Mandelson, in the old pre-social media days we found out about his dodgy mortgage and the Hinduja passports, but clearly there was similar stuff happening on a frequent basis.
I really don't think things would necessarily leak. I'm sure there are all sorts of derogatory accusations being made on social media about people in the elite all the time, but most of them are ignored because there's no evidence. I think it's quite hard to leak evidence without it then getting back to you, the leaker, and then there's all the legal power these people can bring to bear on you. I think fear of what people in the elite might do to you in revenge will keep a lot of people who know what is going on silent, and many of the rest will have normalised themselves to it.
I think again of the Pelicot trial, and the number of people who knew what was happening, but said nothing, and it was only discovered as a result of a search following an upskirting offence. Lots of people will know and they will say nothing. And most likely anyone who says anything will not be believed.
In at least one email forwarded to Epstein, an email address for “John Pond” was in copy. The Guardian – its own extensive support for Mandelson over the years is notable – reports it “understands was the code name used by advisers when forwarding to Brown’s secure email account.” Code name, what?
This doesn’t make sense. Brown was the first PM who used email extensively for his ‘email red box’ – and he was directly emailed notes from his team all the time. His senior officials and advisers all had his official email address…
Multiple former officials have confirmed to Guido that the use of code words under the Brown government like “John Pond” was a tactic to avoid freedom of information laws. Substituting real names like “Gordon Brown” with code names put any document out of the scope of freedom of information requests. One official recalls it was “common practice in the Cabinet”. Blair had introduced FOI.
The same did occur to me, why did the PM have a separate secret email account under a nom de guerre.
I seemed to remember during cash for honours scandal there was all the talk of a private email server etc to keep stuff off the record.
These are the same people who will tell the public, in relation to an ID cards database, that if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. So why were they so anxious to hide things from us, the public? What do they have to fear?
The stink that is emanating from the elite resembles that from the most crowded pig shed.
And there Farage is, poised to give the British public the chance to jump from the frying pan down to the inferno in the pits of hell.
What a fecking mess.
It is all brilliant news for Farage, who never had dealings with Epstein.
Prominent Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul has been relieved of her work duties as ambassador by the government after revelations of ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
In at least one email forwarded to Epstein, an email address for “John Pond” was in copy. The Guardian – its own extensive support for Mandelson over the years is notable – reports it “understands was the code name used by advisers when forwarding to Brown’s secure email account.” Code name, what?
This doesn’t make sense. Brown was the first PM who used email extensively for his ‘email red box’ – and he was directly emailed notes from his team all the time. His senior officials and advisers all had his official email address…
Multiple former officials have confirmed to Guido that the use of code words under the Brown government like “John Pond” was a tactic to avoid freedom of information laws. Substituting real names like “Gordon Brown” with code names put any document out of the scope of freedom of information requests. One official recalls it was “common practice in the Cabinet”. Blair had introduced FOI.
The same did occur to me, why did the PM have a separate secret email account under a nom de guerre.
I seemed to remember during cash for honours scandal there was all the talk of a private email server etc to keep stuff off the record.
These are the same people who will tell the public, in relation to an ID cards database, that if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. So why were they so anxious to hide things from us, the public? What do they have to fear?
The stink that is emanating from the elite resembles that from the most crowded pig shed.
And there Farage is, poised to give the British public the chance to jump from the frying pan down to the inferno in the pits of hell.
What a fecking mess.
That is a disgusting remark.
Pigs are very clean animals, actually.
Pigs might be clean, but pig shit stinks, particularly pig shit from pigs kept in cramped stressful conditions. It was our number one criterion for choosing the location of our house - not near a pig farm.
Thanks @Cyclefree again and what a depressing header and thread
The story goes deeper into the sewer with unimaginable behaviour and depravity
I agree with Ed Davey that this must be investigated by a Public Enquiry
You and Ed Davey want an inquiry that will drag on for years, not report till almost everyone is dead, and those who aren't have forgotten the question? You can see why Ed Davey might have wanted that for the Post Office scandal where he was peripherally involved as a minister who forgot to ask any questions, but surely you, a distinguished PBer, are not tied up with Epstein! The Covid inquiry rumbles on too. Still, even that is an improvement over what used to happen, as when the Franks inquiry whitewashed the Falklands, or the inquiry into why the Dickens dossier on paedophiles in high places (surely not!) was lost inside the Home Office, set up by Theresa May, concluded it could find no evidence because it had all been lost inside the Home Office.
So no.
Mandelson can be impeached. It hasn't been used since 1806 (in a similar case (relating to a previous period as Treasurer of the Navy, Dundas wasn't a minister at the time of the prosecution) but there is no reason why it can't.
One thing the British State has been very good at in recent years is creating all sorts of new labyrinthine solutions to problems that could be fixed perfectly well by dusting off historical precedents and mechanisms and statutes that have been around for centuries.
I assume that the reason it doesn’t is because it fears such matters can now be challenged in the courts, which is another reason to rebalance their role in our democracy.
Well, it's simple. If a prosecution fails, then you introduce new legislation.
Shamima Begum could have been tried under the Treason Act, she was clearly adhering to the Queen's enemies, at home or (in fact, and) abroad.
Let her face Syrian justice
The real question about Shemima Begum is how three schoolgirls travelled to a known Islamist recruiting zone without the secret squirrels noticing.
In at least one email forwarded to Epstein, an email address for “John Pond” was in copy. The Guardian – its own extensive support for Mandelson over the years is notable – reports it “understands was the code name used by advisers when forwarding to Brown’s secure email account.” Code name, what?
This doesn’t make sense. Brown was the first PM who used email extensively for his ‘email red box’ – and he was directly emailed notes from his team all the time. His senior officials and advisers all had his official email address…
Multiple former officials have confirmed to Guido that the use of code words under the Brown government like “John Pond” was a tactic to avoid freedom of information laws. Substituting real names like “Gordon Brown” with code names put any document out of the scope of freedom of information requests. One official recalls it was “common practice in the Cabinet”. Blair had introduced FOI.
The same did occur to me, why did the PM have a separate secret email account under a nom de guerre.
I seemed to remember during cash for honours scandal there was all the talk of a private email server etc to keep stuff off the record.
These are the same people who will tell the public, in relation to an ID cards database, that if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. So why were they so anxious to hide things from us, the public? What do they have to fear?
The stink that is emanating from the elite resembles that from the most crowded pig shed.
And there Farage is, poised to give the British public the chance to jump from the frying pan down to the inferno in the pits of hell.
What a fecking mess.
That is a disgusting remark.
Pigs are very clean animals, actually.
Pigs might be clean, but pig shit stinks, particularly pig shit from pigs kept in cramped stressful conditions. It was our number one criterion for choosing the location of our house - not near a pig farm.
These days two blokes smoking skunk in a van parked outside your house will provide the same experience.
In at least one email forwarded to Epstein, an email address for “John Pond” was in copy. The Guardian – its own extensive support for Mandelson over the years is notable – reports it “understands was the code name used by advisers when forwarding to Brown’s secure email account.” Code name, what?
This doesn’t make sense. Brown was the first PM who used email extensively for his ‘email red box’ – and he was directly emailed notes from his team all the time. His senior officials and advisers all had his official email address…
Multiple former officials have confirmed to Guido that the use of code words under the Brown government like “John Pond” was a tactic to avoid freedom of information laws. Substituting real names like “Gordon Brown” with code names put any document out of the scope of freedom of information requests. One official recalls it was “common practice in the Cabinet”. Blair had introduced FOI.
The same did occur to me, why did the PM have a separate secret email account under a nom de guerre.
I seemed to remember during cash for honours scandal there was all the talk of a private email server etc to keep stuff off the record.
These are the same people who will tell the public, in relation to an ID cards database, that if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. So why were they so anxious to hide things from us, the public? What do they have to fear?
The stink that is emanating from the elite resembles that from the most crowded pig shed.
And there Farage is, poised to give the British public the chance to jump from the frying pan down to the inferno in the pits of hell.
What a fecking mess.
That is a disgusting remark.
Pigs are very clean animals, actually.
Pigs might be clean, but pig shit stinks, particularly pig shit from pigs kept in cramped stressful conditions. It was our number one criterion for choosing the location of our house - not near a pig farm.
These days two blokes smoking skunk in a van parked outside your house will provide the same experience.
Regrettably, he's wrong. My pleasant market town is presently suffering a large influx of Londoners who have finally worked out that it's way nicer a couple of hundred miles further north. This is doing lots of bad things, including pushing up house prices, and encouraging the building of loads of nasty Barratt wonders on the edge of town (the London types think they are amazing, a four bed house for the price of a ropey London flat! I don't know of a single local living in one).
We should probably build a wall between Gloucester and Kings Lynn, and make the Southerners pay for it (feels a bit harsh to keep the Brummies out by drawing a line much further north).
We've got that too. And the next Local Plan is slated to increase it.
There also seems to be a pitch for a lot (35%-40%) affordable which is pre-sold to Social Landlords who are housing the London overspill of those in temporary accommodation. Saves London Councils a lot by sending their mixed milieu off to the coast.
Evidence that rental enquiries and house prices are dropping now that Labour has got immigration under control. No wonder housing starts are down.
Until house prices drop back to a 3-4x multiple of income as they were in the 90s before they exploded, then they're still far, far, far too high.
Either a combination of massive house price falls (thus negative equity) and stable income rates, or massive income inflation and stable prices, or preferably a combination of the two, significant price falls and significant income growth, is needed to get house price to income ratios back to anywhere sane.
It's important to remember that the entire thing is manipulated, in order to protect Trump and distract attention from him, by the corrupted DoJ and other departments.
For example extra prominence given to Bill Clinton, redaction of "Trump", and other tactics.
Over 460 Epstein Files on Trump Removed - Yes, THAT ONE TOO
On Jan 30th, there were 5,361 files when you searched for Trump. Today, February 2nd, 4,896 files remain.
My guess is that we won’t get American justice and transparency on Epstein until Trump is gone and maybe dead - so about 3-5 years
By then most of the implicated men will be very old and quite powerless and a new generation will tell the truth. Whether it is Dems or GOP hardly matters
But the truth will come out. Just not now while the old guys have just enough power, still, to redact and refuse
I think it is quite likely that a new generation will be doing exactly the same things.
Consider that the ideology of the Hegseths and the Millers promotes women as being consumables. Those are values that facilitate abuse.
I disagree strongly. Not because humans have become nicer and billionaires have stopped being kinky and hedonistic but because I don’t think an Epstein could get away with it now. Stuff would leak on social media very quickly
It might happen in a truly closed society like China or Iran but even there I wonder
What we're finding out from the Epstein files is just how normal this sort of behaviour is - the sexual abuse is just one part of people in the elite doing each other favours in secret. With respect to Mandelson, in the old pre-social media days we found out about his dodgy mortgage and the Hinduja passports, but clearly there was similar stuff happening on a frequent basis.
I really don't think things would necessarily leak. I'm sure there are all sorts of derogatory accusations being made on social media about people in the elite all the time, but most of them are ignored because there's no evidence. I think it's quite hard to leak evidence without it then getting back to you, the leaker, and then there's all the legal power these people can bring to bear on you. I think fear of what people in the elite might do to you in revenge will keep a lot of people who know what is going on silent, and many of the rest will have normalised themselves to it.
I think again of the Pelicot trial, and the number of people who knew what was happening, but said nothing, and it was only discovered as a result of a search following an upskirting offence. Lots of people will know and they will say nothing. And most likely anyone who says anything will not be believed.
I am speculating, but I also suspect the shared abuse and illegality is also a conscious means of mutually binding members of the circle together; a way of demonstrating they can be trusted not to betray their fellow criminals.
Thanks @Cyclefree again and what a depressing header and thread
The story goes deeper into the sewer with unimaginable behaviour and depravity
I agree with Ed Davey that this must be investigated by a Public Enquiry
You and Ed Davey want an inquiry that will drag on for years, not report till almost everyone is dead, and those who aren't have forgotten the question? You can see why Ed Davey might have wanted that for the Post Office scandal where he was peripherally involved as a minister who forgot to ask any questions, but surely you, a distinguished PBer, are not tied up with Epstein! The Covid inquiry rumbles on too. Still, even that is an improvement over what used to happen, as when the Franks inquiry whitewashed the Falklands, or the inquiry into why the Dickens dossier on paedophiles in high places (surely not!) was lost inside the Home Office, set up by Theresa May, concluded it could find no evidence because it had all been lost inside the Home Office.
So no.
Mandelson can be impeached. It hasn't been used since 1806 (in a similar case (relating to a previous period as Treasurer of the Navy, Dundas wasn't a minister at the time of the prosecution) but there is no reason why it can't.
One thing the British State has been very good at in recent years is creating all sorts of new labyrinthine solutions to problems that could be fixed perfectly well by dusting off historical precedents and mechanisms and statutes that have been around for centuries.
I assume that the reason it doesn’t is because it fears such matters can now be challenged in the courts, which is another reason to rebalance their role in our democracy.
Well, it's simple. If a prosecution fails, then you introduce new legislation.
Shamima Begum could have been tried under the Treason Act, she was clearly adhering to the Queen's enemies, at home or (in fact, and) abroad.
Let her face Syrian justice
The real question about Shemima Begum is how three schoolgirls travelled to a known Islamist recruiting zone without the secret squirrels noticing.
Of course they knew. It was a Canadian Security Intelligence Service agent that smuggled her into Syria in the first place. Whether for personal profit or professional advancement has never been established.
On that photo: so fixated are we all on Peter's Pants that noone has commented on the coffee table books: "Art" and "The Beatles" - this is almost implausibly generic, no? Do real people really have coffee table books? And if they do, surely they display more personality than this?
That's why I am sure it is Epstein's NYC townhouse
One of the striking things about all these photos is how dreary and tasteless the decor is. Beige, banal, generic, with the odd bit of creepy art
I know really rich people with this aesthetic taste. They don't have any taste. They don't care. They order in, and do it quite cheaply. And of course they have ten houses so they don't especially care about individual spaces. They just want lots of property and lots of rooms
There appears to be what might be breakfast, or afternoon tea, in the photo: a cup, a sugar bowl and some kind of cake or brownie on a plate.
Is that the young lady's breakfast, rudely interrupted by Mandelson who seems to be holding an ipad or a laptop?
On that photo: so fixated are we all on Peter's Pants that noone has commented on the coffee table books: "Art" and "The Beatles" - this is almost implausibly generic, no? Do real people really have coffee table books? And if they do, surely they display more personality than this?
That's why I am sure it is Epstein's NYC townhouse
One of the striking things about all these photos is how dreary and tasteless the decor is. Beige, banal, generic, with the odd bit of creepy art
I know really rich people with this aesthetic taste. They don't have any taste. They don't care. They order in, and do it quite cheaply. And of course they have ten houses so they don't especially care about individual spaces. They just want lots of property and lots of rooms
Sky News matched up pantie Pete photos to Epsteins NYC appartment using publicly available photos yesterday.
Paris.
Let alliteration be your guide: Paris for Pete's pants. The Big Apple for Andy.
In at least one email forwarded to Epstein, an email address for “John Pond” was in copy. The Guardian – its own extensive support for Mandelson over the years is notable – reports it “understands was the code name used by advisers when forwarding to Brown’s secure email account.” Code name, what?
This doesn’t make sense. Brown was the first PM who used email extensively for his ‘email red box’ – and he was directly emailed notes from his team all the time. His senior officials and advisers all had his official email address…
Multiple former officials have confirmed to Guido that the use of code words under the Brown government like “John Pond” was a tactic to avoid freedom of information laws. Substituting real names like “Gordon Brown” with code names put any document out of the scope of freedom of information requests. One official recalls it was “common practice in the Cabinet”. Blair had introduced FOI.
The same did occur to me, why did the PM have a separate secret email account under a nom de guerre.
I seemed to remember during cash for honours scandal there was all the talk of a private email server etc to keep stuff off the record.
These are the same people who will tell the public, in relation to an ID cards database, that if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. So why were they so anxious to hide things from us, the public? What do they have to fear?
The stink that is emanating from the elite resembles that from the most crowded pig shed.
And there Farage is, poised to give the British public the chance to jump from the frying pan down to the inferno in the pits of hell.
What a fecking mess.
That is a disgusting remark.
Pigs are very clean animals, actually.
Pigs might be clean, but pig shit stinks, particularly pig shit from pigs kept in cramped stressful conditions. It was our number one criterion for choosing the location of our house - not near a pig farm.
These days two blokes smoking skunk in a van parked outside your house will provide the same experience.
Is that what has put Mr Thomas off London?
It put me off for a few days and I used to work at an animal by-products factory.
Labour pays millions to make hospital stats more flattering: ministers accused of massaging NHS figures by paying £3m a month to take off waiting lists patients who no longer need treatment. Interesting story from @oliver_wright
On that photo: so fixated are we all on Peter's Pants that noone has commented on the coffee table books: "Art" and "The Beatles" - this is almost implausibly generic, no? Do real people really have coffee table books? And if they do, surely they display more personality than this?
That's why I am sure it is Epstein's NYC townhouse
One of the striking things about all these photos is how dreary and tasteless the decor is. Beige, banal, generic, with the odd bit of creepy art
I know really rich people with this aesthetic taste. They don't have any taste. They don't care. They order in, and do it quite cheaply. And of course they have ten houses so they don't especially care about individual spaces. They just want lots of property and lots of rooms
Sky News matched up pantie Pete photos to Epsteins NYC appartment using publicly available photos yesterday.
Paris.
Let alliteration be your guide: Paris for Pete's pants. The Big Apple for Andy.
It's important to remember that the entire thing is manipulated, in order to protect Trump and distract attention from him, by the corrupted DoJ and other departments.
For example extra prominence given to Bill Clinton, redaction of "Trump", and other tactics.
Over 460 Epstein Files on Trump Removed - Yes, THAT ONE TOO
On Jan 30th, there were 5,361 files when you searched for Trump. Today, February 2nd, 4,896 files remain.
My guess is that we won’t get American justice and transparency on Epstein until Trump is gone and maybe dead - so about 3-5 years
By then most of the implicated men will be very old and quite powerless and a new generation will tell the truth. Whether it is Dems or GOP hardly matters
But the truth will come out. Just not now while the old guys have just enough power, still, to redact and refuse
I think it is quite likely that a new generation will be doing exactly the same things.
Consider that the ideology of the Hegseths and the Millers promotes women as being consumables. Those are values that facilitate abuse.
I disagree strongly. Not because humans have become nicer and billionaires have stopped being kinky and hedonistic but because I don’t think an Epstein could get away with it now. Stuff would leak on social media very quickly
It might happen in a truly closed society like China or Iran but even there I wonder
What we're finding out from the Epstein files is just how normal this sort of behaviour is - the sexual abuse is just one part of people in the elite doing each other favours in secret. With respect to Mandelson, in the old pre-social media days we found out about his dodgy mortgage and the Hinduja passports, but clearly there was similar stuff happening on a frequent basis.
I really don't think things would necessarily leak. I'm sure there are all sorts of derogatory accusations being made on social media about people in the elite all the time, but most of them are ignored because there's no evidence. I think it's quite hard to leak evidence without it then getting back to you, the leaker, and then there's all the legal power these people can bring to bear on you. I think fear of what people in the elite might do to you in revenge will keep a lot of people who know what is going on silent, and many of the rest will have normalised themselves to it.
I think again of the Pelicot trial, and the number of people who knew what was happening, but said nothing, and it was only discovered as a result of a search following an upskirting offence. Lots of people will know and they will say nothing. And most likely anyone who says anything will not be believed.
I am speculating, but I also suspect the shared abuse and illegality is also a conscious means of mutually binding members of the circle together; a way of demonstrating they can be trusted not to betray their fellow criminals.
Good chaps (and chapesses) don't snitch on other good chaps. If a chap is into underage boys or girls, or his financial arrangements are a bit dubious, one treats these matters as peccadilloes.
That's a great piece, Cyclefree. I generally subscribe to the sentiment that the only thing worse than the establishment are people who declare we must sweep away the establishment but I'm happy to make an exception to this in your case.
The answer is, of course, to sweep away the establishment *as a rolling process of renewal*.
Due to the expansion of the permanent apparatus of state, there is a very large… blob (ha!) of people who are continuous across governments.
Not so much civil servants, as the group that often creates policy at a level just below* ministers.
We need to impose ethics and accountability here. See the Post Office mess.
*some would say they have more power than ministers.
Well you know I'm always up for a rolling process. But on this (big cultural change to replace corruption with accountability) I'm not optimistic. An environment would have to be fostered in which ethics are so important that they are part of the furniture. It's impossible to succeed without them. It's hard to imagine a politician with that as a genuine priority being elected. And if they were it's easy to imagine them being kicked out as soon as the price of eggs goes up.
On that photo: so fixated are we all on Peter's Pants that noone has commented on the coffee table books: "Art" and "The Beatles" - this is almost implausibly generic, no? Do real people really have coffee table books? And if they do, surely they display more personality than this?
That's why I am sure it is Epstein's NYC townhouse
One of the striking things about all these photos is how dreary and tasteless the decor is. Beige, banal, generic, with the odd bit of creepy art
I know really rich people with this aesthetic taste. They don't have any taste. They don't care. They order in, and do it quite cheaply. And of course they have ten houses so they don't especially care about individual spaces. They just want lots of property and lots of rooms
It's as if he's said to an interior decorator 'provide me with a generic room which looks neat but slightly lived in if you don't look too closely'.
“Make it look like a suite at a Hyatt in San Diego”
The point for me in the Mandelson scandal, is the absolute enthusiasm for selling the country out for a few shillings. Mandelson and those of his ilk had zero fellow feeling for Britons and paid no more than lip service to the national interest.
Peter Mandelson is utterly disgraced, could end up in prison and breathtaking revelations are damaging Labour and a PM who made him our man in Washington. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson could bring down the monarchy.
Now remind me again Kev about McBride and attending those meetings planning to set up a fake news website to smear Osborne and alike. The brass neck of these people.
In at least one email forwarded to Epstein, an email address for “John Pond” was in copy. The Guardian – its own extensive support for Mandelson over the years is notable – reports it “understands was the code name used by advisers when forwarding to Brown’s secure email account.” Code name, what?
This doesn’t make sense. Brown was the first PM who used email extensively for his ‘email red box’ – and he was directly emailed notes from his team all the time. His senior officials and advisers all had his official email address…
Multiple former officials have confirmed to Guido that the use of code words under the Brown government like “John Pond” was a tactic to avoid freedom of information laws. Substituting real names like “Gordon Brown” with code names put any document out of the scope of freedom of information requests. One official recalls it was “common practice in the Cabinet”. Blair had introduced FOI.
The same did occur to me, why did the PM have a separate secret email account under a nom de guerre.
I seemed to remember during cash for honours scandal there was all the talk of a private email server etc to keep stuff off the record.
These are the same people who will tell the public, in relation to an ID cards database, that if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. So why were they so anxious to hide things from us, the public? What do they have to fear?
The stink that is emanating from the elite resembles that from the most crowded pig shed.
And there Farage is, poised to give the British public the chance to jump from the frying pan down to the inferno in the pits of hell.
What a fecking mess.
That is a disgusting remark.
Pigs are very clean animals, actually.
Pigs might be clean, but pig shit stinks, particularly pig shit from pigs kept in cramped stressful conditions. It was our number one criterion for choosing the location of our house - not near a pig farm.
These days two blokes smoking skunk in a van parked outside your house will provide the same experience.
Is that what has put Mr Thomas off London?
IIRC correctly Mr Thomas also writes stuff saying that the only place in the world worth living in is London. Journalists, like lawyers, have to survive in a tough environment, and building stuff up and knocking is down a again is a central aspect of that planet wide job creation scheeme.
Dan Niedle is definitely on one about Panty Pete. Probably not wise to link his tweets as he seems to be activtely daring for legal action to be taken against him.
An author selling out his own neighbourhood for ££."
+++
Yes, quite disgraceful, and such hackneyed prose
"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of having his mobile phone stolen"
Is this meant to be wit?
I guess my stalker will be satisfied, seeing as the column has generated 500+ comments, was on the front page all day, and is one of the most read articles of the week, despite being but 600 words long, but frankly I'd be ashamed of churning out this bilge
And yet I live in London and see nothing of this apparently pervasive sense of decline and disorder. How odd!
It's an elephant-on-a-toadstool article, with about 2 or 3 bits of anecdata and world-shaking conclusions.
I think it's just what happens when the writer is prematurely 86.
I would say that London is untidy, expensive and with low crime relative to many big cities round the world. With lots and lots of public transport.
If like rural Dutch towns (of a certain type) with polished cobblestones, and every shop front polished and freshly painted, it’s not for you. Note that such places are usually very empty.
I've lived in London most of my life and it's a great city. It was when I got here and is even more so now. The Right's continual smearing of it as a rathole is political not factual. If you're pushing a parochial nativist vision for the country the last thing you want is for its capital city, encapsulating a very different vision, to be viewed positively.
You did, however, get there, what, 40 years ago, when it was possible to buy a house. My objection to London is not that it is crime ridden or full of foreigners, but that, even with my middle class job and assets which enable me to live in one of the nicer suburbs of one of the UK's more expensive cities, if I lived in London, I couldn't afford to live somewhere which wasn't depressing. There is much about London which is amazing, true, but like most people I spend most of my non-working time in my home suburb, and if my home suburb was dreary, the fact that it was attached to one of the most remarkable cities in the world wouldn't be of much comfort. Also, you're tucked away in the far corner of the country away from most of the most attractive bits of the UK.
So when I make my list of 'given the resources I have, where in the UK might I choose to live', London ranks quite low.
I actually didn't buy a house until fairly recently but yes the high property prices here are a genuine issue - fine if you have money or bought years ago, otherwise a struggle. Slowly correcting now IMO. I think the days of London property shooting ever upwards are over.
Peter Mandelson is utterly disgraced, could end up in prison and breathtaking revelations are damaging Labour and a PM who made him our man in Washington. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson could bring down the monarchy.
Now remind me again Kev about McBride and attending those meetings planning to set up a fake news website to smear Osborne and alike. The brass neck of these people.
Maguire is a typical left wing champagne socialist. Loathable.
Understandably, lots of talk about Peter Pants going to jail. If he's guilty, so be it. However, the governmental and other agency enquiries into this affair are going to run for years, and it would be helpful if Mandelson was available for frequent, extensive and probing interviews. To that end, can I propose that the Prison Service arranges for him to be housed somewhere central where his examiners could meet him without having to travel too far from the Metropolis? I suggest they spruce up a suitable room in the Tower of London for him. The message and the disgrace would be deserved, but I understand that the place is not as uncomfortable as it used to be.
The European Commission said on Tuesday it would investigate Mandelson, who was European trade commissioner from 2004-8 before leaving early to return to UK politics.
Mandelson draws a pension from his time there and has to adhere to a code of conduct for former staff.
One of my previous employers and the contract will be highly profitable so good for the employee pension fund.
Genuine question - when was Scottish water pumped south, and how?
It's a cybernat conspiracy theory they picked up from Iranian propaganda accounts. It's depressing how easily partisans on all sides have been willing to pick up and run with made-up nonsense propagated by Iranians/Russians/other disinformation operations.
In at least one email forwarded to Epstein, an email address for “John Pond” was in copy. The Guardian – its own extensive support for Mandelson over the years is notable – reports it “understands was the code name used by advisers when forwarding to Brown’s secure email account.” Code name, what?
This doesn’t make sense. Brown was the first PM who used email extensively for his ‘email red box’ – and he was directly emailed notes from his team all the time. His senior officials and advisers all had his official email address…
Multiple former officials have confirmed to Guido that the use of code words under the Brown government like “John Pond” was a tactic to avoid freedom of information laws. Substituting real names like “Gordon Brown” with code names put any document out of the scope of freedom of information requests. One official recalls it was “common practice in the Cabinet”. Blair had introduced FOI.
The same did occur to me, why did the PM have a separate secret email account under a nom de guerre.
I seemed to remember during cash for honours scandal there was all the talk of a private email server etc to keep stuff off the record.
These are the same people who will tell the public, in relation to an ID cards database, that if they have nothing to hide then they have nothing to fear. So why were they so anxious to hide things from us, the public? What do they have to fear?
The stink that is emanating from the elite resembles that from the most crowded pig shed.
And there Farage is, poised to give the British public the chance to jump from the frying pan down to the inferno in the pits of hell.
What a fecking mess.
That is a disgusting remark.
Pigs are very clean animals, actually.
Pigs might be clean, but pig shit stinks, particularly pig shit from pigs kept in cramped stressful conditions. It was our number one criterion for choosing the location of our house - not near a pig farm.
These days two blokes smoking skunk in a van parked outside your house will provide the same experience.
Is that what has put Mr Thomas off London?
IIRC correctly Mr Thomas also writes stuff saying that the only place in the world worth living in is London. Journalists, like lawyers, have to survive in a tough environment, and building stuff up and knocking is down a again is a central aspect of that planet wide job creation scheeme.
Peter Mandelson is utterly disgraced, could end up in prison and breathtaking revelations are damaging Labour and a PM who made him our man in Washington. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson could bring down the monarchy.
Now remind me again Kev about McBride and attending those meetings planning to set up a fake news website to smear Osborne and alike. The brass neck of these people.
I don’t think it will bring down the monarchy but I do think the monarchy more now than at any time relies very heavily on the next generation of William, Kate and their family and for their accession to be seen as a significant renewal and page turn.
If they’re not already thinking about Crown revenues, how the Duchies operate, who is/isn’t a working royal, how the titles get dished out and who is on the payroll, they need to be.
The European Commission said on Tuesday it would investigate Mandelson, who was European trade commissioner from 2004-8 before leaving early to return to UK politics.
Mandelson draws a pension from his time there and has to adhere to a code of conduct for former staff.
I imagine a poor IT team in the Berlaymont are desperately trying to retrieve his email account right now.
Understandably, lots of talk about Peter Pants going to jail. If he's guilty, so be it. However, the governmental and other agency enquiries into this affair are going to run for years, and it would be helpful if Mandelson was available for frequent, extensive and probing interviews. To that end, can I propose that the Prison Service arranges for him to be housed somewhere central where his examiners could meet him without having to travel too far from the Metropolis? I suggest they spruce up a suitable room in the Tower of London for him. The message and the disgrace would be deserved, but I understand that the place is not as uncomfortable as it used to be.
God no, Mandy would love that. He would be off the scale delighted with the Tower, prison of many nobles, being revived just for him.
Just put him in a shitty normal prison (if he goes of course) where he is hoi poloi and no special treatment.
The European Commission said on Tuesday it would investigate Mandelson, who was European trade commissioner from 2004-8 before leaving early to return to UK politics.
Mandelson draws a pension from his time there and has to adhere to a code of conduct for former staff.
I imagine a poor IT team in the Berlaymont are desperately trying to retrieve his email account right now.
You mean “trying to decide what to delete”
Mandy will have been interacting with a wide circle of players. Including current EU leaders.
Good luck with being the pebble that starts the avalanche.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is “considering the possibility of lifting the ban on the participation of russian teams in football tournaments.” https://x.com/rshereme/status/2018543328816435618
Reminds me of the time I once watched the Australian National Opera Company's production of die Fledermaus. The singing was great but they used aluminium bats.
Dan Niedle is definitely on one about Panty Pete. Probably not wise to link his tweets as he seems to be activtely daring for legal action to be taken against him.
People who become famous on social media for one area of expertise become addicted to the attention and inevitably widen their interests. It rarely ends well.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is “considering the possibility of lifting the ban on the participation of russian teams in football tournaments.” https://x.com/rshereme/status/2018543328816435618
As if anyone might be in doubt as to the extent Infantino is in Trump's pocket.
The European Commission said on Tuesday it would investigate Mandelson, who was European trade commissioner from 2004-8 before leaving early to return to UK politics.
Mandelson draws a pension from his time there and has to adhere to a code of conduct for former staff.
And we pay that pension, per the withdrawal agreement. So we stand to save...
(The "it's not a golf club" argument from the EU rather fell down there. When you leave a golf club you don't keep paying the pensions of the staff who served while you were a member...)
Reminds me of the time I once watched the Australian National Opera Company's production of die Fledermaus. The singing was great but they used aluminium bats.
Matt Goodwin isn’t very British. He doesn’t get our values, our culture, or our history.
Britain has always been about different communities coming together to form one nation.
That's going to piss him off more than anything else that could have been said.
But ironically, even if we don't go for the 20th Century cultural diversity angle Dr Sandher is 100% right. After all, most of our richest and most influential people are actually descendants of French immigrants, including Farage and the King.
Goodwin is instead quite obsessively English. I would pay good money to see him at a hustings in Glasgow or Port Talbot...
FIFA President Gianni Infantino is “considering the possibility of lifting the ban on the participation of russian teams in football tournaments.” https://x.com/rshereme/status/2018543328816435618
As if anyone might be in doubt as to the extent Infantino is in Trump's pocket.
There are plenty of allegations that Infantino is a billionaire now, his good fortune coming around the time that Qatar won the hosting rights for the World Cup and clearing the way for Saudi to as well having been well bedded in by the award of the World Cup to Putin’s Russia despite their invasion of the Crimea.
If these allegations were in any way accurate, which they surely can’t be, then he makes Mandy look like an absolute amateur at climbing the greasy pole and monetising it.
If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
Peter Mandelson is utterly disgraced, could end up in prison and breathtaking revelations are damaging Labour and a PM who made him our man in Washington. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson could bring down the monarchy.
Now remind me again Kev about McBride and attending those meetings planning to set up a fake news website to smear Osborne and alike. The brass neck of these people.
I don’t think it will bring down the monarchy but I do think the monarchy more now than at any time relies very heavily on the next generation of William, Kate and their family and for their accession to be seen as a significant renewal and page turn.
If they’re not already thinking about Crown revenues, how the Duchies operate, who is/isn’t a working royal, how the titles get dished out and who is on the payroll, they need to be.
Charles has been doing that for over three years.
The Queen's idea was you had lots of royals, most of them fairly part-time, making them highly visible and in all parts of national life, and spread the money thinly to make it work.
Charles' idea is to have just a few senior working royals, and use the money to raise their profile and really show an impact. That's one reason he had a big falling out with Harry (and quite possibly another reason why he fell out with Andy, although it doesn't seem they ever got on well). He's pruned the family to essentially himself, Camilla, William and Katherine, Anne and Edward (who seems to have a special role with the DofE award).
His approach is logical and has given a convenient pretext to chop out some very dead wood, but comes with drawbacks. When he and Catherine both had cancer an awful lot of the burden of keeping things going fell on Camilla and Anne, neither of whom are spring chickens. And when in the next few years they either snuff it or retire a huge amount will fall on William and his family.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
In at least one email forwarded to Epstein, an email address for “John Pond” was in copy. The Guardian – its own extensive support for Mandelson over the years is notable – reports it “understands was the code name used by advisers when forwarding to Brown’s secure email account.” Code name, what?
This doesn’t make sense. Brown was the first PM who used email extensively for his ‘email red box’ – and he was directly emailed notes from his team all the time. His senior officials and advisers all had his official email address…
Multiple former officials have confirmed to Guido that the use of code words under the Brown government like “John Pond” was a tactic to avoid freedom of information laws. Substituting real names like “Gordon Brown” with code names put any document out of the scope of freedom of information requests. One official recalls it was “common practice in the Cabinet”. Blair had introduced FOI.
The same did occur to me, why did the PM have a separate secret email account under a nom de guerre.
I seemed to remember during cash for honours scandal there was all the talk of a private email server etc to keep stuff off the record.
I have my doubts about this.
My understanding is that the PM and senior cabinet members/civil servants have a generic email address and have a randomised one to stop them being spammed/victims of foreign spy agencies sending them malware etc.
I once had a rather hot and quite kinky American girlfriend called Tiffany
I dated her when she was in her late 20s about ten or twelve years ago. She used to tell me hair raising stories about when she was a stunning girl in her teens and she got flown around as a harem in a private jet by some billionaire. And was asked to do REDACTED REDACTED - seriously omg kinky weirdness
Looking back, I have a strong suspicion she was talking about Epstein
If not, how many other billionnaires were, er, flying below the radar?
We discussed this. Me and Tiff. She made it clear it was a known thing - billionaires fly beautiful girls around the world in private jets. It happens now with Arab princelings shipping a dozen Russian “models” to the Maldives for a party
But Epstein was clearly working on a higher more industrialised and disturbing level of depravity
And looking back at some of the details she let slip - it does seem to me it was likely Epstein
It's not new. I had a vague connection to Sheik Salim Bin Laden in the 1980s. Salim used to prefer German hookers and he would fly them around the world avoiding Riyadh and Jeddah, where he was scrupulously well behaved.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
To be fair, the obvious and overwhelming cross-party consensus that Mandy needs to be told to sling his hook probably has helped him as well. But he could and should have reached out to Badenoch to ask for her help in getting this through before saying he couldn't. Whatever partisan advantage there is to be gained by watching him squirm, surely as a human being she would have said yes.
And if he did and she said no, she has bloody difficult questions to answer.
Every financial institution in the UK has been spending the last few days checking to see if they’ve had any emails to/from Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.
I imagine there will be lots of squeaky bums around, if Mandy decides to play a nice game of thermo-nuclear war, I bet he has lots of ammo.
Please could we avoid pairing “squeaky bums” and Mandelson in the same sentence from now on. It’s bad enough we have seen him in his y-fronts as it is without adding to the requirement for mind bleach.
Every financial institution in the UK has been spending the last few days checking to see if they’ve had any emails to/from Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.
Er...they've only thought to check for emails from Epstein *in the last few days?*
Does anyone have any recommendations for "tap turners"? These are things that go over taps with difficult to hold knobs to make them easily useable for people with arthritis.
I slipped up in that I asked my plumber to get a nice kitchen tap for a T wanting a replacement due to a leak, and I forgot to add "make sure it has levers to turn it on, not twist knobs" which has been my standard practice for ever.
So now T has a nice new designer tap, but it is not easy to use.
So now it is either replace it again, or find a device to make it accessible for the T.
(That one may need a bit of tweaking, since the minimum knob diameter is 40mm. The tweak will either be a round and round zip tie, or possible about 45mm of pipe insulation over the knob, or may perhaps be one around the other to keep it in place.)
(Sexual puns are welcome on this most miserable of days.)
Peter Mandelson is utterly disgraced, could end up in prison and breathtaking revelations are damaging Labour and a PM who made him our man in Washington. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson could bring down the monarchy.
Now remind me again Kev about McBride and attending those meetings planning to set up a fake news website to smear Osborne and alike. The brass neck of these people.
I don’t think it will bring down the monarchy but I do think the monarchy more now than at any time relies very heavily on the next generation of William, Kate and their family and for their accession to be seen as a significant renewal and page turn.
If they’re not already thinking about Crown revenues, how the Duchies operate, who is/isn’t a working royal, how the titles get dished out and who is on the payroll, they need to be.
Charles has been doing that for over three years.
The Queen's idea was you had lots of royals, most of them fairly part-time, making them highly visible and in all parts of national life, and spread the money thinly to make it work.
Charles' idea is to have just a few senior working royals, and use the money to raise their profile and really show an impact. That's one reason he had a big falling out with Harry (and quite possibly another reason why he fell out with Andy, although it doesn't seem they ever got on well). He's pruned the family to essentially himself, Camilla, William and Katherine, Anne and Edward (who seems to have a special role with the DofE award).
His approach is logical and has given a convenient pretext to chop out some very dead wood, but comes with drawbacks. When he and Catherine both had cancer an awful lot of the burden of keeping things going fell on Camilla and Anne, neither of whom are spring chickens. And when in the next few years they either snuff it or retire a huge amount will fall on William and his family.
They are extremely lucky to have Catherine
William chose well. Catherine is like the late Queen. Impeccably polite and well behaved, with some instinctive sense of decorum while managing to be personable
If William had married a Sarah Ferguson type, or a Meghan, then the monarchy would have been in very serious trouble
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
Every financial institution in the UK has been spending the last few days checking to see if they’ve had any emails to/from Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.
Er...they've only thought to check for emails from Epstein *in the last few days?*
Seriously?
It’s more of a recheck and the fact that some new email addresses have come to light.
This reminds me; did I see a post of yours last night when you reckoned Boris having some cake was a bigger political scandal than Panty Pete's emails?
Every financial institution in the UK has been spending the last few days checking to see if they’ve had any emails to/from Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.
Er...they've only thought to check for emails from Epstein *in the last few days?*
Seriously?
It’s more of a recheck and the fact that some new email addresses have come to light.
I'm very pleased to hear it.
I would hate to think my opinion of bankers' morals could go lower.
Every financial institution in the UK has been spending the last few days checking to see if they’ve had any emails to/from Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.
Er...they've only thought to check for emails from Epstein *in the last few days?*
Seriously?
It’s more of a recheck and the fact that some new email addresses have come to light.
I'm very pleased to hear it.
I would hate to think my opinion of bankers' morals could go lower.
You sweet innocent child, next you’ll be saying bankers also have ethics.
If anyone wants a political news feed that doesn’t mention Mandelson at all today, may I recommend Southam Observer’s BlueSky account
Gosh - Southam Observer! Haven't heard from him for years - what;s his particular angle these days?
His angle is “being completely ignored by everyone, because he’s on Bluesky, which is a desolate bleakscape for a few stupid midwit lefties, who flounced off X and then realised no one was going to follow them, because they are boring wankers. But some of them are too proud to shamefully return, even tho they left behind 20,000 followers on X and now have 48 annoying followers on Bluesky”
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit. Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialised communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80? Bluesky average IQ 125? Chacun à son goût
Every financial institution in the UK has been spending the last few days checking to see if they’ve had any emails to/from Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.
Er...they've only thought to check for emails from Epstein *in the last few days?*
Seriously?
It’s more of a recheck and the fact that some new email addresses have come to light.
I'm very pleased to hear it.
I would hate to think my opinion of bankers' morals could go lower.
You sweet innocent child, next you’ll be saying bankers also have ethics.
No source given and the year hidden by an equals sign like no email system does. Colour me sceptical.
The = signs that appear at random all over the place in these emails are almost certainly technical glitches in an OCR scanning process or similar. But, yes, lots of people adding 2 and 2 and making 5.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Does anyone have any recommendations for "tap turners"? These are things that go over taps with difficult to hold knobs to make them easily useable for people with arthritis.
I slipped up in that I asked my plumber to get a nice kitchen tap for a T wanting a replacement due to a leak, and I forgot to add "make sure it has levers to turn it on, not twist knobs" which has been my standard practice for ever.
So now T has a nice new designer tap, but it is not easy to use.
So now it is either replace it again, or find a device to make it accessible for the T.
(That one may need a bit of tweaking, since the minimum knob diameter is 40mm. The tweak will either be a round and round zip tie, or possible about 45mm of pipe insulation over the knob, or may perhaps be one around the other to keep it in place.)
(Sexual puns are welcome on this most miserable of days.)
Every financial institution in the UK has been spending the last few days checking to see if they’ve had any emails to/from Lord Mandelson and Mr Epstein.
Er...they've only thought to check for emails from Epstein *in the last few days?*
Seriously?
It’s more of a recheck and the fact that some new email addresses have come to light.
I'm very pleased to hear it.
I would hate to think my opinion of bankers' morals could go lower.
It would expensive. Once you've reach the centre of the Earth's core, you can only get lower with the help of Mr Musk.
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
Silly he didn’t come straight out with it.
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
If he's got any sense Mandelson will run away to Israel or Trumpistan. The man is a traitor.
Peter Mandelson is utterly disgraced, could end up in prison and breathtaking revelations are damaging Labour and a PM who made him our man in Washington. Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and ex-wife Sarah Ferguson could bring down the monarchy.
Now remind me again Kev about McBride and attending those meetings planning to set up a fake news website to smear Osborne and alike. The brass neck of these people.
I don’t think it will bring down the monarchy but I do think the monarchy more now than at any time relies very heavily on the next generation of William, Kate and their family and for their accession to be seen as a significant renewal and page turn.
If they’re not already thinking about Crown revenues, how the Duchies operate, who is/isn’t a working royal, how the titles get dished out and who is on the payroll, they need to be.
Charles has been doing that for over three years.
The Queen's idea was you had lots of royals, most of them fairly part-time, making them highly visible and in all parts of national life, and spread the money thinly to make it work.
Charles' idea is to have just a few senior working royals, and use the money to raise their profile and really show an impact. That's one reason he had a big falling out with Harry (and quite possibly another reason why he fell out with Andy, although it doesn't seem they ever got on well). He's pruned the family to essentially himself, Camilla, William and Katherine, Anne and Edward (who seems to have a special role with the DofE award).
His approach is logical and has given a convenient pretext to chop out some very dead wood, but comes with drawbacks. When he and Catherine both had cancer an awful lot of the burden of keeping things going fell on Camilla and Anne, neither of whom are spring chickens. And when in the next few years they either snuff it or retire a huge amount will fall on William and his family.
I think that’s true, but Charles is simply by virtue of his age and upbringing more closely connected to the monarchy as his mother knew it (never complain, never explain, keep doing things as you have been and don’t rock the boat too much unless you absolutely must). I think that approach is dying in an age of much less deference and with the huge personal respect people bore for QEII no longer in play. Charles can play a role in that transition, but he simply cannot be seen as a new broom.
On that photo: so fixated are we all on Peter's Pants that noone has commented on the coffee table books: "Art" and "The Beatles" - this is almost implausibly generic, no? Do real people really have coffee table books? And if they do, surely they display more personality than this?
That's why I am sure it is Epstein's NYC townhouse
One of the striking things about all these photos is how dreary and tasteless the decor is. Beige, banal, generic, with the odd bit of creepy art
I know really rich people with this aesthetic taste. They don't have any taste. They don't care. They order in, and do it quite cheaply. And of course they have ten houses so they don't especially care about individual spaces. They just want lots of property and lots of rooms
Epstein's Paris flat for Mandelson. Epstein's NY house for Andrew MbW.
As for the books, no less an authority than Peter Crouch pointed out all footballers' houses look identical because they use the same few interior designers. Likewise for billionaires, I expect.
Peter Crouch is genuinely funny. I’ve had a soft spot for him since he scored loads of goals for Liverpool said he’d be a virgin if he wasn’t a footballer, but he was a footballer so he married a fashion model.
Does anyone have any recommendations for "tap turners"? These are things that go over taps with difficult to hold knobs to make them easily useable for people with arthritis.
I slipped up in that I asked my plumber to get a nice kitchen tap for a T wanting a replacement due to a leak, and I forgot to add "make sure it has levers to turn it on, not twist knobs" which has been my standard practice for ever.
So now T has a nice new designer tap, but it is not easy to use.
So now it is either replace it again, or find a device to make it accessible for the T.
(That one may need a bit of tweaking, since the minimum knob diameter is 40mm. The tweak will either be a round and round zip tie, or possible about 45mm of pipe insulation over the knob, or may perhaps be one around the other to keep it in place.)
(Sexual puns are welcome on this most miserable of days.)
As the world falls apart and global devastation is only a sneeze away, we have a request for information on 'tap turners'. Brilliant. Only on PB. PS: I recommend Tap Turners' Weekly.
Comments
Also, you're tucked away in the far corner of the country away from most of the most attractive bits of the UK.
So when I make my list of 'given the resources I have, where in the UK might I choose to live', London ranks quite low.
I really don't think things would necessarily leak. I'm sure there are all sorts of derogatory accusations being made on social media about people in the elite all the time, but most of them are ignored because there's no evidence. I think it's quite hard to leak evidence without it then getting back to you, the leaker, and then there's all the legal power these people can bring to bear on you. I think fear of what people in the elite might do to you in revenge will keep a lot of people who know what is going on silent, and many of the rest will have normalised themselves to it.
I think again of the Pelicot trial, and the number of people who knew what was happening, but said nothing, and it was only discovered as a result of a search following an upskirting offence. Lots of people will know and they will say nothing. And most likely anyone who says anything will not be believed.
She was formerly Norway's UN Ambassador and presided over the UN Economic and Social Council.
https://x.com/PeterSweden7/status/2018408877507710983
Can't quite recall. Did Boris's idea of raising the limits in the UK get approved?
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5718877-democrats-senate-candidates-outraise/
Either a combination of massive house price falls (thus negative equity) and stable income rates, or massive income inflation and stable prices, or preferably a combination of the two, significant price falls and significant income growth, is needed to get house price to income ratios back to anywhere sane.
MCC change Laws of Cricket to permit previously 'illegal' bats
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/cyv5zv30418o
Here’s the founder of an adoption charity asking Epstein if he needed any “new steaks” for his island because he only had two left
https://x.com/fleshsimulator/status/2018254054728630406
Is that the young lady's breakfast, rudely interrupted by Mandelson who seems to be holding an ipad or a laptop?
Let alliteration be your guide: Paris for Pete's pants. The Big Apple for Andy.
https://news.sky.com/story/andrew-mountbatten-windsor-and-peter-mandelson-pictures-from-epstein-files-were-taken-inside-paedophiles-homes-sky-news-analysis-finds-13502362
https://www.carter-ruck.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/HAMBLIN-pdf-of-Statement-in-Open-Court-05.05.22.pdf
https://x.com/PippaCrerar/status/2018594915027124225?s=20
I’ve fallen back in love with Kemi Badenoch
Her Desert Island Discs performance was beautiful to behold" (£)
https://spectator.com/article/ive-fallen-back-in-love-with-kemi-badenoch/
Peter Mandelson is the only politician not to lie to me – he’ll thrive in the US
https://x.com/adamboultonTABB/status/1870162454056964607?s=20
I imagine a lot of them will be claiming hardly knew the man....wasn't an important figure when I was reporting on the Labour government.
When Prof Peston used to get all the inside scoops on Labour economic positions during the banking crisis, wonder who was leaking to him?
https://x.com/Kevin_Maguire/status/2018629239185035729?s=20
Now remind me again Kev about McBride and attending those meetings planning to set up a fake news website to smear Osborne and alike. The brass neck of these people.
The greed and depravity revealed is off the scale and throughout the political and elite on both sides of the Atlantic
I cannot see any positives for labour
Jim Pickard
@pickardje.bsky.social
· 14m
Breaking:
The European Commission said on Tuesday it would investigate Mandelson, who was European trade commissioner from 2004-8 before leaving early to return to UK politics.
Mandelson draws a pension from his time there and has to adhere to a code of conduct for former staff.
Information Commissioner’s Office to investigate whether Elon Musk’s companies have complied with data protection law
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/03/uk-privacy-watchdog-opens-inquiry-into-x-over-grok-ai-sexual-deepfakes
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/PortalPictures/february-2026/460824925_Mandelson-Landscape.jpg
has the caption "Mandelson wearing Epstein branded sweatshirt in 2009".
How dare you !
If they’re not already thinking about Crown revenues, how the Duchies operate, who is/isn’t a working royal, how the titles get dished out and who is on the payroll, they need to be.
Just put him in a shitty normal prison (if he goes of course) where he is hoi poloi and no special treatment.
Mandy will have been interacting with a wide circle of players. Including current EU leaders.
Good luck with being the pebble that starts the avalanche.
This is going to happen to all the royals including the king whenever they are in the media
https://news.sky.com/liveblog-webview/epstein-files-live-clintons-mandelson-andrew-mountbatten-windsor-trump-investigation-latest-13501106
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/131055.stm
https://x.com/rshereme/status/2018543328816435618
https://x.com/JeevunSandher/status/2018613759082954829
Matt Goodwin isn’t very British. He doesn’t get our values, our culture, or our history.
Britain has always been about different communities coming together to form one nation.
(The "it's not a golf club" argument from the EU rather fell down there. When you leave a golf club you don't keep paying the pensions of the staff who served while you were a member...)
Cut her a bit of slack
But ironically, even if we don't go for the 20th Century cultural diversity angle Dr Sandher is 100% right. After all, most of our richest and most influential people are actually descendants of French immigrants, including Farage and the King.
Goodwin is instead quite obsessively English. I would pay good money to see him at a hustings in Glasgow or Port Talbot...
If these allegations were in any way accurate, which they surely can’t be, then he makes Mandy look like an absolute amateur at climbing the greasy pole and monetising it.
The cabinet office refers e mails from Mandelson to the Met Police
The Queen's idea was you had lots of royals, most of them fairly part-time, making them highly visible and in all parts of national life, and spread the money thinly to make it work.
Charles' idea is to have just a few senior working royals, and use the money to raise their profile and really show an impact. That's one reason he had a big falling out with Harry (and quite possibly another reason why he fell out with Andy, although it doesn't seem they ever got on well). He's pruned the family to essentially himself, Camilla, William and Katherine, Anne and Edward (who seems to have a special role with the DofE award).
His approach is logical and has given a convenient pretext to chop out some very dead wood, but comes with drawbacks. When he and Catherine both had cancer an awful lot of the burden of keeping things going fell on Camilla and Anne, neither of whom are spring chickens. And when in the next few years they either snuff it or retire a huge amount will fall on William and his family.
BREAKING:
Sir Keir Starmer has now asked officials to draft legislation to remove Lord Mandelson's peerage
On Monday the government argued that legislation was too complex, highlighting the fact it does not have a majority in the Lords. It suggested the approach would be too complex
Starmer has now changed that position and is asking his officials to move 'at pace'. His spokesman said he is 'appalled' by the latest revelations
My understanding is that the PM and senior cabinet members/civil servants have a generic email address and have a randomised one to stop them being spammed/victims of foreign spy agencies sending them malware etc.
And if he did and she said no, she has bloody difficult questions to answer.
“Migrant, 70, who told girl, 12, to 'cover her head' before sexually assaulting her on way to school is spared jail”
https://x.com/dailymail/status/2018622344055382311?s=61&t=GGp3Vs1t1kTWDiyA-odnZg
Seriously?
Does anyone have any recommendations for "tap turners"? These are things that go over taps with difficult to hold knobs to make them easily useable for people with arthritis.
I slipped up in that I asked my plumber to get a nice kitchen tap for a T wanting a replacement due to a leak, and I forgot to add "make sure it has levers to turn it on, not twist knobs" which has been my standard practice for ever.
So now T has a nice new designer tap, but it is not easy to use.
So now it is either replace it again, or find a device to make it accessible for the T.
This is one example:
https://www.essentialaids.com/household/gripping-turning/derby-tap-turners.html
(That one may need a bit of tweaking, since the minimum knob diameter is 40mm. The tweak will either be a round and round zip tie, or possible about 45mm of pipe insulation over the knob, or may perhaps be one around the other to keep it in place.)
(Sexual puns are welcome on this most miserable of days.)
William chose well. Catherine is like the late Queen. Impeccably polite and well behaved, with some instinctive sense of decorum while managing to be personable
If William had married a Sarah Ferguson type, or a Meghan, then the monarchy would have been in very serious trouble
If Mandy has good sense he’ll resign from the Lords in advance of this.
I would hate to think my opinion of bankers' morals could go lower.
X remains a hub for specific niches like sports betting and politics but is slowly dying and is a bit of a cess pit.
Bluesky is growing rapidly and is noted for having higher engagement in specialised communities, particularly within scientific research and academia.
X average IQ 80?
Bluesky average IQ 125?
Chacun à son goût
https://www.notjusttaps.co.uk/disabled-tap-levers-turners.html
Brilliant. Only on PB.
PS: I recommend Tap Turners' Weekly.