What shall we do with the drunken sailor? If you’re Danny Kruger, join them – politicalbetting.com
What shall we do with the drunken sailor? If you’re Danny Kruger, join them – politicalbetting.com
Kruger defection to Reform obviously significant and very bad for Tories.But again, the more Reform becomes a rebranded Conservative Party – filled with former Tory MPs – the more Labour will fancy beating them at the next election.
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I had no idea about this until it was pointed out to me. It seems now so obvious.
*** How did Keir Starmer win over Trump? And what’s he given up in return? ***
I spent the summer talking to 20+ people trying to work this out for a long read
David Lammy, Peter Mandelson, Simon Case, Chris Ruddy, No10 folks all talked
Among what emerged…
:: Starmer’s decision to reach out to Trump after the assassination attempt was key. Led to their first conversation
:: Their first meeting in Trump Tower saw then candidate Trump constantly ask the PM about his victory and the Red Wall - a sign he respects winners
:: When Starmer and Trump talk on the phone it is the President doing 90% of the talking, per those who have listened
:: Starmer prepares a lot for his meetings with Trump. Before the first White House trip he was sent video footage of the 3 leaders who’d faced Trump already
:: Starmer practiced handing over the state visit letter with aides. Seats arranged like the Oval Office. They war-gamed qus (inc Vance free speech jibe)
:: Starmer’s TV state visit moment almost never came off. White House tried to take the letter off him for security reasons. A standoff ensued. Eventually defused.
:: The PM has learned to schmooze Trump. On phone calls he praised Doge when Musk was still in White House
:: He travelled to both of Trump’s Scottish golf courses in July - a PM putting focus on a counterpart’s commercial interests
:: Starmer privately briefed Trump on Palestine Action spray painting his golf course with info from Police Scotland, per a source. 4 months later group banned.
:: Starmer’s No10 aides past and present believe his lack of ego - contrasts drawn with Emmanual Macron - eases relations
:: For some Labour MPs the deference is too much. One says the ‘sucking up’ to Trump ‘makes a mockery’ of UK values
:: Royalty is key. Prince William’s meeting with Trump in Paris in December lasted so long it delayed a French state banquet - to the fury of Macron.
:: Each meeting a senior Royal has with Trump is captured in a formal note by a private secretary and passed to the PM
:: There is a depth of family friendship there too. Trump unexpectedly called Starmer on mobile after his bother died
:: They are in touch on Signal too
:: Key other figures in the relationship: Lammy (now moved), Mandelson (now sacked), and Jonathan Powell
:: Plus, the secret Trump whisperer… Senay Bulbul, the UK embassy political counsellor who covers Repubs. She was almost moved to No10 to help advise
So yes, PM had got on Trump’s good side. The bigger qu: has it helped that much??
https://x.com/benrileysmith/status/1967574090761347570
https://x.com/DPJHodges/status/1967585445816254928?s=19
Paul Ovenden, the prime minister’s director of strategy, leaves Downing Street in another blow following Peter Mandelson and Angela Rayner’s departures
One of Sir Keir Starmer’s most senior aides has resigned after leaked messages revealed he had made lurid and explicit sexual comments about the veteran left-wing MP Diane Abbott.
Paul Ovenden, Starmer’s director of strategy, said he was leaving Downing Street over an “inappropriate” conversation he had with colleagues while working as a Labour press officer in 2017.
His departure is a further blow to the embattled prime minister as he faces continuing questions over his judgment in the Lord Mandelson scandal.
Ovenden, who is close to the prime minister’s chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, was one of a small group of Labour aides who were key to the “Starmer project” to make Labour electable again after the Corbyn years.
Labour’s deputy director of communications at the outset of Starmer’s leadership, he later headed up the party’s attack and rebuttal unit in opposition and then moved into Downing Street before becoming director of strategy in January.
Sources said Ovenden had planned to leave Downing Street later this month — but had brought forward his departure after being confronted about the messages that were obtained by ITV News.
The messages are understood to be part of a huge cache of internal messages and emails that were leaked in 2020 which showed senior officials in Labour’s headquarters were openly plotting against Jeremy Corbyn.
Those leaked messages show Ovenden discussing sex acts involving Abbott with two female staff members.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/keir-starmer-director-strategy-resign-tbh6l5scb
The former ambassador’s world is disintegrating
By Aaron Bastani"
https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2025/09/how-peter-mandelson-became-a-monster
It's always Diane Abbot, isn't it?
But I don't think its to satisfy Trump.
Kruger did say though that he had some admiration for Kemi, this is more Kruger taking revenge on the Cameron and Sunak wing of the Tory Party. Though equally the more the likes of Kruger leave the Tory parliamentary party and Tory membership, the easier it is for a moderate like Cleverly to be elected to replace Kemi as Tory leader which would worry Labour more
Ransome would never have put it into Swallows and Amazons books (IIRC - and it is in the eponymous film) if Cookie's informant was right.
The captain's daughter element is apparently a modern concoction by a bunch of landlubbers.
Arthur Ransome wasn't exactly as pure as the driven snow - I did not know until I looked it up that he was linked to Trotsky's Secretary.
I do wonder those labour, lib dems and others hoping for the demise of the conservative party are ready for 5 years of Farage and Reform because that is where it will lead
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/sep/15/bob-vylan-gig-in-netherlands-cancelled-after-frontman-makes-comments-about-death-of-charlie-kirk
🚨 EXCLUSIVE: These are the messages sent by Paul Ovenden, one of Keir Starmer’s most senior Downing Street advisers, where he repeats sexually explicit and offensive comments about Diane Abbott - ultimately leading to his resignation:
https://x.com/ShehabKhan/status/1967590269446193396
Furthermore, if you had heard the Epstein family's victims interview with Trevor Phillips yesterday about Mandelson, you may not be so quick to want the story burried
https://x.com/jackmrankin/status/1967534314222141662?s=19
More questions for Starmer
Has been live on TV yet ?
They carried it in the May locals rather easily
The interview I saw was on Sky with Sir Trevor Phillips
There is a place for it. I hope it can take it. Boris destroyed it in 2019. Cleverly just might be able to restore it.
EDIT I feel the same about a Labour party focused on social justice and improvements to public servcies.
The court cases about women who were taken advantage of by police officers during the operations involving the tree climbing greens are ongoing, I believe.
The cynical suggest that the police were much happier hanging out with hippies than the mad head chopper types.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/15/online-meetings-and-bureaucracy-delaying-mod-reform-says-former-military-chief
“We are all in the gutter, it’s just some of us are there by choice”
https://x.com/ZiaYusufUK/status/1967532309428465840?s=19
So he didn’t think to ask?
Next it will be “yes I read the emails where Mandelson praises Epstein as the worlds greatest pedo but AS I READ THEM SOMEONE COVERED MY SCREEN WITH VASELINE SO THE ACTUAL WORDS WERE BLURRED”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/15/did-morgan-mcsweeney-hide-mandelson-evidence-from-starmer/
2024 -> next GE
Con 16,849 -> 12,015
Ref 7,885 -> 14,161
Lab 12,133 -> 8,042
LD 8,204 -> 8.920
Grn 1,844 -> 2,218
Reform HOLD
Unless Cons get tactical votes from Lab, LD and/or Grn
Or Lab/LD come to an arrangement.
Can't see any of those happening.
You can say what you like. But, I am not required to give you a platform on which to say it.
https://x.com/mattyglesias/status/1967289846919241752
What a pathetic clown show
I was hoping to learn of some deeply cunning economic manipulation strategy.
I suppose he can say that no one else does, so why should Reform. But they are meant to be different
It’s a classic politician’s excuse, in the real world there’s not much of a fag paper between it all.
Time will tell
..Sir Tony Radakin, giving a speech that had been blocked by Downing Street, complained of “extraordinary Teams calls with 20 or 30 people” – and that the number of senior MoD civil servants had increased by 85% since 2018.
People who were “not going to face the accountability if something goes wrong or it doesn’t happen” nevertheless “have the ability to say no”, the retired admiral said, in online meetings that were normal practice both within the MoD and across government.
Defence reform was “not happening as strongly and as quickly as it needs to,” said Radakin at the Institute for Government, despite the efforts of the current and previous governments, and he acknowledged this “speaks to a personal failure” to defeat bureaucracy.
Whitehall needed to reduce “the levels of hierarchy”, he said, adding: “We have increased senior civil service numbers in defence by about 85% since 2018 even as defence has got smaller and the military star count has remained largely static.”
The former admiral contrasted the normal civil service decision making processes with that adopted in the case of Ukraine, where ministers and officials were willing to take more operational risk. “What I think is frustrating is the outcome [in the case of Ukraine] is so much better,” he said.
Radakin was careful to praise the Labour government and defence secretary, “John Healey, especially”, for wanting to reform the civil service bureaucracy. They were battling a system in which accountability “becomes cloudy”, he said, when large numbers of people were involved.
The problem, Radakin said, was that it was too easy for politicians and officials to delay anything non-urgent, and he highlighted repeated delays to green-lighting a replacement for the now-ageing Trident nuclear submarines in 1998, 2010 and 2016...
I am saying that it is unprincipled and cowardly. Of course.
The skill of knowing what to *provably not to know* is key management skill. Re-read the Post Office enquiry evidence.
Equally, there is often nothing more offensive to senior management than provably making them aware of something they needed not to know.
How to tackle the capital’s problem cyclists
Sebastian Milbank"
https://thecritic.co.uk/take-back-london-for-pedestrians/
“At the moment, it is only Keir Starmer’s force of personality that is keeping this government together.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/15/did-morgan-mcsweeney-hide-mandelson-evidence-from-starmer/
I’m hoping that’s a joke because as a joke it’s excellent
If I were to hear a man use this phrase – or more commonly, ‘best friend’ or ‘best mate’ I would infer it to be someone he had known since childhood – or, at the very outset, since his late teens or early twenties.
Can Jeffrey Epstein really be Peter Mandelson’s ‘best pal’? It paints a very strange picture of him.
A PM absolutely needs to be bothered with stuff, and get a grip on crises urgently, because otherwise the scrutiny starts around exactly who knew what, when.
I am not quite sure of the timings in my head, but I am pretty convinced that a more skilled and adept politician would have made damn sure if they became aware that those emails existed that they would not be standing up in the Commons at midday and trying to deflect by giving public backing. Too much of a hostage to fortune.