The sum of all Keir’s support – politicalbetting.com
The sum of all Keir’s support – politicalbetting.com
Keir Starmer would lose a head-to-head leadership contest against Angela Rayner, but win against Wes Streeting and Ed Miliband, polling for LabourList has revealed.
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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckgl53zll3jo
Quota, Nagasaki:
It is absurd and if they're not careful they'll face a backlash. The Telegraph and the Mail have completely lost the plot and the BBC are not far behind. Starmer is not Mandelson and he is certainly not Epstein though some are even blurring that
Starmer made one mistake and one only. And even that is not as obvious as the 'wise after the eventers' are making it
The appointment is only one small part of this though. The saga of Mandelson's dealings with Epstein looks like it has enough fuel to run and run. I don't think it's hyperbole to suggest that this certainly has the potential to be the biggest scandal since Profumo, and indeed it may yet exceed it.
‘Some of the audience applauded the vice president’
This goes back decades.
You’d be asked about those minor $75k that just happened to fall into your account.
Was this done? Was the email trawl (security service database) done? If not, why not?
They have been attacking him since day 1 at 10am!
He CAN help himself though by immediately removing McSweeney, informed sources believe he was moving back to Election Planning Role anyway in March. Move that forwards it takes a lot of heat out of the situation.
He needs individual Ministers too the FRONT UP ALL NEXT WEEK a day at a time to REFUTE the utter lies of the Tories that the Government is not doing or delivering anything because of this. THEY ARE and the only ones doing nothing and fixating on it are TORIES and LD. To be fair to Farage on this he is moving on with POLICY!
Are you a closet Baggie?
He knew what Mandelson was like.
Brown is just wise after the even and being a party loyalist.
The worst think about it is the walk through the slums from the station.
I don't think this will do. It is a fair assumption that a PM making important decisions about people with form are not controlled by 'process' (any more than Starmer is controlled by legal process and a court about what he believes about how 'woman' should be defined under his premiership).
Being the person where the buck stops means that you command the actual procedure and decide the rules - what is needed to do right - for a particular case. You have the entire resource of the state to draw on. Others advise, you decide.
This happens to be one that can't be excused or ducked, relatively trivial though it is in comparison with some of the other disasters he's inflicted on us.
New on FT website:
Downing Street has refused to say whether Sir Keir Starmer knew Palantir was a client of Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm when they both visited the company in Washington last February — ahead of it winning a £240mn UK government contract.
https://bsky.app/profile/pickardje.bsky.social/post/3meaydjv5fs2u
Irrespective of Starmer going or staying this is a slow burning fuse that has the potential to cause huge embarrassement for labour and who knows who else may get caught up in it
There can be no denial from anyone that this haa damaged Starmer and if there was an obvious successor it would be over for him
I have no idea what comes next but the Gorton and Denton by election followed by the May elections, especially Wales where goodness only kniws what will happen are critical points
I do agree that Starmer's resignation is more likely than a leadership challenge at this moment in time
I remember being involved with a Select Committee who was scrutinising the appointment of someone to be CEO of a fairly important arms length body. The Committee unanimously thought they were useless and totally the wrong choice but it would have been so explosive to actually deem them unfit to be appointed that it begrudgingly approved the appointment with some pointed caveats.
I'd be willing to bet that when we see the vetting documents for Mandleson, there'll be a few 'concerns raised' amongst a load of neutral waffle that clears the way for the PM to appoint him.
I hope someone's checked that she hasn't put all her savings in Farage gold bonds or agreed to a new roof after they cleared her gutters for her.
Somebody spotted the subtle Jack Ryan/Tom Clancy reference.
Striking that it is from outside government in the shape of Gordon Brown that a plan is laid out to end the systematic abuse of power revealed by Mandelson scandal.
Much of it derived from Transparency International and Brown’s own report A New Britain.
Current anti-corruption Tsar Margaret Hodge upgraded to independent parliament appointed anti corruption commission with power to seize assets; controls on political lobbying including 91 peers currently paid to give political advice; existing Ethics and Integrity Commission to be given statutory powers to investigate bank accounts and initiate investigations; public select committee hearings to vet appointment of senior diplomats; end to MPs second jobs (with professional training exceptions) & controls on ministerial private external communications.
Brown says Starmer could introduce a comprehensive bill within 3 months.
Hardly mitigates the absolute shambles we’ve seen this week from the govt and its awful judgement on Mandelson.
Just let Mandy run it
I wonder whether they've picked up on this as a tactic and are, or maybe were, planning to, send out a selection of these, purporting to come from 'someone' nearby.
He has to survive the nexrt 7 days first. Challenging.
still if any other party did this farage wouldn't just shrug his shoulders
Very Brown
Arcturus is building 4D gaussian splatting tech that can capture every angle of a sporting event and pushes the bar for volumetric video.
https://x.com/bilawalsidhu/status/2019831831110258883?s=20
Highly recommended if you want to find out which of your neighbours is racist or most likely to have almost knocked you off your bike.
That's gotta sting.
Don't believe the daily mail and telegraph crap, derived only from a throw away comment that he spent times with his kids on Friday6 nights when loto
(He's a good result for me, but far from my best, and I've not backed him directly)
https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/tom-knox/
Nobody knows just what will be revealed but there may well be other public figures drawn into this and that is an ongoing problem for Starmer and his government
A (Red) Storm is Rising.
Mandelson’s behaviour seems to have been the Sum Of All The Fears about him.
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https://labourlist.org/2026/02/keir-starmer-wes-streeting-leadership-survation-poll/
Since Burnham isn't eligible to stand, and Labour leadership contests are nowadays never won on the first ballot, it is better to look at broader support including 2nd and probably 3rd preferences.
Combined 1st or 2nd preferences:
Burnham 53%
Rayner 36%
Streeting 34%
Miliband 26%
Mahmood 17%
Cooper 17%
Combined 1st, 2nd and 3rd preferences:
Burnham 62%
Rayner 55%
Miliband 48%
Streeting 45%
Cooper 31%
Mahmood 24%
Conclusions:
1. Streeting is in a weaker position than the betting markets suggest. The fact that 2nd and 3rd preferences heavily favour Rayner and MIliband points to most Burnham supporters switching to those two. And this doesn't factor in the full effect of an explicit Burnham endorsement of either Rayner or Miliband (which seems inevitable and will carry weight with the 41% for whom Burnham is 1st preference.)
2. Rayner should be favourite even if the contest comes while (as now) the HMRC verdict is awaited.
3. Miliband is in with a decent shout if Rayner does not stand.
4. Of the candidates at longer odds, Cooper stands a better chance than Mahmood. Cooper should not be discounted because it is not too fanciful to think that both Rayner and Streeting might see their campaign falter for different reasons (an adverse HMRC ruling in Rayner's case, revelations from correspondence with his close friend and ally Mandelson in Streeting's case)
5. Powell and Haigh are not credible alternative soft left candidates to Rayner and Miliband, each only received 1% of 1st preferences.
The main caveat is how representative is the sample base of the wider Labour selectorate of all Labour members plus non-members who are political levy payers in a Labour affiliated union.
"Ace Starmer - what a guy!"
It was always infinitely more welcoming than the Custard Bowl and the bags of piss.
I've got many happ0 memories of Vile Park, non better than 2002 in Abbey National hospitality box when their security had to evacuate us, it was full of blue noses, at full time to one of the Chaimans rooms and bless him old deadly doug came and apologised and paid for a round of drinks. He sacked Turnip Taylor the next day...
Isn't it that his wife is Jewish and he likes the idea of 'family Friday nights'? What will happen when his son wants to go out on the pull (or something) on Friday nights I don't know.
Although in my youth Friday night was, allegedly anyway, hair washing night.
When one of the realistic options is Edstone Milliband, roll the dice!
Not sure this intervention from Gordon Brown will be entirely welcome in No 10 this morning
He says Keir Starmer is a man of integrity but he has been ‘slow to do the right things’
That’s the verdict of a former Labour prime minister on a current Labour prime minister…
I can look in his eyes and I can see that he is a man of integrity. He wants to do the right things.
“Perhaps he’s been too slow to do the right things, but he must do the right things now, and let’s judge what he does, on what happens in the next few months when he tries to, and I believe (he) will try, to clean up the system.”
His involvement with Peter Thiel/Palantir will be the first port of call, I reckon.
The Mandelson business is what it is, but the overarching weak management is why his Prime Ministership has ultimately failed. The failure is very basic.
In other words he is in a very unenviable position the like of which I cannot recall
He must be living a daily nightmare fearing the unknown
Cooper or Carns worth a look.
Outside of betting, what they should look for? The person who in every respect would understand what is entailed in the slogan 'The Buck Stops Here'. The implications about what it means to be the CEO of UK plc are immense. That Starmer just does not get it has been a major surprise. We shall find out, but from here I would guess Carney has the quality.
The qualities can be tested for, but how PMs are appointed make it a pretty random thing.
That doesn't get him off the hook, of course, but it's something that shouldn't be abandoned if/when he gets the boot.
Are we bigging up Milliband to boost TSE's bank balance or are we really serious about this serial loser? And I voted for the idiot in 2010.
If you're looking for some value in backing a long shot (I'm not but I can see the argument for doing so) then Cooper at best odds 20/1 looks much better value than Carns at 22/1. Beyond that John Healey at 66/1. I've had dealings with him in the past and he's widely regarded as someone who plays a straight bat, well respected across the party.
I agree everyone wants to wind the clock baco to when we had fewer problems. But we can't undo covid nor to make Russia uninvade Ukraine, which are the two big reasons for our curremt travails.
Oops !
Secondly, given that a majority of the membership still support Keir, and that would grow significantly if he removed McSweeney, those Members, especially those on seats of 2024 new intake should be telling their MP to shut the f up and support the guy who got them elected and to tell any MSM reporter seeking dirt to f off too.
This is a time forunity not belly aching in public and the time can and will come in the summer to regroup, possibly make changes and move on
As for the usual cabal of shits like Burgon, Long Bailey, McDonnell, and Co. Get them in a taxi to Corbyns allotment and throw them in the steaming manure.
Like the Tories reelecting Hague as leader in 2005
Thatcher, Blair, Brown and Cameron were both in office and in power. No one doubted they ran the government. So when they delegated they were lending power *they* possessed.
Starmer delegated by allowing others to take the power that he himself didn’t have.
It’s hard to imagine any of the PMs on that list publicly complaining about being unable to do things.
Mandelson is the straw that broke the camel's back. All the U turns and general inertia have put him in the position he finds himself. He lost the changing room a while ago.
But this time, were he to get the chance, the electorate would be judging Miliband after 3 years in which he showed what he could or could not achieve, and they had formed their opinion accordingly at that point. Rather different to judging someone before they get into office, based on images of him in Salmond's pocket on Conservative leaflets etc.
And with powers "seize bank accounts" that raise quis custodet questions.
Hodge !!?
All of that should not be rushed in without a lot more scrutiny, if at all.
OTOH, select committee involvement, and crackdowns on lobbying are sensible and should be done.
Something similar could perhaps be said of Mandelson. He is a sleazeball and a wrong 'un, but he is also brilliant - his achievements in politics do speak for themselves - and in an era when politicians are rather short on brilliance you can understand why they turn to him.
Unfortunately the comparison breaks down because sleazy, corrupt and sexually depraved as Lloyd George was nobody has ever to my knowledge accused him of being a traitor which is in effect what Mandelson stands accused of here.
Despite telling the BBC presenter he had only seen “middle-aged housekeepers”, he (Mandelson) spent an evening with Epstein and two female students at the paedophile’s New York home in 2012, and went underwear shopping before the occasion.
Some of us are old enough to remember the howls of outrage from MPs over having to fill in expense claims.
If you vote Conservative in a no hope seat when by voting Lib Dem to defeat Labour you could have ensured one less Labour MP you are not as bright as I assumed you were.
Spotted my first election poster this morning - for Mehmood Mirza and the Newham Independents on the nearby hairdresser's window.
This is going to be interesting....