At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
The site has always had a majority of anti-Labour and anti-"Left" posts (not necessarily posters).
As we saw during the implosion of the Johnson/Truss/Sunak administrations, there were still plenty on here willing to stand in support of the Government and die in the ditch with them while others disappeared only to re-appear as Starmer's car was halfway back from the Palace telling us how bad the new Government was.
Go back to the 2000s and there weren't that many on here who clearly supported Blair yet alone Brown.
Oh dear. Process, process, process. A leader answers for the process; he does not disappear into it.
I wrote in a header about lawyers that the Legal World's Dirty Little Secret is that a lot of lawyers are really very second and even third rate. Some of these are found within expensive City firms and at the Bar.
Starmer rather reminds me of many of the lawyers who appeared at the Post Office Inquiry, some of them really quite eminent KCs and experienced. All of them went on and on about the processes they followed and the procedures and denied doing anything dodgy and explained how they were only advising on X and so did not concern themselves with Y or Z. They all expressed surprise that they had not been told stuff or did not know about relevant information but seemed incapable of understanding that they could have asked and in some cases had a duty to do so. If matters went wrong others were to blame and it was all very regrettable but hindsight etc. All had very slopey shoulders. Integrity was a foreign concept to them.
And all displayed appalling judgment, which is the single most important thing you want from a lawyer.
Starmer is that kind of a lawyer. Technically good within his narrow specialism but lacking in good judgment and therefore not someone who inspires confidence.
The country is a bit like the Post Office during this scandal - initially run by a load of plausible snake oil salesmen who sell the country an overpriced and overhyped product. It then goes wrong and more and more useless leaders are brought in who fail to understand the country's problems, fail to get to grip with any of them, lie about what is happening and/or cover up and/or seek to distract. Eventually we get some sort of tediously lengthy and detailed inquiry which drives most people mad. No-one is held accountable and a few people are presented as the token sacrifice before re-emerging somewhere else suitably lucrative. The details are read by geeks like me. Some token changes are made. And the public take the view that everyone involved, especially the lawyers, are a bunch of scumbags. Meanwhile the country continues to get poorer and be badly run.
Oh - and just like the Post Office matter, Mandelson was at the heart of the whole ghastly mess.
I would add - "but it's legal and just inside the rules, so I must be right" is a path to crisis after crisis.
Further to the above, a colleague of mine went to the Post Office today and was mildly flabbergasted to note that her receipt showed that Horizon still run the systems there.
Presume the cost of installing a new bespoke system without any legacy Horizon/Fujitsu/ICL code would not be economic.
The practical reason is that if parliamentarians can accuse each other of deliberately giving inaccurate information, there is a risk that debate descends into accusations, rather than focusing on substantive issues.
The historic reason is that the concept of honour is important among parliamentarians. It is assumed that MPs will act with honour, and therefore impugning the honour of others is regarded as wrong.
I disagree completely and think that is a piece of self-fulfilling destructive pessimism which acts as though any kind of filtered formality of language is a diminishment of purpose.
Just because we don't live up to certain standards sometimes does not mean we should just abandon even the aspiration of having standards at all.
Things descend into snide comments and accusations all too often, but rules to keep people talking somewhat politely even as they disagree entirely is part of the point of politics in the first place - to force people to engage in certain ways rather than indulge baser instincts and have no productive discussions at all. Or if you think that is already rare, get rid of even the possibility.
Deliberative bodies and, indeed, online forums, typically have rules designed to prevent a complete collapse into nothing but acrimonious insult and chaos. That is a good thing in my view, and I actually think it is a bit silly that people increasingly view what are just basic rules of procedure as some kind of naiivity.
Oh dear. Process, process, process. A leader answers for the process; he does not disappear into it.
I wrote in a header about lawyers that the Legal World's Dirty Little Secret is that a lot of lawyers are really very second and even third rate. Some of these are found within expensive City firms and at the Bar.
Starmer rather reminds me of many of the lawyers who appeared at the Post Office Inquiry, some of them really quite eminent KCs and experienced. All of them went on and on about the processes they followed and the procedures and denied doing anything dodgy and explained how they were only advising on X and so did not concern themselves with Y or Z. They all expressed surprise that they had not been told stuff or did not know about relevant information but seemed incapable of understanding that they could have asked and in some cases had a duty to do so. If matters went wrong others were to blame and it was all very regrettable but hindsight etc. All had very slopey shoulders. Integrity was a foreign concept to them.
And all displayed appalling judgment, which is the single most important thing you want from a lawyer.
Starmer is that kind of a lawyer. Technically good within his narrow specialism but lacking in good judgment and therefore not someone who inspires confidence.
The country is a bit like the Post Office during this scandal - initially run by a load of plausible snake oil salesmen who sell the country an overpriced and overhyped product. It then goes wrong and more and more useless leaders are brought in who fail to understand the country's problems, fail to get to grip with any of them, lie about what is happening and/or cover up and/or seek to distract. Eventually we get some sort of tediously lengthy and detailed inquiry which drives most people mad. No-one is held accountable and a few people are presented as the token sacrifice before re-emerging somewhere else suitably lucrative. The details are read by geeks like me. Some token changes are made. And the public take the view that everyone involved, especially the lawyers, are a bunch of scumbags. Meanwhile the country continues to get poorer and be badly run.
Oh - and just like the Post Office matter, Mandelson was at the heart of the whole ghastly mess.
I would add - "but it's legal and just inside the rules, so I must be right" is a path to crisis after crisis.
Further to the above, a colleague of mine went to the Post Office today and was mildly flabbergasted to note that her receipt showed that Horizon still run the systems there.
To be fair, the actually IT expert who looked at the system (and gave evidence to the enquiry) pointed out that a relatively small project could fix the problems (transactionality) with Horizon.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Says the person who brandished "puff" as an insult
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
Let’s hope the Olly Robbins appearance tomorrow is more interesting and enlightening because we’ve learnt nothing new today .
See previous link to and extract from Hansard, Fleur Anderson grilled Robbins on this at a select committee session in November. Robbins discussed Mandelson's conflicts of interest declaration with him. So presumably he had the UKSV decision, he had Mandelson's CoI declaration and he had a discussion with him. Then he overruled the UKSV, give him a pass and, unless he's got evidence otherwise, didn't tell Starmer or any other minister.
I don't think Robbins is going to shed any further light on this ..
I would like someone to ask why he didn't tell Starmer or anyone else.
He'll be asked tomorrow Edit Starmer just said Rollins told him he wasn't allowed to!
Bullshit.
Under what possible grounds could someone not be allowed to tell the PM something so important?
Utter bullshit!
Separation of roles and information in case a subsequent appeal is required.
That makes no sense, an appeal would only happen (if one could) if it was rejected due to the failure, however since the failure was overridden there was no requirement for an appeal.
To have the PM "not allowed" to be told that the person he has appointed has failed security checks but been granted clearance anyway is utterly asinine. Unless the PM has directed he does not want to be told anything that could be embarrassing.
I doubt Thatcher would have accepted "you can't tell me that".
Starmer didn't accept it either. He fired him.
After the media uproar, not before.
Can't imagine any other walk of life where someone could be hired by the big boss, fail security checks, be appointed anyway only for the boss to claim they weren't informed checks were failed.
If a Head at a school hired a Teacher only for it to turn out they had failed their DBS checks and been appointed anyway, I am curious what would happen and if anyone could "not be allowed" to inform the Head that the checks had been failed.
He fired him immediately he found out that key information had been hidden from him, in spite of him getting the cabinet Secretary to investigate. He was misled too.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
The practical reason is that if parliamentarians can accuse each other of deliberately giving inaccurate information, there is a risk that debate descends into accusations, rather than focusing on substantive issues.
The historic reason is that the concept of honour is important among parliamentarians. It is assumed that MPs will act with honour, and therefore impugning the honour of others is regarded as wrong.
The historical, honour argument, sure. It's a pious fiction. But the practical argument- that generic accusations of the other one being a liar are lazy and don't move the debate on- seems sound. Partly it's the difference between criticising the argument, the behaviour and the person.
Was/is there a taboo on accusing MPs of being drunk? For much the same reason, I guess. Didn't Alan Clark fall foul of that fairly on in his ministerial career?
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
I don’t see how it can be a RefCon site. There’s not many, if any, Reform supporters here and there’s more LD’s than Tories.
The practical reason is that if parliamentarians can accuse each other of deliberately giving inaccurate information, there is a risk that debate descends into accusations, rather than focusing on substantive issues.
The historic reason is that the concept of honour is important among parliamentarians. It is assumed that MPs will act with honour, and therefore impugning the honour of others is regarded as wrong.
The historical, honour argument, sure. It's a pious fiction. But the practical argument- that generic accusations of the other one being a liar are lazy and don't move the debate on- seems sound. Partly it's the difference between criticising the argument, the behaviour and the person.
Was/is there a taboo on accusing MPs of being drunk? For much the same reason, I guess. Didn't Alan Clark fall foul of that fairly on in his ministerial career?
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
I don’t see how it can be a RefCon site. There’s not many, if any, Reform supporters here and there’s more LD’s than Tories.
The practical reason is that if parliamentarians can accuse each other of deliberately giving inaccurate information, there is a risk that debate descends into accusations, rather than focusing on substantive issues.
The historic reason is that the concept of honour is important among parliamentarians. It is assumed that MPs will act with honour, and therefore impugning the honour of others is regarded as wrong.
The historical, honour argument, sure. It's a pious fiction. But the practical argument- that generic accusations of the other one being a liar are lazy and don't move the debate on- seems sound. Partly it's the difference between criticising the argument, the behaviour and the person.
Was/is there a taboo on accusing MPs of being drunk? For much the same reason, I guess. Didn't Alan Clark fall foul of that fairly on in his ministerial career?
Is it really possible for debate to descend into accusations rather than focusing on substantive issues?
I'm not sure which debates they are watching, certainly not any that the PM and Loto attend.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
I don’t see how it can be a RefCon site. There’s not many, if any, Reform supporters here and there’s more LD’s than Tories.
Though it can be amusing when people who have voted Tory/Labour before are occasionally dismissed on the basis they'd never vote for Tory/Labour.
The practical reason is that if parliamentarians can accuse each other of deliberately giving inaccurate information, there is a risk that debate descends into accusations, rather than focusing on substantive issues.
The historic reason is that the concept of honour is important among parliamentarians. It is assumed that MPs will act with honour, and therefore impugning the honour of others is regarded as wrong.
The historical, honour argument, sure. It's a pious fiction. But the practical argument- that generic accusations of the other one being a liar are lazy and don't move the debate on- seems sound. Partly it's the difference between criticising the argument, the behaviour and the person.
Was/is there a taboo on accusing MPs of being drunk? For much the same reason, I guess. Didn't Alan Clark fall foul of that fairly on in his ministerial career?
I always lie. In fact, I am lying to you now.
Now, then. What would the other guard say if I asked them whether you had a good day at work?
The practical reason is that if parliamentarians can accuse each other of deliberately giving inaccurate information, there is a risk that debate descends into accusations, rather than focusing on substantive issues.
The historic reason is that the concept of honour is important among parliamentarians. It is assumed that MPs will act with honour, and therefore impugning the honour of others is regarded as wrong.
The historical, honour argument, sure. It's a pious fiction. But the practical argument- that generic accusations of the other one being a liar are lazy and don't move the debate on- seems sound. Partly it's the difference between criticising the argument, the behaviour and the person.
Was/is there a taboo on accusing MPs of being drunk? For much the same reason, I guess. Didn't Alan Clark fall foul of that fairly on in his ministerial career?
Is it really possible for debate to descend into accusations rather than focusing on substantive issues?
I'm not sure which debates they are watching, certainly not any that the PM and Loto attend.
If you think it cannot get worse then get rid of basic rules of procedure, which nearly all bodies have, and you will find out different.
There were some who thought a Labour majority of 170 or so would preclude much Parliamentary theatre - how wrong they were.
Starmer squirmed as you might expect but we are still absent a "smoking gun" to force his resignation. Today's revelation about ignored "advice" isn't as crucial as you might think.
I don't know how often Ministers and the Prime Minister ignore or fail to accept advice from senior officials but I bet it has happened plenty of times.
Ignoring advice isn't in and of itself a hanging offence in my book but it does shift the ground if and when circumstances change. If the Officials advise A and the PM decides to do B and B turns out to be right, said PM is in a strong position and can play "the civil service told me it couldn't be done but I had faith and I was right" or something similar card.
If you follow advice and it turns out to be poor advice, you can blame the Officials but the problem comes when you ignore advice and it turns out to be good advice. It shouldn't happen but you'd be surprised how often that leaks out and the old "we told the PM to do this, the PM did something else and look how it turned out" mantra comes into play.
Is it however an appropriate sanction for a PM to resign if he/she takes their own view and discounts official advice? Again, I don't see why unless the course of action undertaken by the PM in contravention of advice turned out to be in some way illegal or improper. Was appointing Mandelson to be the Ambassador to Washington illegal? No, was it improper? Given the vetting and the concerns over links to China let alone Epstein, you can certainly argue that but as the head of the pin heaves into view, we're left with the notion either Starmer didn't know or wasn't told (in which case accidentially misleading Parliament warrants an apology but no more) or he did know but wanted to appoint Mandelson anyway and deliberately misled Parliament (which would be a resignation matter)?
Many will believe the latter but without any actual proof or evidence, what do we have?
Well...
There's advice on the right thing to do: buses vs trams!
And there's factual advice around whether somebody has had serious issues with truthfulness, connections, etc in the past: like (say) Peter Mandelson.
The former, well, advisors advise, politicians decide. The latter... Well, if you're going to ignore things, then the buck stops with you.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
I don’t see how it can be a RefCon site. There’s not many, if any, Reform supporters here and there’s more LD’s than Tories.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
Up to a point.
The best thing about this site is intelligent, fact-based disagreement that makes you check your own assumptions and arguments, and maybe even modify them. For example, a while back, somebody on here challenged my assumption in a post that increasing the share of government spending and tax as a % of GDP reduces total GDP. That made me go back and look at half-remembered papers from a decade ago so that I could prove he was wrong (which he is, completely).
But repetitive, trolly, unsupported comments about how one side is amazing and the other side can do no good don't add that much.
Nor do obvious absurdities about - my favourite - how Britain has nothing to fear and everything to gain from Communist China...
Well, I mean other than the obviously false last sentence, I agree with all of that.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
You have missed the hostility to Tim, Surbiton, Tyson, (even) Southam, Jonathan, Horse, Foxy and now Brixian then?
Not many outspoken Centrists are left.
P.S. I think I might have detected a hint of hostility in your post.
Let’s hope the Olly Robbins appearance tomorrow is more interesting and enlightening because we’ve learnt nothing new today .
See previous link to and extract from Hansard, Fleur Anderson grilled Robbins on this at a select committee session in November. Robbins discussed Mandelson's conflicts of interest declaration with him. So presumably he had the UKSV decision, he had Mandelson's CoI declaration and he had a discussion with him. Then he overruled the UKSV, give him a pass and, unless he's got evidence otherwise, didn't tell Starmer or any other minister.
I don't think Robbins is going to shed any further light on this ..
I would like someone to ask why he didn't tell Starmer or anyone else.
He'll be asked tomorrow Edit Starmer just said Rollins told him he wasn't allowed to!
Bullshit.
Under what possible grounds could someone not be allowed to tell the PM something so important?
Utter bullshit!
Separation of roles and information in case a subsequent appeal is required.
That makes no sense, an appeal would only happen (if one could) if it was rejected due to the failure, however since the failure was overridden there was no requirement for an appeal.
To have the PM "not allowed" to be told that the person he has appointed has failed security checks but been granted clearance anyway is utterly asinine. Unless the PM has directed he does not want to be told anything that could be embarrassing.
I doubt Thatcher would have accepted "you can't tell me that".
Starmer didn't accept it either. He fired him.
After the media uproar, not before.
Can't imagine any other walk of life where someone could be hired by the big boss, fail security checks, be appointed anyway only for the boss to claim they weren't informed checks were failed.
If a Head at a school hired a Teacher only for it to turn out they had failed their DBS checks and been appointed anyway, I am curious what would happen and if anyone could "not be allowed" to inform the Head that the checks had been failed.
He fired him immediately he found out that key information had been hidden from him, in spite of him getting the cabinet Secretary to investigate. He was misled too.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
He will say he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer.
I suspect the real reason was that by making the appointment in advance of vetting, the PM had already decided that the vetting wasn't important, especially as the reasons for failing the vetting were ones everyone in Westminster, including not just Starmer but also Gove and Farage who praised the appointment already knew. So the civil servant was delivering the outcome the government wanted and found a process by which that could be done.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
I don’t see how it can be a RefCon site. There’s not many, if any, Reform supporters here and there’s more LD’s than Tories.
LD's are Tories
[Ducks and leaves]
To some people, Corbyn is a Tory.
He got a lot of Tory MPs elected, more than many Tory leaders.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
You have missed the hostility to Tim, Surbiton, Tyson, (even) Southam, Jonathan, Horse, Foxy and now Brixian then?
Not many outspoken Centrists are left.
There can only ever be one Centrist at a time, and everyone else then fits around them.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
You will be missed about as much as Starmer will be.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
You have missed the hostility to Tim, Surbiton, Tyson, (even) Southam, Jonathan, Horse, Foxy and now Brixian then?
Not many outspoken Centrists are left.
And there has been hostility to Lucky, Isam, Leon, Sandpit on the right. People disagree, sometimes vehemently, with other posters of different political sides - sort of the point of this place rather than us all sitting round singing Kumbaya.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
You have missed the hostility to Tim, Surbiton, Tyson, (even) Southam, Jonathan, Horse, Foxy and now Brixian then?
Not many outspoken Centrists are left.
P.S. I think I might have detected a hint of hostility in your post.
They are a bit lefty rather than centrist imo. True centrists just get random derision rather than hostility.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
I'm not sure Starmer apologists would be around in sufficient numbers to register as a thing.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
I don’t see how it can be a RefCon site. There’s not many, if any, Reform supporters here and there’s more LD’s than Tories.
LD's are Tories
[Ducks and leaves]
To some people, Corbyn is a Tory.
No one in the UK has worked as hard to deliver decades of Conservative Governments. That's for sure.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
You have missed the hostility to Tim, Surbiton, Tyson, (even) Southam, Jonathan, Horse, Foxy and now Brixian then?
Not many outspoken Centrists are left.
P.S. I think I might have detected a hint of hostility in your post.
They are a bit lefty rather than centrist imo. True centrists just get random derision rather than hostility.
No one knows true scorn like an indecisive centrist getting it from both sides. The real heroes.
Let’s hope the Olly Robbins appearance tomorrow is more interesting and enlightening because we’ve learnt nothing new today .
See previous link to and extract from Hansard, Fleur Anderson grilled Robbins on this at a select committee session in November. Robbins discussed Mandelson's conflicts of interest declaration with him. So presumably he had the UKSV decision, he had Mandelson's CoI declaration and he had a discussion with him. Then he overruled the UKSV, give him a pass and, unless he's got evidence otherwise, didn't tell Starmer or any other minister.
I don't think Robbins is going to shed any further light on this ..
I would like someone to ask why he didn't tell Starmer or anyone else.
He'll be asked tomorrow Edit Starmer just said Rollins told him he wasn't allowed to!
Bullshit.
Under what possible grounds could someone not be allowed to tell the PM something so important?
Utter bullshit!
Separation of roles and information in case a subsequent appeal is required.
That makes no sense, an appeal would only happen (if one could) if it was rejected due to the failure, however since the failure was overridden there was no requirement for an appeal.
To have the PM "not allowed" to be told that the person he has appointed has failed security checks but been granted clearance anyway is utterly asinine. Unless the PM has directed he does not want to be told anything that could be embarrassing.
I doubt Thatcher would have accepted "you can't tell me that".
Starmer didn't accept it either. He fired him.
After the media uproar, not before.
Can't imagine any other walk of life where someone could be hired by the big boss, fail security checks, be appointed anyway only for the boss to claim they weren't informed checks were failed.
If a Head at a school hired a Teacher only for it to turn out they had failed their DBS checks and been appointed anyway, I am curious what would happen and if anyone could "not be allowed" to inform the Head that the checks had been failed.
He fired him immediately he found out that key information had been hidden from him, in spite of him getting the cabinet Secretary to investigate. He was misled too.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
He will say he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer.
I suspect the real reason was that by making the appointment in advance of vetting, the PM had already decided that the vetting wasn't important, especially as the reasons for failing the vetting were ones everyone in Westminster, including not just Starmer but also Gove and Farage who praised the appointment already knew. So the civil servant was delivering the outcome the government wanted and found a process by which that could be done.
If he says he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer, he will be asked who or what prevented him.
Was it a law, or a convention, or an instruction? Chapter and verse. We all want to know.
Likely to be another Mandelson debate tomorrow, Sky News understands
Sky News understands that Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will apply for an emergency debate on the vetting scandal for Peter Mandelson's appointment as the UK's ambassador, to the US to be held tomorrow.
We further understand the debate is likely to be granted.
Quite clever as it will follow Olly Robbins evidence at 9.00am in the morning
Let’s hope the Olly Robbins appearance tomorrow is more interesting and enlightening because we’ve learnt nothing new today .
See previous link to and extract from Hansard, Fleur Anderson grilled Robbins on this at a select committee session in November. Robbins discussed Mandelson's conflicts of interest declaration with him. So presumably he had the UKSV decision, he had Mandelson's CoI declaration and he had a discussion with him. Then he overruled the UKSV, give him a pass and, unless he's got evidence otherwise, didn't tell Starmer or any other minister.
I don't think Robbins is going to shed any further light on this ..
I would like someone to ask why he didn't tell Starmer or anyone else.
He'll be asked tomorrow Edit Starmer just said Rollins told him he wasn't allowed to!
Bullshit.
Under what possible grounds could someone not be allowed to tell the PM something so important?
Utter bullshit!
Separation of roles and information in case a subsequent appeal is required.
That makes no sense, an appeal would only happen (if one could) if it was rejected due to the failure, however since the failure was overridden there was no requirement for an appeal.
To have the PM "not allowed" to be told that the person he has appointed has failed security checks but been granted clearance anyway is utterly asinine. Unless the PM has directed he does not want to be told anything that could be embarrassing.
I doubt Thatcher would have accepted "you can't tell me that".
Starmer didn't accept it either. He fired him.
After the media uproar, not before.
Can't imagine any other walk of life where someone could be hired by the big boss, fail security checks, be appointed anyway only for the boss to claim they weren't informed checks were failed.
If a Head at a school hired a Teacher only for it to turn out they had failed their DBS checks and been appointed anyway, I am curious what would happen and if anyone could "not be allowed" to inform the Head that the checks had been failed.
He fired him immediately he found out that key information had been hidden from him, in spite of him getting the cabinet Secretary to investigate. He was misled too.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
He will say he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer.
I suspect the real reason was that by making the appointment in advance of vetting, the PM had already decided that the vetting wasn't important, especially as the reasons for failing the vetting were ones everyone in Westminster, including not just Starmer but also Gove and Farage who praised the appointment already knew. So the civil servant was delivering the outcome the government wanted and found a process by which that could be done.
If he says he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer, he will be asked who or what prevented him.
Was it a law, or a convention, or an instruction? Chapter and verse. We all want to know.
Imagine Bernard or Humphrey answering. There will be words, which kind of make sense, but leave us none the wiser.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
I'm not sure Starmer apologists would be around in sufficient numbers to register as a thing.
At least Sir Inkeiredible didn’t go to made up shagging parties, or lie to the dead Queen
Likely to be another Mandelson debate tomorrow, Sky News understands
Sky News understands that Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will apply for an emergency debate on the vetting scandal for Peter Mandelson's appointment as the UK's ambassador, to the US to be held tomorrow.
We further understand the debate is likely to be granted.
Quite clever as it will follow Olly Robbins evidence at 9.00am in the morning
I always wonder what dull but presumably substantive piece of business gets bumped from the schedule when they have emergency debates.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
You have missed the hostility to Tim, Surbiton, Tyson, (even) Southam, Jonathan, Horse, Foxy and now Brixian then?
Not many outspoken Centrists are left.
And there has been hostility to Lucky, Isam, Leon, Sandpit on the right. People disagree, sometimes vehemently, with other posters of different political sides - sort of the point of this place rather than us all sitting round singing Kumbaya.
The people you have mentioned have quite rightly got quite a substantial posse of fans. Not many Centist poster fans here.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
So I hope he stays even as I reserve the right to heckle him
Agreed however anyone stumbling across this site since Brixian’s arrival would have just turned around and left once they saw the interminable robotic spamming about Labour good/Kemi bad so swings and roundabouts.
No you are right we don't want any Centrists or Left Wingers. This is a nice RefCon site!
Don’t be dim. You need to drop the ridiculous persecution complex - nobody wants the site to be an echo chamber for right, left or centre as would be completely dull and pointless.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
You have missed the hostility to Tim, Surbiton, Tyson, (even) Southam, Jonathan, Horse, Foxy and now Brixian then?
Not many outspoken Centrists are left.
There can only ever be one Centrist at a time, and everyone else then fits around them.
Let’s hope the Olly Robbins appearance tomorrow is more interesting and enlightening because we’ve learnt nothing new today .
See previous link to and extract from Hansard, Fleur Anderson grilled Robbins on this at a select committee session in November. Robbins discussed Mandelson's conflicts of interest declaration with him. So presumably he had the UKSV decision, he had Mandelson's CoI declaration and he had a discussion with him. Then he overruled the UKSV, give him a pass and, unless he's got evidence otherwise, didn't tell Starmer or any other minister.
I don't think Robbins is going to shed any further light on this ..
I would like someone to ask why he didn't tell Starmer or anyone else.
He'll be asked tomorrow Edit Starmer just said Rollins told him he wasn't allowed to!
Bullshit.
Under what possible grounds could someone not be allowed to tell the PM something so important?
Utter bullshit!
Separation of roles and information in case a subsequent appeal is required.
That makes no sense, an appeal would only happen (if one could) if it was rejected due to the failure, however since the failure was overridden there was no requirement for an appeal.
To have the PM "not allowed" to be told that the person he has appointed has failed security checks but been granted clearance anyway is utterly asinine. Unless the PM has directed he does not want to be told anything that could be embarrassing.
I doubt Thatcher would have accepted "you can't tell me that".
Starmer didn't accept it either. He fired him.
After the media uproar, not before.
Can't imagine any other walk of life where someone could be hired by the big boss, fail security checks, be appointed anyway only for the boss to claim they weren't informed checks were failed.
If a Head at a school hired a Teacher only for it to turn out they had failed their DBS checks and been appointed anyway, I am curious what would happen and if anyone could "not be allowed" to inform the Head that the checks had been failed.
He fired him immediately he found out that key information had been hidden from him, in spite of him getting the cabinet Secretary to investigate. He was misled too.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
He will say he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer.
I suspect the real reason was that by making the appointment in advance of vetting, the PM had already decided that the vetting wasn't important, especially as the reasons for failing the vetting were ones everyone in Westminster, including not just Starmer but also Gove and Farage who praised the appointment already knew. So the civil servant was delivering the outcome the government wanted and found a process by which that could be done.
If he says he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer, he will be asked who or what prevented him.
Was it a law, or a convention, or an instruction? Chapter and verse. We all want to know.
Let’s hope the Olly Robbins appearance tomorrow is more interesting and enlightening because we’ve learnt nothing new today .
See previous link to and extract from Hansard, Fleur Anderson grilled Robbins on this at a select committee session in November. Robbins discussed Mandelson's conflicts of interest declaration with him. So presumably he had the UKSV decision, he had Mandelson's CoI declaration and he had a discussion with him. Then he overruled the UKSV, give him a pass and, unless he's got evidence otherwise, didn't tell Starmer or any other minister.
I don't think Robbins is going to shed any further light on this ..
I would like someone to ask why he didn't tell Starmer or anyone else.
He'll be asked tomorrow Edit Starmer just said Rollins told him he wasn't allowed to!
Bullshit.
Under what possible grounds could someone not be allowed to tell the PM something so important?
Utter bullshit!
Separation of roles and information in case a subsequent appeal is required.
That makes no sense, an appeal would only happen (if one could) if it was rejected due to the failure, however since the failure was overridden there was no requirement for an appeal.
To have the PM "not allowed" to be told that the person he has appointed has failed security checks but been granted clearance anyway is utterly asinine. Unless the PM has directed he does not want to be told anything that could be embarrassing.
I doubt Thatcher would have accepted "you can't tell me that".
Starmer didn't accept it either. He fired him.
After the media uproar, not before.
Can't imagine any other walk of life where someone could be hired by the big boss, fail security checks, be appointed anyway only for the boss to claim they weren't informed checks were failed.
If a Head at a school hired a Teacher only for it to turn out they had failed their DBS checks and been appointed anyway, I am curious what would happen and if anyone could "not be allowed" to inform the Head that the checks had been failed.
He fired him immediately he found out that key information had been hidden from him, in spite of him getting the cabinet Secretary to investigate. He was misled too.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
He will say he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer.
I suspect the real reason was that by making the appointment in advance of vetting, the PM had already decided that the vetting wasn't important, especially as the reasons for failing the vetting were ones everyone in Westminster, including not just Starmer but also Gove and Farage who praised the appointment already knew. So the civil servant was delivering the outcome the government wanted and found a process by which that could be done.
If he says he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer, he will be asked who or what prevented him.
Was it a law, or a convention, or an instruction? Chapter and verse. We all want to know.
Imagine Bernard or Humphrey answering. There will be words, which kind of make sense, but leave us none the wiser.
A simple matter of administrative policy, or a policy on adminstration perhaps?
I do see that there is a real dilemma here. In that, while it has been government policy to regard policy as a responsibility of Ministers and administration as a responsibility of Officials, the questions of administrative policy can cause confusion between the policy of administration and the administration of policy, especially when responsibility for the administration of the policy of administration conflicts, or overlaps with, responsibility for the policy of the administration of policy.
Let’s hope the Olly Robbins appearance tomorrow is more interesting and enlightening because we’ve learnt nothing new today .
See previous link to and extract from Hansard, Fleur Anderson grilled Robbins on this at a select committee session in November. Robbins discussed Mandelson's conflicts of interest declaration with him. So presumably he had the UKSV decision, he had Mandelson's CoI declaration and he had a discussion with him. Then he overruled the UKSV, give him a pass and, unless he's got evidence otherwise, didn't tell Starmer or any other minister.
I don't think Robbins is going to shed any further light on this ..
I would like someone to ask why he didn't tell Starmer or anyone else.
He'll be asked tomorrow Edit Starmer just said Rollins told him he wasn't allowed to!
Bullshit.
Under what possible grounds could someone not be allowed to tell the PM something so important?
Utter bullshit!
Separation of roles and information in case a subsequent appeal is required.
That makes no sense, an appeal would only happen (if one could) if it was rejected due to the failure, however since the failure was overridden there was no requirement for an appeal.
To have the PM "not allowed" to be told that the person he has appointed has failed security checks but been granted clearance anyway is utterly asinine. Unless the PM has directed he does not want to be told anything that could be embarrassing.
I doubt Thatcher would have accepted "you can't tell me that".
Starmer didn't accept it either. He fired him.
After the media uproar, not before.
Can't imagine any other walk of life where someone could be hired by the big boss, fail security checks, be appointed anyway only for the boss to claim they weren't informed checks were failed.
If a Head at a school hired a Teacher only for it to turn out they had failed their DBS checks and been appointed anyway, I am curious what would happen and if anyone could "not be allowed" to inform the Head that the checks had been failed.
He fired him immediately he found out that key information had been hidden from him, in spite of him getting the cabinet Secretary to investigate. He was misled too.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
He will say he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer.
I suspect the real reason was that by making the appointment in advance of vetting, the PM had already decided that the vetting wasn't important, especially as the reasons for failing the vetting were ones everyone in Westminster, including not just Starmer but also Gove and Farage who praised the appointment already knew. So the civil servant was delivering the outcome the government wanted and found a process by which that could be done.
If he says he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer, he will be asked who or what prevented him.
Was it a law, or a convention, or an instruction? Chapter and verse. We all want to know.
Imagine Bernard or Humphrey answering. There will be words, which kind of make sense, but leave us none the wiser.
My dear Minister, you pose a question of such exquisite procedural delicacy that one almost hesitates to disturb the settled dust of Whitehall with a direct answer. However, if Sir Olly Robbins—the late, lamented Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office—were to be asked who or what stayed his hand from informing the Prime Minister of Lord Mandelson's vetting results, Sir Olly may well argue that he was not prevented so much as he was dutifully observing a system designed specifically to keep you in a state of blissful, if somewhat precarious, ignorance.
Likely to be another Mandelson debate tomorrow, Sky News understands
Sky News understands that Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will apply for an emergency debate on the vetting scandal for Peter Mandelson's appointment as the UK's ambassador, to the US to be held tomorrow.
We further understand the debate is likely to be granted.
Quite clever as it will follow Olly Robbins evidence at 9.00am in the morning
I always wonder what dull but presumably substantive piece of business gets bumped from the schedule when they have emergency debates.
I must be the only person who thinks Starmer shouldn't resign.
Obviously an error to hire Mandelson, but not a resigning issue.
Though if he has lied to blame the vetting thing on Robbins then he should go.
Maybe Starmer's best tactic is to double down on making Robbins the scapegoat. Paint him as emblematic of the revolving door between lobbying and Whitehall and imply that he had a personal interest in smoothing things over for Mandelson.
There were some who thought a Labour majority of 170 or so would preclude much Parliamentary theatre - how wrong they were.
Starmer squirmed as you might expect but we are still absent a "smoking gun" to force his resignation. Today's revelation about ignored "advice" isn't as crucial as you might think.
I don't know how often Ministers and the Prime Minister ignore or fail to accept advice from senior officials but I bet it has happened plenty of times.
Ignoring advice isn't in and of itself a hanging offence in my book but it does shift the ground if and when circumstances change. If the Officials advise A and the PM decides to do B and B turns out to be right, said PM is in a strong position and can play "the civil service told me it couldn't be done but I had faith and I was right" or something similar card.
If you follow advice and it turns out to be poor advice, you can blame the Officials but the problem comes when you ignore advice and it turns out to be good advice. It shouldn't happen but you'd be surprised how often that leaks out and the old "we told the PM to do this, the PM did something else and look how it turned out" mantra comes into play.
Is it however an appropriate sanction for a PM to resign if he/she takes their own view and discounts official advice? Again, I don't see why unless the course of action undertaken by the PM in contravention of advice turned out to be in some way illegal or improper. Was appointing Mandelson to be the Ambassador to Washington illegal? No, was it improper? Given the vetting and the concerns over links to China let alone Epstein, you can certainly argue that but as the head of the pin heaves into view, we're left with the notion either Starmer didn't know or wasn't told (in which case accidentially misleading Parliament warrants an apology but no more) or he did know but wanted to appoint Mandelson anyway and deliberately misled Parliament (which would be a resignation matter)?
Many will believe the latter but without any actual proof or evidence, what do we have?
Well...
There's advice on the right thing to do: buses vs trams!
And there's factual advice around whether somebody has had serious issues with truthfulness, connections, etc in the past: like (say) Peter Mandelson.
The former, well, advisors advise, politicians decide. The latter... Well, if you're going to ignore things, then the buck stops with you.
I don't wholly disagree but elected people must have the right to disregard official "advice" and take a different route and as I said I'm sure that has happened many times.
I also agree if you disregard the official advice and it goes wrong, you, as the decision maker, have to take some form of responsibility. If you follow advice and it goes wrong, there's an element of deflection available.
We are therefore at the point of trying to figure out what Starmer was told or not told, by who and when. IF he was told Mandelson had failed vetting, chose to overrule it and told Parliament Mandelson had passed vetting, that is a resignation matter.
I suspect that wasn't what he was told and the language used probably left plenty of room for interpretation. "Mandelson has not failed vetting" might be construed as "Mandelson has passed vetting" but that's not necessarily the case. It's probably going to be quite easy to build a defence around an accidential misleading of Parliament absent any actual evidence of a deliberate and wilful misleading.
Let me be clear (which Starmer hasn't and won't be) - this stinks to high heaven but we need more proof than currently exists if we are going to hang a Prime Minister.
I must be the only person who thinks Starmer shouldn't resign.
Obviously an error to hire Mandelson, but not a resigning issue.
Though if he has lied to blame the vetting thing on Robbins then he should go.
I agree with you*, so not the only one.
He is however, partly as a result of this, a lame duck PM who will have to go before the election or it will be a disaster worse than the Tories 2024. I don't see how it helps anyone for him to leave now though, 2027 is better for both him and those seeking his job.
* Actually, not 100% sure that it was an error to appoint Mandelson, certainly a risk that has paid off badly. But he was handling Trump better than a typical ambassador imo.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
Up to a point.
The best thing about this site is intelligent, fact-based disagreement that makes you check your own assumptions and arguments, and maybe even modify them. For example, a while back, somebody on here challenged my assumption in a post that increasing the share of government spending and tax as a % of GDP reduces total GDP. That made me go back and look at half-remembered papers from a decade ago so that I could prove he was wrong (which he is, completely).
But repetitive, trolly, unsupported comments about how one side is amazing and the other side can do no good don't add that much.
Nor do obvious absurdities about - my favourite - how Britain has nothing to fear and everything to gain from Communist China...
Well, I mean other than the obviously false last sentence, I agree with all of that.
Isn't that a straw man anyway ? Apart from perhaps Roger, does anyone argue that we have "nothing to fear" from China ?
I think the argument is either that they aren't a direct military threat to us (probably true), or that it's in our interest to trade with them, or that they're slightly less unreliable than Trump (also likely true).
Let’s hope the Olly Robbins appearance tomorrow is more interesting and enlightening because we’ve learnt nothing new today .
See previous link to and extract from Hansard, Fleur Anderson grilled Robbins on this at a select committee session in November. Robbins discussed Mandelson's conflicts of interest declaration with him. So presumably he had the UKSV decision, he had Mandelson's CoI declaration and he had a discussion with him. Then he overruled the UKSV, give him a pass and, unless he's got evidence otherwise, didn't tell Starmer or any other minister.
I don't think Robbins is going to shed any further light on this ..
I would like someone to ask why he didn't tell Starmer or anyone else.
He'll be asked tomorrow Edit Starmer just said Rollins told him he wasn't allowed to!
Bullshit.
Under what possible grounds could someone not be allowed to tell the PM something so important?
Utter bullshit!
Separation of roles and information in case a subsequent appeal is required.
That makes no sense, an appeal would only happen (if one could) if it was rejected due to the failure, however since the failure was overridden there was no requirement for an appeal.
To have the PM "not allowed" to be told that the person he has appointed has failed security checks but been granted clearance anyway is utterly asinine. Unless the PM has directed he does not want to be told anything that could be embarrassing.
I doubt Thatcher would have accepted "you can't tell me that".
Starmer didn't accept it either. He fired him.
After the media uproar, not before.
Can't imagine any other walk of life where someone could be hired by the big boss, fail security checks, be appointed anyway only for the boss to claim they weren't informed checks were failed.
If a Head at a school hired a Teacher only for it to turn out they had failed their DBS checks and been appointed anyway, I am curious what would happen and if anyone could "not be allowed" to inform the Head that the checks had been failed.
He fired him immediately he found out that key information had been hidden from him, in spite of him getting the cabinet Secretary to investigate. He was misled too.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
He will say he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer.
I suspect the real reason was that by making the appointment in advance of vetting, the PM had already decided that the vetting wasn't important, especially as the reasons for failing the vetting were ones everyone in Westminster, including not just Starmer but also Gove and Farage who praised the appointment already knew. So the civil servant was delivering the outcome the government wanted and found a process by which that could be done.
If he says he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer, he will be asked who or what prevented him.
Was it a law, or a convention, or an instruction? Chapter and verse. We all want to know.
Imagine Bernard or Humphrey answering. There will be words, which kind of make sense, but leave us none the wiser.
My dear Minister, you pose a question of such exquisite procedural delicacy that one almost hesitates to disturb the settled dust of Whitehall with a direct answer. However, if Sir Olly Robbins—the late, lamented Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office—were to be asked who or what stayed his hand from informing the Prime Minister of Lord Mandelson's vetting results, Sir Olly may well argue that he was not prevented so much as he was dutifully observing a system designed specifically to keep you in a state of blissful, if somewhat precarious, ignorance.
(With some help from Gemini)
My dear Minister, one treads here upon administrative terrain of such refined and almost constitutional sensitivity that any attempt at plain speaking risks upsetting arrangements whose very purpose is to be recondite. Nevertheless, were one to indulge the hypothetical you so bravely articulate—namely, the circumstances under which Sir Olly Robbins, formerly of the Foreign Office, might have found himself disinclined to trouble the Prime Minister with certain vetting particulars—one suspects he would not characterise the situation as one of obstruction, still less omission.
Rather, he might submit that he was operating in faithful accordance with an intricate and time-honoured procedural methodology, the effect of which—entirely incidental, of course—is to preserve ministerial serenity by ensuring that certain categories of knowledge remain, shall we say, tactfully unencountered.
I must be the only person who thinks Starmer shouldn't resign.
Obviously an error to hire Mandelson, but not a resigning issue.
Though if he has lied to blame the vetting thing on Robbins then he should go.
Well, not for this, anyway.
He remains what he always was- a plodder carrying an awful lot of baggage, who probably intended to lose the 2023 election, except the Conservative government stuffed that up. As soon as a plausible alternative comes along, that's it. So not yet.
In the meantime, there is some meagre undignified satisfaction in seeing his many enemies on the left and right repeatedly take aim and miss. The same happened to John Major for a very long time.
Let’s hope the Olly Robbins appearance tomorrow is more interesting and enlightening because we’ve learnt nothing new today .
See previous link to and extract from Hansard, Fleur Anderson grilled Robbins on this at a select committee session in November. Robbins discussed Mandelson's conflicts of interest declaration with him. So presumably he had the UKSV decision, he had Mandelson's CoI declaration and he had a discussion with him. Then he overruled the UKSV, give him a pass and, unless he's got evidence otherwise, didn't tell Starmer or any other minister.
I don't think Robbins is going to shed any further light on this ..
I would like someone to ask why he didn't tell Starmer or anyone else.
He'll be asked tomorrow Edit Starmer just said Rollins told him he wasn't allowed to!
Bullshit.
Under what possible grounds could someone not be allowed to tell the PM something so important?
Utter bullshit!
Separation of roles and information in case a subsequent appeal is required.
That makes no sense, an appeal would only happen (if one could) if it was rejected due to the failure, however since the failure was overridden there was no requirement for an appeal.
To have the PM "not allowed" to be told that the person he has appointed has failed security checks but been granted clearance anyway is utterly asinine. Unless the PM has directed he does not want to be told anything that could be embarrassing.
I doubt Thatcher would have accepted "you can't tell me that".
Starmer didn't accept it either. He fired him.
After the media uproar, not before.
Can't imagine any other walk of life where someone could be hired by the big boss, fail security checks, be appointed anyway only for the boss to claim they weren't informed checks were failed.
If a Head at a school hired a Teacher only for it to turn out they had failed their DBS checks and been appointed anyway, I am curious what would happen and if anyone could "not be allowed" to inform the Head that the checks had been failed.
He fired him immediately he found out that key information had been hidden from him, in spite of him getting the cabinet Secretary to investigate. He was misled too.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
He will say he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer.
I suspect the real reason was that by making the appointment in advance of vetting, the PM had already decided that the vetting wasn't important, especially as the reasons for failing the vetting were ones everyone in Westminster, including not just Starmer but also Gove and Farage who praised the appointment already knew. So the civil servant was delivering the outcome the government wanted and found a process by which that could be done.
If he says he wasn't allowed to inform Starmer, he will be asked who or what prevented him.
Was it a law, or a convention, or an instruction? Chapter and verse. We all want to know.
Imagine Bernard or Humphrey answering. There will be words, which kind of make sense, but leave us none the wiser.
My dear Minister, you pose a question of such exquisite procedural delicacy that one almost hesitates to disturb the settled dust of Whitehall with a direct answer. However, if Sir Olly Robbins—the late, lamented Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office—were to be asked who or what stayed his hand from informing the Prime Minister of Lord Mandelson's vetting results, Sir Olly may well argue that he was not prevented so much as he was dutifully observing a system designed specifically to keep you in a state of blissful, if somewhat precarious, ignorance.
(With some help from Gemini)
My dear Minister, one treads here upon administrative terrain of such refined and almost constitutional sensitivity that any attempt at plain speaking risks upsetting arrangements whose very purpose is to be recondite. Nevertheless, were one to indulge the hypothetical you so bravely articulate—namely, the circumstances under which Sir Olly Robbins, formerly of the Foreign Office, might have found himself disinclined to trouble the Prime Minister with certain vetting particulars—one suspects he would not characterise the situation as one of obstruction, still less omission.
Rather, he might submit that he was operating in faithful accordance with an intricate and time-honoured procedural methodology, the effect of which—entirely incidental, of course—is to preserve ministerial serenity by ensuring that certain categories of knowledge remain, shall we say, tactfully unencountered.
If you’re going to appoint someone like Mandelson with his history then you should go above and beyond what is normally needed in terms of security checks .
You certainly shouldn’t be appointing him before all security checks are made regardless of what’s the normal protocol .
Protocol is not set in stone .
I don’t believe Starmer lied but his dull and competent turn the page on the Tories chaos mantra has bitten the dust.
What’s the point of Starmer if the one thing voters hoped for has shattered into a thousand pieces .
I don’t hold any animus for him , it seems to be the in thing to pile on . Equivalence with Johnson is really laughable given the litany of lies he told but speaking to some Labour friends it’s a feeling of we just expected so much better from him and I can’t see any chance of Labour winning the next election with him in charge .
I must be the only person who thinks Starmer shouldn't resign.
Obviously an error to hire Mandelson, but not a resigning issue.
Though if he has lied to blame the vetting thing on Robbins then he should go.
He should go, not least because he made a significantly poor decision. Bad luck in part, but everyone knew Mandelson was a bad 'un.
No one should use the excuse that "Boris was worse". It doesn't matter, Starmer was supposed to be above the fray and by accident or design he wasn't.
I agree that Boris Johnson shouldnt be the bar. We can aspire higher than that. It was a poor decision. But honestly quite a minor decision vs. many others he has made as PM.
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
Actually I agree. I was goading @Brixian59 because be is a charmless character with a definite streak of anti Semitism and now a dash of homophobia
But PB needs new commenters even if they come with disagreeable attitudes. The whole point of the site is disagreement
Up to a point.
The best thing about this site is intelligent, fact-based disagreement that makes you check your own assumptions and arguments, and maybe even modify them. For example, a while back, somebody on here challenged my assumption in a post that increasing the share of government spending and tax as a % of GDP reduces total GDP. That made me go back and look at half-remembered papers from a decade ago so that I could prove he was wrong (which he is, completely).
But repetitive, trolly, unsupported comments about how one side is amazing and the other side can do no good don't add that much.
Nor do obvious absurdities about - my favourite - how Britain has nothing to fear and everything to gain from Communist China...
Well, I mean other than the obviously false last sentence, I agree with all of that.
Isn't that a straw man anyway ? Apart from perhaps Roger, does anyone argue that we have "nothing to fear" from China ?
I think the argument is either that they aren't a direct military threat to us (probably true), or that it's in our interest to trade with them, or that they're slightly less unreliable than Trump (also likely true).
Our Mutual Friend, late of this Parish, argued thus.
If you’re going to appoint someone like Mandelson with his history then you should go above and beyond what is normally needed in terms of security checks .
You certainly shouldn’t be appointing him before all security checks are made regardless of what’s the normal protocol .
Protocol is not set in stone .
I don’t believe Starmer lied but his dull and competent turn the page on the Tories chaos mantra has bitten the dust.
What’s the point of Starmer if the one thing voters hoped for has shattered into a thousand pieces .
I don’t hold any animus for him , it seems to be the in thing to pile on . Equivalence with Johnson is really laughable given the litany of lies he told but speaking to some Labour friends it’s a feeling of we just expected so much better from him and I can’t see any chance of Labour winning the next election with him in charge .
This is nonsense. Mandelson was appointed because he was at best shady and very probably dodgy. What is the point of vetting?
At the end of the day, JLR is still open, various Steel works are still open, hundreds of thousands of jobs and linked jobs are still saved, whole communities are still alive
Mandelson got the best deal on the Planet.
Starmer appointed him.
Those are real people
Those are real jobs
Those are real communities
The ends justify the means
Are those denying this or treating this naval gazing irrelevant Westminster naval gazing shit show as more important.
If so you stand branded as heartless, gutless cowards.
Those who have benefitted will never forget, nor forgive those who seek to demean them
Adios
Omg no are you leaving us??
We will miss your << checks notes >>
Brixian59 represents an underepresented viewpoint within the country, very useful.
I'm not sure Starmer apologists would be around in sufficient numbers to register as a thing.
At least Sir Inkeiredible didn’t go to made up shagging parties, or lie to the dead Queen
Point of order. "Exotic" parties and the Queen was very much still with us when she was lied to.
I must be the only person who thinks Starmer shouldn't resign.
Obviously an error to hire Mandelson, but not a resigning issue.
Though if he has lied to blame the vetting thing on Robbins then he should go.
I agree with you*, so not the only one.
He is however, partly as a result of this, a lame duck PM who will have to go before the election or it will be a disaster worse than the Tories 2024. I don't see how it helps anyone for him to leave now though, 2027 is better for both him and those seeking his job.
* Actually, not 100% sure that it was an error to appoint Mandelson, certainly a risk that has paid off badly. But he was handling Trump better than a typical ambassador imo.
I can't understand why he is so unpopular but it is a fact. I agree, if it looks like he can't turn it round he should stand down for the good of the country to avoid PM Farage.
If you’re going to appoint someone like Mandelson with his history then you should go above and beyond what is normally needed in terms of security checks .
You certainly shouldn’t be appointing him before all security checks are made regardless of what’s the normal protocol .
Protocol is not set in stone .
I don’t believe Starmer lied but his dull and competent turn the page on the Tories chaos mantra has bitten the dust.
What’s the point of Starmer if the one thing voters hoped for has shattered into a thousand pieces .
I don’t hold any animus for him , it seems to be the in thing to pile on . Equivalence with Johnson is really laughable given the litany of lies he told but speaking to some Labour friends it’s a feeling of we just expected so much better from him and I can’t see any chance of Labour winning the next election with him in charge .
Starmer has a talent for, upon any given policy, of first upsetting many on his own side, then those opposed to him. And then many who are indifferent to the issue. Then he does a U-turn.
This is how he has achieved the current Labour party poll rating.
If you’re going to appoint someone like Mandelson with his history then you should go above and beyond what is normally needed in terms of security checks .
You certainly shouldn’t be appointing him before all security checks are made regardless of what’s the normal protocol .
Protocol is not set in stone .
I don’t believe Starmer lied but his dull and competent turn the page on the Tories chaos mantra has bitten the dust.
What’s the point of Starmer if the one thing voters hoped for has shattered into a thousand pieces .
I don’t hold any animus for him , it seems to be the in thing to pile on . Equivalence with Johnson is really laughable given the litany of lies he told but speaking to some Labour friends it’s a feeling of we just expected so much better from him and I can’t see any chance of Labour winning the next election with him in charge .
This is nonsense. Mandelson was appointed because he was at best shady and very probably dodgy. What is the point of vetting?
Yes he was appointed as he was dodgy and Starmer thought he’d get on with Trump. We’ll find out more tomorrow from Robbins .
If you’re going to appoint someone like Mandelson with his history then you should go above and beyond what is normally needed in terms of security checks .
You certainly shouldn’t be appointing him before all security checks are made regardless of what’s the normal protocol .
Protocol is not set in stone .
I don’t believe Starmer lied but his dull and competent turn the page on the Tories chaos mantra has bitten the dust.
What’s the point of Starmer if the one thing voters hoped for has shattered into a thousand pieces .
I don’t hold any animus for him , it seems to be the in thing to pile on . Equivalence with Johnson is really laughable given the litany of lies he told but speaking to some Labour friends it’s a feeling of we just expected so much better from him and I can’t see any chance of Labour winning the next election with him in charge .
This is nonsense. Mandelson was appointed because he was at best shady and very probably dodgy. What is the point of vetting?
To have a voluminous collection of his past sins. So you sit him down and explain that if he strays off the straight and narrow, then items 1-1,345 in his big black folder will find its way to the DPP.
I must be the only person who thinks Starmer shouldn't resign.
Obviously an error to hire Mandelson, but not a resigning issue.
Though if he has lied to blame the vetting thing on Robbins then he should go.
I agree with you*, so not the only one.
He is however, partly as a result of this, a lame duck PM who will have to go before the election or it will be a disaster worse than the Tories 2024. I don't see how it helps anyone for him to leave now though, 2027 is better for both him and those seeking his job.
* Actually, not 100% sure that it was an error to appoint Mandelson, certainly a risk that has paid off badly. But he was handling Trump better than a typical ambassador imo.
I can't understand why he is so unpopular but it is a fact. I agree, if it looks like he can't turn it round he should stand down for the good of the country to avoid PM Farage.
He became PM with 33% support - if not the lowest ever, one of the lowest ever. Two thirds were against him to start with. The media are dominated by the right and less deferential to power than ever before. Our demographics are really starting hurt. Cost of living pressures from Ukraine and now Iran. His comms are terrible, in the bottom 2 of PMs ever, alongside Truss. He doesn't seem to have had much of a plan or understood the scale of the challenge ahead of him.
In some respects I am slightly surprised they are not doing a bit worse......and I still think he is better than the other leaders and most of his Labour rivals.......no wonder I am none of the above.
The latest allegation seems to be Mandelson's appointment occurred BEFORE the security checks were completed and it was an overtly political appointment (well, duh).
The need to have a presence in Washington who would have the ear to Trump and the US Administration was obviously keenly felt in Whitehall and I understand that but to appoint before the security clearances were achieved (if that's what happened) seems difficult.
You can see how the statement "Mandelson hasn't failed vetting" looks if you know the vetting itself wasn't completed.
I must be the only person who thinks Starmer shouldn't resign.
Obviously an error to hire Mandelson, but not a resigning issue.
Though if he has lied to blame the vetting thing on Robbins then he should go.
I agree with you*, so not the only one.
He is however, partly as a result of this, a lame duck PM who will have to go before the election or it will be a disaster worse than the Tories 2024. I don't see how it helps anyone for him to leave now though, 2027 is better for both him and those seeking his job.
* Actually, not 100% sure that it was an error to appoint Mandelson, certainly a risk that has paid off badly. But he was handling Trump better than a typical ambassador imo.
I can't understand why he is so unpopular but it is a fact. I agree, if it looks like he can't turn it round he should stand down for the good of the country to avoid PM Farage.
He became PM with 33% support - if not the lowest ever, one of the lowest ever. Two thirds were against him to start with. The media are dominated by the right and less deferential to power than ever before. Our demographics are really starting hurt. Cost of living pressures from Ukraine and now Iran. His comms are terrible, in the bottom 2 of PMs ever, alongside Truss. He doesn't seem to have had much of a plan or understood the scale of the challenge ahead of him.
In some respects I am slightly surprised they are not doing a bit worse......and I still think he is better than the other leaders and most of his Labour rivals.......no wonder I am none of the above.
Eesh, thats depressing to read, but rings true. Can't disagree on the comms. I would have hoped for more of a honeymoon period myself.
Let’s hope the Olly Robbins appearance tomorrow is more interesting and enlightening because we’ve learnt nothing new today .
See previous link to and extract from Hansard, Fleur Anderson grilled Robbins on this at a select committee session in November. Robbins discussed Mandelson's conflicts of interest declaration with him. So presumably he had the UKSV decision, he had Mandelson's CoI declaration and he had a discussion with him. Then he overruled the UKSV, give him a pass and, unless he's got evidence otherwise, didn't tell Starmer or any other minister.
I don't think Robbins is going to shed any further light on this ..
I would like someone to ask why he didn't tell Starmer or anyone else.
He'll be asked tomorrow Edit Starmer just said Rollins told him he wasn't allowed to!
Bullshit.
Under what possible grounds could someone not be allowed to tell the PM something so important?
Utter bullshit!
Separation of roles and information in case a subsequent appeal is required.
That makes no sense, an appeal would only happen (if one could) if it was rejected due to the failure, however since the failure was overridden there was no requirement for an appeal.
To have the PM "not allowed" to be told that the person he has appointed has failed security checks but been granted clearance anyway is utterly asinine. Unless the PM has directed he does not want to be told anything that could be embarrassing.
I doubt Thatcher would have accepted "you can't tell me that".
Starmer didn't accept it either. He fired him.
After the media uproar, not before.
Can't imagine any other walk of life where someone could be hired by the big boss, fail security checks, be appointed anyway only for the boss to claim they weren't informed checks were failed.
If a Head at a school hired a Teacher only for it to turn out they had failed their DBS checks and been appointed anyway, I am curious what would happen and if anyone could "not be allowed" to inform the Head that the checks had been failed.
He fired him immediately he found out that key information had been hidden from him, in spite of him getting the cabinet Secretary to investigate. He was misled too.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
I thought a journalist reported the vetting failure months back (and told number 10).
So Starmer say that "It is staggering and unbelievable that I wan't told that Mandelson had failed vetting"
For once he is right, it is unbelievable...
If Starmer says he wasnt told and Olly Robbins says he didn't tell him tomorrow, will you accept that?
If Starmer hadn't picked up over 30 years that Mandleson is a wrong 'un, as we all have seen from so many incidents over the years, then he is even more obtuse than I though possible.
OT - The thing is that everyone knew Mandelson would not pass any vetting worthy of the name. Starmer's position is impossible. If he made the decision that vetting didn't matter then he should try to defend that decision. Any idea Mandelson could 'manage' Trump was ludicrous and looks worse than naive.
The practical reason is that if parliamentarians can accuse each other of deliberately giving inaccurate information, there is a risk that debate descends into accusations, rather than focusing on substantive issues.
The historic reason is that the concept of honour is important among parliamentarians. It is assumed that MPs will act with honour, and therefore impugning the honour of others is regarded as wrong.
I must be the only person who thinks Starmer shouldn't resign.
Obviously an error to hire Mandelson, but not a resigning issue.
Though if he has lied to blame the vetting thing on Robbins then he should go.
I agree with you*, so not the only one.
He is however, partly as a result of this, a lame duck PM who will have to go before the election or it will be a disaster worse than the Tories 2024. I don't see how it helps anyone for him to leave now though, 2027 is better for both him and those seeking his job.
* Actually, not 100% sure that it was an error to appoint Mandelson, certainly a risk that has paid off badly. But he was handling Trump better than a typical ambassador imo.
I can't understand why he is so unpopular but it is a fact. I agree, if it looks like he can't turn it round he should stand down for the good of the country to avoid PM Farage.
He became PM with 33% support - if not the lowest ever, one of the lowest ever. Two thirds were against him to start with. The media are dominated by the right and less deferential to power than ever before. Our demographics are really starting hurt. Cost of living pressures from Ukraine and now Iran. His comms are terrible, in the bottom 2 of PMs ever, alongside Truss. He doesn't seem to have had much of a plan or understood the scale of the challenge ahead of him.
In some respects I am slightly surprised they are not doing a bit worse......and I still think he is better than the other leaders and most of his Labour rivals.......no wonder I am none of the above.
He started out by burning political capital in his own party at an extraordinary rate.
The WFP stuff was sheer political suicide - the sensible approach would be to have taken all the old age benefits on top of the pension and reworked them into a taxed (or means tested) system.
So that pensioners living in poverty would get more of the pot and the ones with £70K a year income, less.
That would have been quite saleable to his party, rather than sending people off to join the Green.
I must be the only person who thinks Starmer shouldn't resign.
Obviously an error to hire Mandelson, but not a resigning issue.
Though if he has lied to blame the vetting thing on Robbins then he should go.
I agree with you*, so not the only one.
He is however, partly as a result of this, a lame duck PM who will have to go before the election or it will be a disaster worse than the Tories 2024. I don't see how it helps anyone for him to leave now though, 2027 is better for both him and those seeking his job.
* Actually, not 100% sure that it was an error to appoint Mandelson, certainly a risk that has paid off badly. But he was handling Trump better than a typical ambassador imo.
I can't understand why he is so unpopular but it is a fact. I agree, if it looks like he can't turn it round he should stand down for the good of the country to avoid PM Farage.
He became PM with 33% support - if not the lowest ever, one of the lowest ever. Two thirds were against him to start with. The media are dominated by the right and less deferential to power than ever before. Our demographics are really starting hurt. Cost of living pressures from Ukraine and now Iran. His comms are terrible, in the bottom 2 of PMs ever, alongside Truss. He doesn't seem to have had much of a plan or understood the scale of the challenge ahead of him.
In some respects I am slightly surprised they are not doing a bit worse......and I still think he is better than the other leaders and most of his Labour rivals.......no wonder I am none of the above.
Eesh, thats depressing to read, but rings true. Can't disagree on the comms. I would have hoped for more of a honeymoon period myself.
29th July 2024 was when it all began to unravel - you had the Reeves announcement on winter fuel allowance and the Southport murders on the same day.
Had neither event occurred, I think it likely Labour's big leads would have continued a little longer - possibly up to the Budget.
The practical reason is that if parliamentarians can accuse each other of deliberately giving inaccurate information, there is a risk that debate descends into accusations, rather than focusing on substantive issues.
The historic reason is that the concept of honour is important among parliamentarians. It is assumed that MPs will act with honour, and therefore impugning the honour of others is regarded as wrong.
So Starmer say that "It is staggering and unbelievable that I wan't told that Mandelson had failed vetting"
For once he is right, it is unbelievable...
If Starmer says he wasnt told and Olly Robbins says he didn't tell him tomorrow, will you accept that?
If Starmer hadn't picked up over 30 years that Mandleson is a wrong 'un, as we all have seen from so many incidents over the years, then he is even more obtuse than I though possible.
It should never have needed to go to vetting.
The vetting debate is just another example of the process state. There is a genuine question over whether and to what extent PM's should be able to appoint wrong uns. I have respect on this for the likes of IDS who strongly came out against this appointment at the time. I have none for the likes of Farage who lauded Mandelson's appointment at the time, but are now saying it is a resignation matter based on vetting data that was fully in the public domain and well known.
Starmer and the civil service will rely on process arguments to defend themselves but vetting is imo irrelevant here, the question is should a PM be able to appoint a wrong un? Plenty of people at the heart of government over the last decade wouldn't have passed vetting for a junior defence analyst.
So Starmer say that "It is staggering and unbelievable that I wan't told that Mandelson had failed vetting"
For once he is right, it is unbelievable...
If Starmer says he wasnt told and Olly Robbins says he didn't tell him tomorrow, will you accept that?
If Starmer hadn't picked up over 30 years that Mandleson is a wrong 'un, as we all have seen from so many incidents over the years, then he is even more obtuse than I though possible.
It should never have needed to go to vetting.
It’s truly a mystery that Starmer with his ming vase pre-election decided to start juggling with it after one too many after being elected .
Sadly no one was there to talk him back from the ledge . We know why a slimy corrupt individual was thought a good fit for Trump but still why on earth even take the chance .
There were some who thought a Labour majority of 170 or so would preclude much Parliamentary theatre - how wrong they were.
Starmer squirmed as you might expect but we are still absent a "smoking gun" to force his resignation. Today's revelation about ignored "advice" isn't as crucial as you might think.
I don't know how often Ministers and the Prime Minister ignore or fail to accept advice from senior officials but I bet it has happened plenty of times.
Ignoring advice isn't in and of itself a hanging offence in my book but it does shift the ground if and when circumstances change. If the Officials advise A and the PM decides to do B and B turns out to be right, said PM is in a strong position and can play "the civil service told me it couldn't be done but I had faith and I was right" or something similar card.
If you follow advice and it turns out to be poor advice, you can blame the Officials but the problem comes when you ignore advice and it turns out to be good advice. It shouldn't happen but you'd be surprised how often that leaks out and the old "we told the PM to do this, the PM did something else and look how it turned out" mantra comes into play.
Is it however an appropriate sanction for a PM to resign if he/she takes their own view and discounts official advice? Again, I don't see why unless the course of action undertaken by the PM in contravention of advice turned out to be in some way illegal or improper. Was appointing Mandelson to be the Ambassador to Washington illegal? No, was it improper? Given the vetting and the concerns over links to China let alone Epstein, you can certainly argue that but as the head of the pin heaves into view, we're left with the notion either Starmer didn't know or wasn't told (in which case accidentially misleading Parliament warrants an apology but no more) or he did know but wanted to appoint Mandelson anyway and deliberately misled Parliament (which would be a resignation matter)?
Many will believe the latter but without any actual proof or evidence, what do we have?
No actual evidence, and I think what we know is pointing towards Starmer having been repeatedly misled even after making reasonable efforts to get to the bottom of the debacle.
There was more in today's statement than you are acknowledging. I don't think that the fact of Starmer appointing Mandleson before completion of security vetting amounts to that much. Starmer is of course right that any civil servant worth his salt should have disclosed the fact in January 2025 that the vetting failure had been overruled at the Foreign Office. What really stands out and has been underemphasised until now is how the Foreign Office then missed "repeated opportunities" to disclose the vetting failure, including withholding the vetting failure from the Cabinet Secretary's September 2025 investigation into the appointment process that Starmer ordered after Mandleson's sacking. That fact speaks volumes.
I think what happened is that Ollie Robbins thought that the factors that led to the vetting being withheld were relatively marginal and that he could keep the security vetting failure under wraps. He did so either in order to protect what he thought were the UK's interests (the appointment of Mandleson having been well received at the time in the US) and/or protect Starmer from the embarrassment of having to go back on the appointment and/or protect Robbins' own position from McSweeney's wrath if he Robbins were seen to be the instigator of Mandleson's demise. The latter is particularly plausible because of the fact that Robbins very much acted to protect his own back by continuing to keep the vetting failure under wraps in September 2025, thinking that things would still blow over (which they nearly did but for the further February 2026 Epstein revelations that instigated the Humble Address process.)
The latter is for me by far the most plausible explanation, rather than that Starmer knew all along about the vetting failure and conspired to try and keep it under wraps from the outset.
Where Starmer was at fault was in not standing up to McSweeney at the outset when Mandleson was being pushed for the job against the better judgement of others during the due diligence process, and also in being too ready to take Mandleson's assurances at face value. But given that many others praised the appointment, he wasn't alone in that error of judgement.
I am no fan of Starmer, and I'm convinced that he'll go in the very near future. But his demise will be fundamentally because of Labour's political meltdown under his leadership, to be confirmed by disasterous local election results in two weeks time, elections which have served to defer judgement day even though the writing has long been on the wall. That is, if Labour under Starmer's leadership were in a stronger electoral position, the Mandleson saga would all have blown over fairly quickly.
Let’s hope the Olly Robbins appearance tomorrow is more interesting and enlightening because we’ve learnt nothing new today .
See previous link to and extract from Hansard, Fleur Anderson grilled Robbins on this at a select committee session in November. Robbins discussed Mandelson's conflicts of interest declaration with him. So presumably he had the UKSV decision, he had Mandelson's CoI declaration and he had a discussion with him. Then he overruled the UKSV, give him a pass and, unless he's got evidence otherwise, didn't tell Starmer or any other minister.
I don't think Robbins is going to shed any further light on this ..
I would like someone to ask why he didn't tell Starmer or anyone else.
He'll be asked tomorrow Edit Starmer just said Rollins told him he wasn't allowed to!
Bullshit.
Under what possible grounds could someone not be allowed to tell the PM something so important?
Utter bullshit!
Separation of roles and information in case a subsequent appeal is required.
That makes no sense, an appeal would only happen (if one could) if it was rejected due to the failure, however since the failure was overridden there was no requirement for an appeal.
To have the PM "not allowed" to be told that the person he has appointed has failed security checks but been granted clearance anyway is utterly asinine. Unless the PM has directed he does not want to be told anything that could be embarrassing.
I doubt Thatcher would have accepted "you can't tell me that".
Starmer didn't accept it either. He fired him.
After the media uproar, not before.
Can't imagine any other walk of life where someone could be hired by the big boss, fail security checks, be appointed anyway only for the boss to claim they weren't informed checks were failed.
If a Head at a school hired a Teacher only for it to turn out they had failed their DBS checks and been appointed anyway, I am curious what would happen and if anyone could "not be allowed" to inform the Head that the checks had been failed.
He fired him immediately he found out that key information had been hidden from him, in spite of him getting the cabinet Secretary to investigate. He was misled too.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
I thought a journalist reported the vetting failure months back (and told number 10).
yes and number 10 investigated this report and was told by the Foreign Office that the vetting was approved (by Robbins but they didn't disclose this important fact).
So Starmer say that "It is staggering and unbelievable that I wan't told that Mandelson had failed vetting"
For once he is right, it is unbelievable...
If Starmer says he wasnt told and Olly Robbins says he didn't tell him tomorrow, will you accept that?
If Starmer hadn't picked up over 30 years that Mandleson is a wrong 'un, as we all have seen from so many incidents over the years, then he is even more obtuse than I though possible.
It should never have needed to go to vetting.
It’s truly a mystery that Starmer with his ming vase pre-election decided to start juggling with it after one too many after being elected .
Sadly no one was there to talk him back from the ledge . We know why a slimy corrupt individual was thought a good fit for Trump but still why on earth even take the chance .
This doesn't make sense to me. The previous ambassador, Karen Pierce, was by all accounts doing a good job and the White House liked her. What's the basis for saying that Mandelson would manage Trump or those around him better? It seems to be taken as a given. But should it? So is there some other reason for the appointment? That's one question which should be asked.
And the other is whether Mandelson was sharing confidential information obtained while Ambassador with his mates and, if so, who? I'd be looking at China and some of the other oddly pro-China decisions Starmer has been taking and doing a bit of digging.
So Starmer say that "It is staggering and unbelievable that I wan't told that Mandelson had failed vetting"
For once he is right, it is unbelievable...
If Starmer says he wasnt told and Olly Robbins says he didn't tell him tomorrow, will you accept that?
If Starmer hadn't picked up over 30 years that Mandleson is a wrong 'un, as we all have seen from so many incidents over the years, then he is even more obtuse than I though possible.
It should never have needed to go to vetting.
It’s truly a mystery that Starmer with his ming vase pre-election decided to start juggling with it after one too many after being elected .
Sadly no one was there to talk him back from the ledge . We know why a slimy corrupt individual was thought a good fit for Trump but still why on earth even take the chance .
You've been posting on here for quite a time. Did you (and others here of similar view) write a post on here to that effect and in such strong terms back in December 2024, or were you silent then and are just drawing on hindsight now?
If you’re going to appoint someone like Mandelson with his history then you should go above and beyond what is normally needed in terms of security checks .
You certainly shouldn’t be appointing him before all security checks are made regardless of what’s the normal protocol .
Protocol is not set in stone .
I don’t believe Starmer lied but his dull and competent turn the page on the Tories chaos mantra has bitten the dust.
What’s the point of Starmer if the one thing voters hoped for has shattered into a thousand pieces .
I don’t hold any animus for him , it seems to be the in thing to pile on . Equivalence with Johnson is really laughable given the litany of lies he told but speaking to some Labour friends it’s a feeling of we just expected so much better from him and I can’t see any chance of Labour winning the next election with him in charge .
This is nonsense. Mandelson was appointed because he was at best shady and very probably dodgy. What is the point of vetting?
I agree. If Mandelson didn't fail vetting then there was something wrong with the vetting. And we knew that would be the case when he was appointed.
The vetting has only become an issue because, when this all blew up in his face, Starmer chose to deflect from the failure of his gamble/judgement by blaming the vetting for having failed. Can he contain the argument on that territory, on a failure of process, rather than judgement?
So Starmer say that "It is staggering and unbelievable that I wan't told that Mandelson had failed vetting"
For once he is right, it is unbelievable...
If Starmer says he wasnt told and Olly Robbins says he didn't tell him tomorrow, will you accept that?
I won't. Mandelson was a calculated risk. The risk failed. It was Starmer's risk.
I knew Mandelson was potentially a loose cannon. If Starmer didn't think he was someone who rubbed shoulders with bad guys he wouldn't have lined him up to babysit Trump. A role he equipped himself of very well. But then it went wrong...
The practical reason is that if parliamentarians can accuse each other of deliberately giving inaccurate information, there is a risk that debate descends into accusations, rather than focusing on substantive issues.
The historic reason is that the concept of honour is important among parliamentarians. It is assumed that MPs will act with honour, and therefore impugning the honour of others is regarded as wrong.
I haven't watched the debate, but given the hype, was this Kemi's Kinnock Westland moment?
She posted a list of six questions to twitter because, she said, she didn't have enough time to ask them all in the Commons.
This suggests that she failed to extract the key weak point from Starmer's story - whatever that might be - and hammer him on it, instead hoping that among a hail of poorly-aimed fire something might hit the target.
Some reaction from Lab MPs over PM's statement. One says "vibe in tea room is resignation. It's not mutinous, but it's a bit like having a slow chronic disease". Another says mood "miserable". A 3rd notes it was "very very quiet" on benches with even uber loyalists silent
Scoop from Sky’s @joncraig confirmed - the Speaker has accepted Kemi Badenoch application for an emergency debate on Peter Mandelson under Standing Order 24.
Badenoch said: “There remain serious inconsistencies in the government's position.”
Will take place after Olly Robbins has given evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Depending on any Urgent Questions and Ministerial Statements, it could start anytime from 12.30pm…
There were some who thought a Labour majority of 170 or so would preclude much Parliamentary theatre - how wrong they were.
Starmer squirmed as you might expect but we are still absent a "smoking gun" to force his resignation. Today's revelation about ignored "advice" isn't as crucial as you might think.
I don't know how often Ministers and the Prime Minister ignore or fail to accept advice from senior officials but I bet it has happened plenty of times.
Ignoring advice isn't in and of itself a hanging offence in my book but it does shift the ground if and when circumstances change. If the Officials advise A and the PM decides to do B and B turns out to be right, said PM is in a strong position and can play "the civil service told me it couldn't be done but I had faith and I was right" or something similar card.
If you follow advice and it turns out to be poor advice, you can blame the Officials but the problem comes when you ignore advice and it turns out to be good advice. It shouldn't happen but you'd be surprised how often that leaks out and the old "we told the PM to do this, the PM did something else and look how it turned out" mantra comes into play.
Is it however an appropriate sanction for a PM to resign if he/she takes their own view and discounts official advice? Again, I don't see why unless the course of action undertaken by the PM in contravention of advice turned out to be in some way illegal or improper. Was appointing Mandelson to be the Ambassador to Washington illegal? No, was it improper? Given the vetting and the concerns over links to China let alone Epstein, you can certainly argue that but as the head of the pin heaves into view, we're left with the notion either Starmer didn't know or wasn't told (in which case accidentially misleading Parliament warrants an apology but no more) or he did know but wanted to appoint Mandelson anyway and deliberately misled Parliament (which would be a resignation matter)?
Many will believe the latter but without any actual proof or evidence, what do we have?
No actual evidence, and I think what we know is pointing towards Starmer having been repeatedly misled even after making reasonable efforts to get to the bottom of the debacle.
There was more in today's statement than you are acknowledging. I don't think that the fact of Starmer appointing Mandleson before completion of security vetting amounts to that much. Starmer is of course right that any civil servant worth his salt should have disclosed the fact in January 2025 that the vetting failure had been overruled at the Foreign Office. What really stands out and has been underemphasised until now is how the Foreign Office then missed "repeated opportunities" to disclose the vetting failure, including withholding the vetting failure from the Cabinet Secretary's September 2025 investigation into the appointment process that Starmer ordered after Mandleson's sacking. That fact speaks volumes.
I think what happened is that Ollie Robbins thought that the factors that led to the vetting being withheld were relatively marginal and that he could keep the security vetting failure under wraps. He did so either in order to protect what he thought were the UK's interests (the appointment of Mandleson having been well received at the time in the US) and/or protect Starmer from the embarrassment of having to go back on the appointment and/or protect Robbins' own position from McSweeney's wrath if he Robbins were seen to be the instigator of Mandleson's demise. The latter is particularly plausible because of the fact that Robbins very much acted to protect his own back by continuing to keep the vetting failure under wraps in September 2025, thinking that things would still blow over (which they nearly did but for the further February 2026 Epstein revelations that instigated the Humble Address process.)
The latter is for me by far the most plausible explanation, rather than that Starmer knew all along about the vetting failure and conspired to try and keep it under wraps from the outset.
Where Starmer was at fault was in not standing up to McSweeney at the outset when Mandleson was being pushed for the job against the better judgement of others during the due diligence process, and also in being too ready to take Mandleson's assurances at face value. But given that many others praised the appointment, he wasn't alone in that error of judgement.
I am no fan of Starmer, and I'm convinced that he'll go in the very near future. But his demise will be fundamentally because of Labour's political meltdown under his leadership, to be confirmed by disasterous local election results in two weeks time, elections which have served to defer judgement day even though the writing has long been on the wall. That is, if Labour under Starmer's leadership were in a stronger electoral position, the Mandleson saga would all have blown over fairly quickly.
Contrary to what a lot of people seem to think, it's not in a senior Civil Servant's nature to say no to the stated wish of their political master. They will have statutory obligations that they cannot break (for example if a minister asked a Civil Servant to divulge personal tax details) and they may try to finesse a difficult political priority into something that is easier for the department to implement. They will almost never say 'no' (the TV show is called 'Yes Minister' for a reason).
My guess is that Robbins thought that Starmer's wish to appoint Mandleson was iron clad and he thought that the stipulations put in place as a result of the vetting process was sufficient for him to carry out the PM's wishes whilst also discharging his duties to his department. If Starmer had said "Look I'm minded to appoint Mandleson but given his past then my decision will be contingent on a clean bill of health" then Robbins may have acted differently.
Some reaction from Lab MPs over PM's statement. One says "vibe in tea room is resignation. It's not mutinous, but it's a bit like having a slow chronic disease". Another says mood "miserable". A 3rd notes it was "very very quiet" on benches with even uber loyalists silent
Starmer was very nervous, stammering, and I think they were anxious for him.
So Starmer say that "It is staggering and unbelievable that I wan't told that Mandelson had failed vetting"
For once he is right, it is unbelievable...
If Starmer says he wasnt told and Olly Robbins says he didn't tell him tomorrow, will you accept that?
If Starmer hadn't picked up over 30 years that Mandleson is a wrong 'un, as we all have seen from so many incidents over the years, then he is even more obtuse than I though possible.
It should never have needed to go to vetting.
It’s truly a mystery that Starmer with his ming vase pre-election decided to start juggling with it after one too many after being elected .
Sadly no one was there to talk him back from the ledge . We know why a slimy corrupt individual was thought a good fit for Trump but still why on earth even take the chance .
This doesn't make sense to me. The previous ambassador, Karen Pierce, was by all accounts doing a good job and the White House liked her. What's the basis for saying that Mandelson would manage Trump or those around him better? It seems to be taken as a given. But should it? So is there some other reason for the appointment? That's one question which should be asked.
And the other is whether Mandelson was sharing confidential information obtained while Ambassador with his mates and, if so, who? I'd be looking at China and some of the other oddly pro-China decisions Starmer has been taking and doing a bit of digging.
So Starmer say that "It is staggering and unbelievable that I wan't told that Mandelson had failed vetting"
For once he is right, it is unbelievable...
If Starmer says he wasnt told and Olly Robbins says he didn't tell him tomorrow, will you accept that?
If Starmer hadn't picked up over 30 years that Mandleson is a wrong 'un, as we all have seen from so many incidents over the years, then he is even more obtuse than I though possible.
It should never have needed to go to vetting.
It’s truly a mystery that Starmer with his ming vase pre-election decided to start juggling with it after one too many after being elected .
Sadly no one was there to talk him back from the ledge . We know why a slimy corrupt individual was thought a good fit for Trump but still why on earth even take the chance .
This doesn't make sense to me. The previous ambassador, Karen Pierce, was by all accounts doing a good job and the White House liked her. What's the basis for saying that Mandelson would manage Trump or those around him better? It seems to be taken as a given. But should it? So is there some other reason for the appointment? That's one question which should be asked.
And the other is whether Mandelson was sharing confidential information obtained while Ambassador with his mates and, if so, who? I'd be looking at China and some of the other oddly pro-China decisions Starmer has been taking and doing a bit of digging.
Chagos, for one.
That was a deal worked up by the previous administration. You may not like it, but it isn't down to Mandelson, or even Starmer.
Comments
As we saw during the implosion of the Johnson/Truss/Sunak administrations, there were still plenty on here willing to stand in support of the Government and die in the ditch with them while others disappeared only to re-appear as Starmer's car was halfway back from the Palace telling us how bad the new Government was.
Go back to the 2000s and there weren't that many on here who clearly supported Blair yet alone Brown.
Just because we don't live up to certain standards sometimes does not mean we should just abandon even the aspiration of having standards at all.
Things descend into snide comments and accusations all too often, but rules to keep people talking somewhat politely even as they disagree entirely is part of the point of politics in the first place - to force people to engage in certain ways rather than indulge baser instincts and have no productive discussions at all. Or if you think that is already rare, get rid of even the possibility.
Deliberative bodies and, indeed, online forums, typically have rules designed to prevent a complete collapse into nothing but acrimonious insult and chaos. That is a good thing in my view, and I actually think it is a bit silly that people increasingly view what are just basic rules of procedure as some kind of naiivity.
It probably hasn't been done, of course.
The criticism is of the almost cut an paste posts repeated ad nauseous with no nuance, nothing interesting to add and nothing on any other subject than Birmingham football.
I don't think that Starmer is lying about this.
The whole thing is bizarre. I'm interested in what Rollins has to say tomorrow.
Was/is there a taboo on accusing MPs of being drunk? For much the same reason, I guess. Didn't Alan Clark fall foul of that fairly on in his ministerial career?
[Ducks and leaves]
I'm not sure which debates they are watching, certainly not any that the PM and Loto attend.
There's advice on the right thing to do: buses vs trams!
And there's factual advice around whether somebody has had serious issues with truthfulness, connections, etc in the past: like (say) Peter Mandelson.
The former, well, advisors advise, politicians decide.
The latter... Well, if you're going to ignore things, then the buck stops with you.
Not many outspoken Centrists are left.
P.S. I think I might have detected a hint of hostility in your post.
I suspect the real reason was that by making the appointment in advance of vetting, the PM had already decided that the vetting wasn't important, especially as the reasons for failing the vetting were ones everyone in Westminster, including not just Starmer but also Gove and Farage who praised the appointment already knew. So the civil servant was delivering the outcome the government wanted and found a process by which that could be done.
It's Stuartinromford.
Was it a law, or a convention, or an instruction? Chapter and verse.
We all want to know.
Sky News understands that Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch will apply for an emergency debate on the vetting scandal for Peter Mandelson's appointment as the UK's ambassador, to the US to be held tomorrow.
We further understand the debate is likely to be granted.
Quite clever as it will follow Olly Robbins evidence at 9.00am in the morning
I do see that there is a real dilemma here. In that, while it has been government policy to regard policy as a responsibility of Ministers and administration as a responsibility of Officials, the questions of administrative policy can cause confusion between the policy of administration and the administration of policy, especially when responsibility for the administration of the policy of administration conflicts, or overlaps with, responsibility for the policy of the administration of policy.
(With some help from Gemini)
Obviously an error to hire Mandelson, but not a resigning issue.
Though if he has lied to blame the vetting thing on Robbins then he should go.
I also agree if you disregard the official advice and it goes wrong, you, as the decision maker, have to take some form of responsibility. If you follow advice and it goes wrong, there's an element of deflection available.
We are therefore at the point of trying to figure out what Starmer was told or not told, by who and when. IF he was told Mandelson had failed vetting, chose to overrule it and told Parliament Mandelson had passed vetting, that is a resignation matter.
I suspect that wasn't what he was told and the language used probably left plenty of room for interpretation. "Mandelson has not failed vetting" might be construed as "Mandelson has passed vetting" but that's not necessarily the case. It's probably going to be quite easy to build a defence around an accidential misleading of Parliament absent any actual evidence of a deliberate and wilful misleading.
Let me be clear (which Starmer hasn't and won't be) - this stinks to high heaven but we need more proof than currently exists if we are going to hang a Prime Minister.
He is however, partly as a result of this, a lame duck PM who will have to go before the election or it will be a disaster worse than the Tories 2024. I don't see how it helps anyone for him to leave now though, 2027 is better for both him and those seeking his job.
* Actually, not 100% sure that it was an error to appoint Mandelson, certainly a risk that has paid off badly. But he was handling Trump better than a typical ambassador imo.
Apart from perhaps Roger, does anyone argue that we have "nothing to fear" from China ?
I think the argument is either that they aren't a direct military threat to us (probably true), or that it's in our interest to trade with them, or that they're slightly less unreliable than Trump (also likely true).
No one should use the excuse that "Boris was worse". It doesn't matter, Starmer was supposed to be above the fray and by accident or design he wasn't.
Rather, he might submit that he was operating in faithful accordance with an intricate and time-honoured procedural methodology, the effect of which—entirely incidental, of course—is to preserve ministerial serenity by ensuring that certain categories of knowledge remain, shall we say, tactfully unencountered.
He remains what he always was- a plodder carrying an awful lot of baggage, who probably intended to lose the 2023 election, except the Conservative government stuffed that up. As soon as a plausible alternative comes along, that's it. So not yet.
In the meantime, there is some meagre undignified satisfaction in seeing his many enemies on the left and right repeatedly take aim and miss. The same happened to John Major for a very long time.
You certainly shouldn’t be appointing him before all security checks are made regardless of what’s the normal protocol .
Protocol is not set in stone .
I don’t believe Starmer lied but his dull and competent turn the page on the Tories chaos mantra has bitten the dust.
What’s the point of Starmer if the one thing voters hoped for has shattered into a thousand pieces .
I don’t hold any animus for him , it seems to be the in thing to pile on . Equivalence with Johnson is really laughable given the litany of lies he told but speaking to some Labour friends it’s a feeling of we just expected so much better from him and I can’t see any chance of Labour winning the next election with him in charge .
For once he is right, it is unbelievable...
This is how he has achieved the current Labour party poll rating.
The media are dominated by the right and less deferential to power than ever before.
Our demographics are really starting hurt.
Cost of living pressures from Ukraine and now Iran.
His comms are terrible, in the bottom 2 of PMs ever, alongside Truss.
He doesn't seem to have had much of a plan or understood the scale of the challenge ahead of him.
In some respects I am slightly surprised they are not doing a bit worse......and I still think he is better than the other leaders and most of his Labour rivals.......no wonder I am none of the above.
The need to have a presence in Washington who would have the ear to Trump and the US Administration was obviously keenly felt in Whitehall and I understand that but to appoint before the security clearances were achieved (if that's what happened) seems difficult.
You can see how the statement "Mandelson hasn't failed vetting" looks if you know the vetting itself wasn't completed.
Can't disagree on the comms. I would have hoped for more of a honeymoon period myself.
It should never have needed to go to vetting.
The WFP stuff was sheer political suicide - the sensible approach would be to have taken all the old age benefits on top of the pension and reworked them into a taxed (or means tested) system.
So that pensioners living in poverty would get more of the pot and the ones with £70K a year income, less.
That would have been quite saleable to his party, rather than sending people off to join the Green.
Had neither event occurred, I think it likely Labour's big leads would have continued a little longer - possibly up to the Budget.
Starmer and the civil service will rely on process arguments to defend themselves but vetting is imo irrelevant here, the question is should a PM be able to appoint a wrong un? Plenty of people at the heart of government over the last decade wouldn't have passed vetting for a junior defence analyst.
Sadly no one was there to talk him back from the ledge . We know why a slimy corrupt individual was thought a good fit for Trump but still why on earth even take the chance .
There was more in today's statement than you are acknowledging. I don't think that the fact of Starmer appointing Mandleson before completion of security vetting amounts to that much. Starmer is of course right that any civil servant worth his salt should have disclosed the fact in January 2025 that the vetting failure had been overruled at the Foreign Office. What really stands out and has been underemphasised until now is how the Foreign Office then missed "repeated opportunities" to disclose the vetting failure, including withholding the vetting failure from the Cabinet Secretary's September 2025 investigation into the appointment process that Starmer ordered after Mandleson's sacking. That fact speaks volumes.
I think what happened is that Ollie Robbins thought that the factors that led to the vetting being withheld were relatively marginal and that he could keep the security vetting failure under wraps. He did so either in order to protect what he thought were the UK's interests (the appointment of Mandleson having been well received at the time in the US) and/or protect Starmer from the embarrassment of having to go back on the appointment and/or protect Robbins' own position from McSweeney's wrath if he Robbins were seen to be the instigator of Mandleson's demise. The latter is particularly plausible because of the fact that Robbins very much acted to protect his own back by continuing to keep the vetting failure under wraps in September 2025, thinking that things would still blow over (which they nearly did but for the further February 2026 Epstein revelations that instigated the Humble Address process.)
The latter is for me by far the most plausible explanation, rather than that Starmer knew all along about the vetting failure and conspired to try and keep it under wraps from the outset.
Where Starmer was at fault was in not standing up to McSweeney at the outset when Mandleson was being pushed for the job against the better judgement of others during the due diligence process, and also in being too ready to take Mandleson's assurances at face value. But given that many others praised the appointment, he wasn't alone in that error of judgement.
I am no fan of Starmer, and I'm convinced that he'll go in the very near future. But his demise will be fundamentally because of Labour's political meltdown under his leadership, to be confirmed by disasterous local election results in two weeks time, elections which have served to defer judgement day even though the writing has long been on the wall. That is, if Labour under Starmer's leadership were in a stronger electoral position, the Mandleson saga would all have blown over fairly quickly.
And the other is whether Mandelson was sharing confidential information obtained while Ambassador with his mates and, if so, who? I'd be looking at China and some of the other oddly pro-China decisions Starmer has been taking and doing a bit of digging.
The vetting has only become an issue because, when this all blew up in his face, Starmer chose to deflect from the failure of his gamble/judgement by blaming the vetting for having failed. Can he contain the argument on that territory, on a failure of process, rather than judgement?
I knew Mandelson was potentially a loose cannon. If Starmer didn't think he was someone who rubbed shoulders with bad guys he wouldn't have lined him up to babysit Trump. A role he equipped himself of very well. But then it went wrong...
https://x.com/MattCartoonist/status/2046266838837821871
Malmesbury at 7pm has the best explanation of why Robbins didn't tell Starmer.
This suggests that she failed to extract the key weak point from Starmer's story - whatever that might be - and hammer him on it, instead hoping that among a hail of poorly-aimed fire something might hit the target.
Some reaction from Lab MPs over PM's statement. One says "vibe in tea room is resignation. It's not mutinous, but it's a bit like having a slow chronic disease". Another says mood "miserable". A 3rd notes it was "very very quiet" on benches with even uber loyalists silent
Scoop from Sky’s @joncraig confirmed - the Speaker has accepted Kemi Badenoch application for an emergency debate on Peter Mandelson under Standing Order 24.
Badenoch said: “There remain serious inconsistencies in the government's position.”
Will take place after Olly Robbins has given evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Depending on any Urgent Questions and Ministerial Statements, it could start anytime from 12.30pm…
My guess is that Robbins thought that Starmer's wish to appoint Mandleson was iron clad and he thought that the stipulations put in place as a result of the vetting process was sufficient for him to carry out the PM's wishes whilst also discharging his duties to his department. If Starmer had said "Look I'm minded to appoint Mandleson but given his past then my decision will be contingent on a clean bill of health" then Robbins may have acted differently.