POLITICS CORNER

[Stanley]

That reply nattered me until this morning when I realised what was wrong and went for a furtle. It was George Claude Lockhart who was the ringmaster David. Don't know how Bruce crept in!

See THIS report for the latest swing of weathervane Trump.
The US has backed the UK's deal to hand over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and lease back a key military base, Downing Street has told the BBC. On Thursday, Donald Trump signalled his approval for the move, describing Sir Keir Starmer's agreement as the "best he could make". It comes just a few weeks after the US president prompted fears in Whitehall that he would withdraw his support, after he branded the deal an "act of great stupidity". Trump's comments led to additional talks between officials to confirm continued American support for the agreement, which will impact the future of a joint UK-US airbase.

[Tripps]

This my 10,000th post - (almost unbelievable) - nice that it's a bit "spooky"

An hour after your post above, before seeing it, and during a night time 'comfort break' for no apparent reason it came to mind that it was George Lockhart who was the ring master not Bruce. Glad you agree.

Maybe I had this chap in what masquerades for a memory these days in mind.

Google tells me there was another in the 1920's who was a sort of '39 steps' character, and probably a spy.

[Stanley]

David... Bruce Lockhart hovers at the brink of my memory as well but I can't pin him down.

In an attempt to get this topic back on piste I searched for some political news that wasn't connected to Mandelson. I failed. At one point I thought I might have some3thing with an item about Wegg-Prosser, a name that had always got my attention but then found out it was yet more Epstein related copy....
In the course of my furtling I came across this Gordon Brown quotation.... "Former Prime Minister Brown said he "greatly regrets" appointing Mandelson in his government. "As I digest the details of what has emerged, I also find it hard to find words to express my revulsion at what has been uncovered about Epstein and his impact on our politics," he wrote in the Guardian on Friday."
My mind goes back a long way to Dome of Discovery days and the surprise in my mind is that anyone could ever trust Mandelson in any context.
He always presented himself as the Third Man in the conception of New Labour but many question this self-assessment. It may be that one of the casualties of the Epstein Effect could be the concept of New Labour and this triggers thoughts about the stain spreading further to Starmer and even Tony Blair. Nothing can be ruled out. I heard Ian Hislop saying that this is bigger than the Profumo affair.... He also pointed out that Private Eye had been on Mandelson's case in the very early days.
We live in interesting times!

[Stanley]

I listened to the long interview with Gordon Brown on Today. I don't think Gordon is capable of lying and the picture he painted of the betrayal by Mandelson in 2008 is damning. Gordon is calling for an immediate move to impose standards on public life that will address the mistakes we are seeing here.
I was struck by his amazement that the checks and balances already built into the system hadn't worked.....
I don't think they have poked into all the corners yet. I wait to see whether there are 'untouchables' still or whether they will all be called to account......

[Stanley]

I'm sorry but THIS still dominates the headlines.....
A pay-off given to Lord Mandelson after he was sacked as ambassador to the US is being reviewed, UK Foreign Office sources have told the BBC. The review was instigated after fresh details emerged about the peer's contact with Jeffrey Epstein and a separate police investigation was initiated in the UK, they said. The Labour peer is thought to have been given a pay-off of up to £40,000 after he was sacked as the UK's ambassador to the US in September over his links with the late convicted sex offender. On Friday police searched two homes linked to Lord Mandelson after the latest release of files in the US indicated email exchanges with Epstein about fiscal policy. Lord Mandelson has not been arrested. Government sources confirmed that the Foreign Office reached a financial settlement with Lord Mandelson, but have not said how much this was for. However, he is believed to have been given an exit payment equivalent to three months' salary according to the Times. A Foreign Office spokesperson said: "Peter Mandelson's civil service employment was terminated in accordance with legal advice and the terms and conditions of his employment. "Normal civil services HR processes were followed. Further information will be provided to Parliament as part of the government response to the motion passed last week which is being co-ordinated by the cabinet office." While Lord Mandelson's salary as US ambassador has not been disclosed, the post typically has a salary of £155,000-£159,999. This would put a three months' pay-out at around £40,000.

[Tripps]

Morgan Mc Sweeney has been thrown under the proverbial bus to protect (they hope) Sir Keir Rodney Starmer.

His statement began “After careful reflection, I have decided to resign from the government"

Delusional.

I hope someone reminds him on his way out the he is not actually "in the Government". He is an advisor - a hired hand, to correct the PM's spelling, make coffee, and such stuff. He's a County Cork man and his grandfather served in the IRA. Was he vetted by the same team as vetted Mandelson?

Won't work I'd say. This is a splash of blood in the water, and the sharks / press will speak of little else for a long time.

[Stanley]

I had to look up THIS BBC report in order to understand David's post....
Morgan McSweeney has dramatically quit as Sir Keir Starmer's chief of staff, after mounting scrutiny over his role in Lord Mandelson's appointment as the UK's ambassador to the US. The PM's adviser had been coming under pressure after pushing for the former minister to be given the job, despite the peer's relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein being publicly known about at the time. McSweeney said he did not oversee the vetting but wanted to take "full responsibility" for advising the prime minister to appoint him. It leaves Sir Keir battling to shore up his premiership as he continues to face anger from Labour MPs over his decision to hire the peer for the Washington role.
At first glance this looks like an attempt to divert attention from Starmer....

Then I read THIS supplementary report....
Morgan McSweeney has never spoken publicly about the immensely consequential role he has played in British politics over the last decade. It is almost impossible to find a clip of his voice. He completely avoids the TV cameras and photographers who lurk around Whitehall at times of political crisis. Yet the elusive Irishman's sudden departure as Sir Keir Starmer's top aide - a result of his fateful advice in autumn 2024 that Lord Mandelson should be the UK's ambassador to Washington - leaves the prime minister exposed in a way that might not be immediately clear. One question many in Westminster are now pondering is: what sort of politician will Sir Keir be without the man many say was his political brain? Because unlike almost all relationships between prime minister and adviser, Sir Keir did not choose McSweeney - it was arguably the other way around. In the Corbyn years when control of Labour had been lost to the left, McSweeney polled party members and decided that the lawyer and shadow Brexit secretary was his best chance for wrestling back control of his party. In what some claim was an elaborate and perfectly-executed deception, McSweeney managed to persuade pro-Corbyn party members that Sir Keir was one of them. And after winning the leadership, Sir Keir purged many Corbynites - including the former leader himself - and pivoted to a more centrist general election pitch. McSweeney's work at Labour HQ during the 2001 election and later in local government shaped his campaigning instincts. In an echo of Boris Johnson's adviser Dominic Cummings, McSweeney is credited with masterminding a general election landslide yet blamed for turbulence and U-turns once in government. He is also accused of presiding over a "boys' club" atmosphere at No 10, with some MPs now suggesting a full cultural reset is needed rather than just one change of personnel. Starmer's decision to appoint McSweeney's deputies - Jill Cuthbertson and Vidhya Alakeson - to be his joint successors on an acting basis may start this process. Some allies of the deposed chief of staff are angry, pointing out that there are other prominent advisers who also recommended Lord Mandelson yet remain in their jobs.
I have no way of telling whether this report is accurate and therefore a good explanation of what is happening. What I am clear about however is that attention has been diverted from legitimate questions about the Leadership of the Labour Party and focussed on gossip about the workings of the snake-pit that is Downing Street. Meanwhile, to an outsider, it seems that the country is going to hell in a basket and nobody is listening to the voices like Gordon Brown who yesterday called for immediate attention to addressing what he says are the flaws in the way Members of Parliament are regulated and subsequent failures of governance.

[Stanley]

See THIS Chris Mason opinion piece...
36 minutes ago
The prime minister has had a political near-death experience – and survived, for now at least. At various points, he looked like he might be done for and imminently. If Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar's desire to dislodge Sir Keir Starmer had had public accomplices, that could have been it. There was a crucial pivot point on Monday afternoon when things could have gone in one of two ways. If others had said Sir Keir should go, he might not have got to the end of the day without announcing his departure. But instead, there was a rallying of support from the cabinet and from various wings of the Labour Party. Let's be clear: missives of loyalty from cabinet ministers towards the prime minister shouldn't be newsworthy and they only become so when the opposite seems feasible. The sheer volume of social media posts only served to underline just how perilous Sir Keir's position had been: he needed political scaffolding to prop him up from wherever it could be found. But that support did come and he has seen off, for now, the moment of maximum danger for him. It is, though, also true that this has been a deeply wounding week for Sir Keir and he is weaker for it. And jeopardy peppers the diary ahead for him. There is the Gorton and Denton by-election in Greater Manchester in just over a fortnight. Then there are the Scottish and Welsh devolved elections, and English local elections, in May. If either or both of those dates are doomladen for Labour, who gets the blame?
We live in interesting times.
One is allowed to be wise before the event and some of us knew instinctively that Starmer was the wrong man for Labour Leader when he was selected before the election. It is difficult to see how he can survive for long. His best service to the Party would be to volunteer his departure setting in place an orderly way to find a successor. As it is it is going to be decided by raw political manoeuvring.

[Stanley]

See THIS report for another indirect link to tainting by contact with sex offenders...
Lord Doyle, Sir Keir Starmer's former director of communications, has been suspended from Labour's parliamentary party over his links with a convicted sex offender. The peer said he would not take the Labour whip and apologised for his past association with Sean Morton, a former Labour councillor in Moray who admitted indecent child image offences in 2017. It comes after the Sunday Times reported that Lord Doyle campaigned for Morton after he was charged with possessing and distributing indecent images of children in December 2016. "At the point of my campaigning support, Morton repeatedly asserted to all those who knew him his innocence, including initially in court," Lord Doyle said. Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch wrote to Sir Keir last week to call on him to "explain why you appointed another friend of a child sex offender to a prestigious post".

[Stanley]

THIS heads the political news this morning....
Sir Keir Starmer has defended awarding a peerage to his former communications chief after claiming Lord Doyle "did not give a full account" over his links with a convicted sex offender. Speaking at Prime Minister's Questions, Sir Keir reiterated he had removed Lord Doyle from Labour's parliamentary party. But Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch raised questions on what Sir Keir knew about Lord Doyle during the appointment process before accusing the PM of "stuffing government with hypocrites and paedophile apologists". Lord Doyle has apologised for his past association with Sean Morton, a former Labour councillor who admitted indecent child image offences in 2017. It was announced on 10 December last year that Sir Keir's former director of communications would be awarded a peerage.

[Tizer]

It's good to see this rebuke to Trump...
`US House backs bid to block Canada tariffs in rebuke of Trump: Republicans join Democrats in objecting to national emergency US president declared to impose tariffs' Guardian

[Stanley]

I agree Peter, it's a hopeful sign..... I note that Trump says that tariffs have brought the US national security..... I wonder what evidence there is for that statement?

See THIS report heading the politics section of the BBC news this morning.....
Sir Chris Wormald has been forced out as the head of the Civil Service and cabinet secretary. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, who only appointed Sir Chris to the role in December 2024, said he was grateful "for the support he has given me over the past year". The Cabinet Office said the move was "by mutual agreement" but it follows months of negative media reports suggesting Downing Street was unhappy with his performance. His responsibilities will be shared by Catherine Little, permanent secretary at the Cabinet Office, Dame Antonia Romeo, permanent secretary at the Home Office and James Bowler, permanent secretary at the Treasury, until a replacement is appointed "shortly". It makes Sir Chris the shortest-serving cabinet secretary in the history of the post. At the time of his appointment, the PM said Sir Chris would be tasked with "the complete re-wiring of the British state to deliver bold and ambitious long-term reform". However, as a career civil servant some questioned whether he was the best person to reform the Civil Service. Sir Chris also had ultimate responsibility for the due diligence checks carried out before Lord Mandelson's appointment as US ambassador, although he took up the role only a few days before the appointment was formally announced. He is the third senior official to leave the government operation in a matter of days, following Sir Keir's chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and his director of communications Tim Allan, as the PM seeks to reset his team after the Mandelson scandal.
The impression I get is that Number Ten is a snake pit and is in internal melt-down largely due to Starmer's incompetence.

[Stanley]

If we discard yet more references to Mandelson and the Epstein Affair we are left with THIS update on Number Ten.....
Sir Keir Starmer and the rest of his cabinet may still be in their jobs at the end of a tumultuous week - but the same can not be said of key figures in behind-the-scenes roles. The head of the Civil Service Sir Chris Wormald has been pushed out, along with the PM's trusted political aide Morgan McSweeney. His highly experienced communications director Tim Allan has also departed. In the past 18 months no less than four communications directors have headed for the Downing Street exit. Such is the rate of summary dismissals at Downing Street, it's probably just as well that not all of the measures in the government's employment rights legislation have been implemented. But is transplanting staff at the heart of government part of a bigger strategy? Or is it simply a short-term tactical move, a sticking plaster to get the PM through the next news cycle? There is precedent for prime ministers firing senior civil servants who are not seen as being on board with their programme. When Liz Truss briefly took over at Number 10 she got rid of Tom Scholar, the top civil servant at the Treasury. But Truss had inherited Scholar from Boris Johnson and she had, for better or worse, a clear policy agenda. In Sir Keir's case, he is sacking or squeezing out people he initially approved. As an insider said about one of Sir Keir's previous dismissals, the PM is getting good - at clearing up his own mess.
I see nothing to make me revise my opinion that Number Ten is a disorganised snake pit that is in chaos.....

[Stanley]

At last we have significant political news! See THIS BBC report.