Keir starmer is dead in the water

[Bertiebiscuit]

The UK cannot have a prime minister who gave a plum job to a man when all the time he knew that Mandelson was still close friends with an ex-con who was convicted for trafficking children for sexual abuse. Starmer is destroying the reputation of the UK, he is an embarrassment and shoukd resign, if not the Labour party should demand his resignation.

The takeaway from this should not be for Starmer to automatically resign, but for everyone to be made more aware of the huge amount of behind the scenes "diplomacy" going on, which has been going on for decades - was a factor in wwI for a start.

We should demand transparency of all lobbying funding and activism funding. And make it internationally illegal to not be transparent and illegal to hide behind tiers of funding levels (funders of funders of funders, a bit like derivatives in banking in fact).

@FOJN Larry Fink and Bill Gates are not having lunch at Downing Street to discuss how to rebuild Britain. They are there to see how they can profit.
Yep that's what they do. I would like to think that we have people looking them in the eye having worked out how we can get more $$ for what we are 'selling' them. Or we get better if we are buying from them.

@SeriousFaffing I agree. But the civil servants and control of them behind the scenes remains the same. That is what needs attention.

If they were not known, how come Private Eye reported them (yes, including the passing on confidential briefing documents) over a decade ago?
They were threatened with a libel suit by Mandy, and also the threat of a very old law about defaming PC members
Hislop said, in effect, "Bring it on"
Mandy backed down
Why don't parliamentary party whips read Private Eye?

But the point is that even pre-Epstein, Mandy was ousted twice from previous roles for 'bad behaviour'.

That in itself was enough not to appoint him in a key role!

I've been around long enough to have lived through all the former sackings of Mandy and when he was called Prince of Darkness.

I wonder what he's got on KS that meant he was offered the job?
Makes you wonder!

Well he’d only leave if a majority of his party want him gone. And that would be not specifically/solely because of Epstein, but rather because he’s generally crap and consistently makes crap decisions and they want a less crap leader so they have a small chance of keeping their jobs following the next election.

Boris' absence is something I'm mildly surprised by - although in the hagiography by Sonia Purnell, he is reported as saying he 'detested that odious little pervert' - it is unclear if he was referring to Epstein or Mandelson

Because they are kept busy fire fighting, allowing the backroom control to do its thing?

Why don't MPs know more about geopolitics and history? That would help when trying to navigate the international nightmares going on.

I thought Truss was a terrible minister and that she said a lot of things I didn't agree with, but since leaving she has given some really interesting info about how foreign and economic policy is formulated and how impossible it is for ministers to navigate this.

Not really, more just basic political back scratching. Starmer was deemed New Labour 2.0 to oust the left from the levers of power, and so of course original New Labour guru Mandelson helped him out a bit along the way. So Starmer threw him a cushy high status but not politically too high profile job as a thanks mate. Looks stupid now though.

Oh feck.

> what was and wasn't known by Starmer
Why isn't what was generally known and reported in Private Eye et al a good benchmark for analysing the risk of appointing him?
I cannot believe that no one warned Starmer

Crazy title. My heart jumped before i read the last 3 words.

A shame Labour didn’t say the same. It could be their downfall.

Starmer knew Mandy was in touch with Epstein after his paedophile conviction when he appointed him. He chose to appoint someone as ambassador to a country who’d fraternised with a notorious, convicted paedophile from that country. Without any apparent concern for the survivors, who were bravely campaigning in that country for justice, at great cost to themselves and their families

I was thinking the same last night. None of these men give a shit about the people Epstein abused.

When JE left prison he wrote a really vile response to PM, who had asked him what freedom felt like. PM's response was to call him a "naughty boy" 🤮 instead of cutting him off, like most decent people would have done.

Mandy has always known to be a liability- going back years and years. Sacked twice for misconduct .

No one with any sense would have given him that job

yep, me too.

Despite what's being reported, he cannot be guilty of insider trading - it's a very specific offense, and requires a named stock to be involved
He is, however, probably guilty of malfeasance in public office, and maybe, depending if he leaked PC privileged information or not, treason

I can't believe that someone maintaining a friendships with a convicted sex offender was in any way deemed fit to be a diplomat and to represent our country. It shows, at best, shockingly bad judgement, and is quite disgusting. I'm fed up with excuses being made for men who minimise sex offenses. Starmer should go, Mandleson should never have been considered for the job, his continued friendship should have been enough to bar him. It shows how little Starmer cares about sex offenses (as if we needed more proof).

I say this as someone who dislikes Starmer’s but it’s quite possible Starmer didn’t actually want to do it. But as The new New Labour Saviour, the likes of Mandelson (and no doubt Blair etc) would have slithered his way into Starmer’s circle a good few years ago and made sure that he felt indebted to him for getting him elected as Labour leader and then as PM. (Even though he’d probably have managed it anyway). It then becomes a question of ‘well I could just ignore this extremely well-connected/powerful annoying guy who thinks I owe him a big favour … or maybe just throw him a bone and be done with it?’

Depends on the timing
If Burnham truly wants to stand as an MP, all he has to do is stand down as Mayor, then the Labout NEC has no power to exclude him from consideration by the local party
However, standing down as Mayor requires a 28 day notice period

It wouldn’t surprise me if part of the reason Mandelson was chosen was because he maybe already knew and got on well with Trump.

A quick search through their posts will quickly tell you that. Oh dear......

He also never accepted thousand of pounds of clothes, glasses, and makeovers from a party donor

From reading the papers and his answers at PMQ. -
Starmer knew because the security people told him and Starmer overruled it and thought it didn't matter. After all Epstein Died in 2019 and Maxwell was in prison in USA.

Private Eye really are such an excellent publication - never afraid to speak truth to power