Are we all looking forward to David Lammy becoming PM?

[ProudAmberTurtle]

There's no way Starmer can survive this latest scandal.

Lord Mandelson failed his security vetting for the US ambassador job, but he still got the post anyway.

Starmer stood up in Parliament last September and insisted "full due process" was followed — three times.

He therefore either misled parliament and has to resign under the Ministerial Code, or his advisors have misled him and parliament, which is likely a criminal matter and suggests a level of almost unbelievable government incompetence or corruption.

What great things are you hoping this country will achieve under PM Lammy?

Read the news? Every time PM received a bit of market sensitive information he passed it to Epstein. That indicates a weakness in character that suggests he may do that again particularly if he was given such a high value role. He was not to he trusted and had a bad track record of breaking trust and yet was still appointed.

WTF?

I cannot believe what I am reading. The PPE scandal? Michelle Mone, anyone? Literal billions wasted on cronyism.

Jesus some people have very short memories.

Mandelson got on well enough with the likes of Emily Maitless and Matt Chorley and I think the Daily Mail were okay about it. It's out there.

He was forced to resign twice - but the second time it turned out he wasn't really in the wrong.

It's also worth pointing out that Mandelson did nothing wrong while in the job that Sir Keir appointed him to, so in that sense one can defend the appointment. It's past skeletons being raked up - not undeservedly so, one might think. But it didn't happen on Sir Keir's watch.

Hang on...the whole point of this is not what PM did as ambassador but the reason he was appointed in the first place?

He didn’t pass security vetting.

Labour have been far worse. As far as I know no Conservative Cabinet member breached their fiduciary duty as a trustee for their own child's trust for a start.

I can't help thinking that if you're writing a list of achievements that Labour have done and:

• The list is two items long
• The second item on the list is 'they've forced the Met Police to declare if they're Freemasons'
• That one had nothing to do with Labour, it was an internal decision by the Met Police
• The first item on the list is an extension of the last government's reform and is not even close to being brought in yet, and may not be until the next parliament

Then maybe Labour haven't achieved that much

Erm, not sure that particular example could be any worse than what took place on the Tories' watch but tbf I haven't heard of that one, what was that about?

Angela Raynor.

Labour have been just as bad if not worse than the Conservatives. Hence why everyone is fed up of politicians. And hence why having previously binned the Conservatives I have decided to potentially vote for them again as I think Kemi, whatever other faults she may have, is honest and trustworthy.

Well, what did the Tories do last time round? Set out to destroy everything, as far as I can see.

My point is, they just aren't propping up the Tory's vested interests - and that is why Labour has to go.

I would rather have a mildly incompetent Labour government than a ruthlessly efficient Tory one - destroying the NHS, for instance. Helping landlords to rip off tenants, etc A bonfire of regulations so we get another Grenfell. Selling out to Russia, with the suppression of the Russia Report, that's another one.

The Freemasons in the police was because of Line of Duty, I bet.

WTF?

There’s not a shred of evidence that any member of the Tory government engaged in corruption or cronyism about PPE.

Mone was never in government and had the Tory whip in the Lords withdrawn. And the Tory government brought civil proceedings to recover the money from her two years before Labour even got into office.

WTF? I can’t believe how foolish and gullible some slavishly left-wing posters are.

The Tories poured billions more into the NHS and welfare though? Look at the figures.

How's the rental market now given Labour have totally messed it up? I seriously doubt they would have reduced the regulations about cladding after Grenfell? What do you mean?

Why the hell do you think it would be Lammy he would be as useful as a chocolate teapot!

Can you explain exactly how Angela Rayner breached her fiduciary duty (unless you.mean the tax issue?). Assume you have access to all the paperwork etc? Trusts can be quite complex, can't they (eta: which us why she was advised to seek specialised advice).

That's what I mean. With the Tories, we had massive scandals, and at least a couple of those went on to be proud Reform recruits. With the so-called Labour scandals, it means someone filling out a form wrong, possibly due to being badly advised, in a way that might have bagged them a few grand rather than the scores of thousands that Tory ministers usually acrue.

The biggest supposed Tory scandal - PPE - is a massive Labour backed lie.

The recent Labour scandals make the other Tory scandals look pretty minor.

That’s just a Labour version though. Plenty think they’re doing badly.

Well, go on, name these Labour scandals. I read the Times a fair bit, not seeing them. Economy isn't going great guns I know - but a) That's not a scandal in itself and b) It wasn't great under the Tories latterly either - though they had excuses in terms of self-inflicted wounds (Brexit, Covid)

My problem with the current Labour government is that it presents itself as high on moral values, as being compassionate and responsible, but I don’t see that. What I see is evasiveness and that Keir Starmer is controlling and I think fundamentally dishonest.

The centre left argument on all threads is that the conservatives were worse. Is your bar so low that you really consider this bunch of ineptitudes better?

No its not the tax issue.

The family home was partly owned by her son's trust. She was a trustee.

She wanted a deposit for her Brighton flat but needed to raise the cash. She decided as trustee that the trust would buy her share out using trust money.

The house was then valued by her. The value was set (I forget the exact figures) as significantly higher than any comparable house on the street.

The trust then paid the "value" of her share of the house to her. Coincidentally it was exactly the amount of the deposit for the new house.

This would normally be seen as a breach of the fiduciary duty of a trustee given the clear conflict of interest with regard to the decision for the trust to purchase the property in the first place as well as the over valuation of Angela's share.

That's all we've got. I agree it's not great @MNLurker1345

For instance, I live in Epsom and I voted to facilitate a Labour victory. So I voted Lib Dem and got Helen Maguire, helping to overturn a Tory safe seat for the first time ever. I'm glad about that. But in the issue of adult social care in care homes, and the bullying of Surrey's adult social services, she has turned a blind eye just like her predesessor Chris Grayling - though you can argue his rudeness and petulance in the end was more authentic than her bland assurances that she was sure I'd be sorry with the outcome, and she was sorry for what I'd gone through.

Epsom is in the news now because of the gang rape and protests following. Will Reform be able to capitalise on it in the local elections? Should I vote Lib Dem and ignore my thoughts about our new local MP, to stop Reform and go with the trend - there are loads of Lib Dem posts in my street, it may well go to them.

I'm not going to vote Tory given what the Tory-led Surrey County Council did to my elderly mother, or as much what they tried to do.

Green? Well, it's a protest vote - one that would let in the Tories.

Is this all a matter of record? I think I do remember something about this, but not sure whether there was concrete evidence.

Yes there was. It was investigated at the time in most newspapers along with pictures of her house compared to others on the street.

It’s more gossip. For that to be a breach they’d need evidence of the trust terms, how the valuation was done & whether independent advice or consent was involved. None of that is public, so they can’t possibly conclude it was a breach. only that it would be if their version of events is accurate.