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?

I'm not sure you understand how this works (to use your own phrasing from yesterday).

Breach of a fiduciary's duty would be a civil matter and, as PP rightly pointed out, she has no legal standing to bring that claim.

I believe we'd end up having another rather short term if Reform got in! I can't see that they'd last 5 years. (🤞🤞🤞🤞)

I think we might have a Reform-Tory coalition government

I am not sure Badenoch would be happy to be second in command to Farage. I think she probably doesn't like him at all.

I pray for that.

I agree. It would be the end of Reform once and for all, but we would pay a high price for that.

Yes, and the two parties hate each other.

If I were Badenoch I’d stay well clear of calamity Nige.

Agreed. In my opinion most of the party leaders don't mind or even quite like each other, with the exception of Kemi and Farage, who both actively and personally dislike each other. (Whenever Farage talks about Kemi on his TV show it's always in a much more negative way than he talks about anyone else, including Starmer)

If Reform needed a coalition partner to get numbers over the line, and the Tories won't do it, and there aren't enough left wing parties to form a majority due to the Tory numbers, we'd have to go again with another GE!

There’s always confidence and supply. Shaky though. I have every expectation that a Reform government would descend into farce very quickly. That would at least allow Badenoch to pull the plug when it suits her.

I can't see that lasting long, either!

So yes, I agree with you re it all falling apart very quickly indeed.

If it's a hung parliament and no group of parties can form a majority coalition of any kind together then what happens is:

1. The previous governing party (Labour) becomes the government until the King's Speech. The House then votes to accept or reject it, if they reject it then that government collapses, and then

1. The King asks the party that came first in the election (ie Reform) to form a minority government, which could survive if the Tories vote with it on at least some of their bills, but if they don't, then

1. There would be another General Election.

Number 3 has only happened once before in history - 1974, and it still took more than 6 months til the election had to be called as nothing else was working

Bloody carnage then!

I think even the most optimistic (for Reform) polls don't have Reform on a majority of seats so they would need to co-ally with the Tories, or whatever the verb is.

I agree that that wouldn't be ideal for anyone, and that Badenoch and Farage wouldn't get on. FWIW I think Badenoch personally has a much higher net approval rating than Farage according to the polls, but the Tories are polling at something like 80 seats at the moment to Reform's 250.

I reckon it'll come down to whether a Reform-Tory coalition looks more viable than a Labour-Green-Lib Dem one. I think it does.

Do you mean Labour + Libs + Greens + Tories? Would they have enough seats? And what a strange combo that would be. I couldn’t see anything sensible being agreed by the weirdos in the Green Party.

No, I imagine anything needing the Greens to get through would quickly fall apart!

We need a change of PM right now like we need a hole in the head.

How would you "hold her to account"? Plenty of rogue politicians in Labour seen to be doing just fine.

If theres a breach of a trustee fiduciary duty then the beneficiaries are the ones who would make a claim for remedies such as restitution. I don't know what you are on about regarding calling the police.

There was some good reporting done on this in tbe Telegraph when the shit hit the fan about her tax affairs. Have a look before suggesting I am making things up.

I really doubt it.

Andy Burnham was spotted leaving Angela Rayner's house yesterday

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/38859257/angela-rayner-andy-burnham-keir-starmer/

Have you read the story? It makes no sense.

Mr Burnham arrived at the former deputy PM’s constituency home Ashton in a silver Mercedes shortly before 6pm on Friday evening

The ambitious Manchester Mayor has already launched one failed bid to return to Parliament so he could have a shot at being PM – but was blocked by Sir Keir.Ms Rayner is also understood to be secretly plotting her leadership bid – but does not believe she can run while HMRC are still investigating her tax affairs.

A senior Labour MP said: “They will be carving it up. If Andy endorsed Angela for leader that will sway a lot of MPs to back her. (Which is in complete contradiction to "she does not believe she can run while HMRC...")

“Then she could get him a seat in Parliament and bring him straight into Cabinet.” (How would that work? She can't just magic up a seat and then guarantee he will win it. How strange that a "senior Labour MP" doesn't grasp that).

I expect there is plotting going on, but the Sun has made some of this up, as per.

Stop bogging people down with details 😂😂

All the OP reported was the house visit. She didn't repeat the Sun's speculation or give it any weight.

It is of interest that he visited, in the circumstances, even though we don't know what was said.

Yeah, that’s pretty feeble stuff to attack a news report that’s of interest because it suggests intensive anti-Starmer plotting at the heart of Labour.

It does look very much like Starmer’s lost any confidence or credibility among his ministers and other big figures in the party. They’re just divvying up jobs and planning a timetable now.

I’d be a bit surprised if Starmer hasn’t had phone calls from cabinet ministers (bar Reeves, who’s tied to him) telling him to pack his bags and go in a manner that doesn’t create more turmoil and damage to Labour.

There’s a strong scenario here where Starmer defends himself successfully on Monday on the narrow basis that he wasn’t told about vetting failure but expected to be (that does overlook the Independent actually publishing the facts last September). But then Robbins is clear on Tuesday that he only approved Mandelson because Starmer had pushed for him. So he had no real choice. On which basis Starmer has to go anyway, for having terrible and dangerous judgement.