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?

2 CS have said they knew for weeks and said nothing... i don't like Starmer, he should have gone around a year ago or even earlier, after the expenses thing, IHT and WFA..... but on this, IF he wasn't told, then its not his fault.

Even if he wasn't told at the time, that is absolutely no excuse not to find out exactly what happened when the shit hit the fan, and certainly before he spoke to the press about the situation, just to make sure he knew everything and didn't inadvertently say something which wasn't true.

He has never said he was lied to, which means he didn't ask to be fully briefed. Which is utterly ridiculous in his position.

I don't know the level Mandelson was vetted for but at SC and DV, the sec team involved don't take questions.

I would also suggest that as PM had been a senior Govt minister, no one seriously imagined he would fail vetting.....

The error and its a huge one, was even considering PM for the role... not this vetting debacle, which is being used to try and get Starmer to resign over.

I hope he stays, just to pee them off.

I think that would pee off his cabinet, his MPs and his councillors more than anyone else.

I suspect that Labour supporters are much more likely to want Starmer to remain than is anyone defending a Labour seat.

Liz Kendall must be spitting tacks tonight after the embarrassment of having to speak up for Starmer in front of the cameras. Does Starmer actually have any backers in the cabinet apart from Rachel Reeves?

Nah she sounds like a believer. Really gushing stuff.

Him staying will be a different kind of amusement and he can shake and go red still at each PMQs.

Starmer going, like Badenoch resigning, will make zero difference to the May election results for either party.

The electoral disaster for both parties is baked in, both are on less than 20% support.

However, there is a school of thought that says that if Starmer goes, it tells the voters that both parties are useless, change PMs like underwear and they will look elsewhere....

Given the issues we all face, i find it quite incredible, the focus is on Starmer and Mandelson.... its hilariously weird when you stop and think about it.

This is spot on.

It's called foreign interference and the rise of fascism. People like Farage are being funded by very shady groups....and Trump is one of them.

Our politicians made the mistake of not restricting social media and allowing lies to spread.

Twitter, TikTok and some YouTube channels should have been banned. It's a rot that must be stopped.

Yes, it was a total secret that only the foreign office, the cabinet secretary and anyone who read The Independent website in September last year was aware of - after all, the fact that Mandy failing the vetting was only mentioned once in the House of Commons by an MP last year shows there's no way the PM could have known

Starmer said "Not only was I not told, no minister was told and I’m absolutely furious about it.”

Either he should have been told and wasn't - in which case surely he should he should have at least had a suspicion that it wouldn't be positive and have made sure he found out. Mandelson has had a deeply dodgy reputation for years and and has left government under a cloud twice before.

OR

He shouldn't have been told because vetting outcomes aren't shared outside a very small number of essential parties. In which case he'd be aware of that and why is he angry?

Labour are not doing very well. Restrictions around criticism sound like something they’d want, but no thanks.

Not to mention the enquiry by the Independent journalist direct to No 10’s head of communications, with reference to two sources for the story, before the Independent published last September.

You’d have had to be Sherlock Holmes to piece together the confounding clues and get to the bottom of this story.

Here’s what Labour have done since coming to power:

https://whathaskeirdone.co.uk/results

I think they are terrible at communicating and Keir needs some media training pronto.

But I’d rather have them than the other options right now. I also think they should look hard at why the greens are so popular!

No. We don’t need another PM just now!

Your analysis is no doubt right. And I’d be surprised if Labour could install a new leader in three weeks anyway, barring a coronation.

He should have gone in September, as you said. He’s really stuffed Labour.

Who’s your choice for the successor?

That's a labour party website. I'd prefer something a bit more objective really if you could find something. I only got to no. 3 and laughed out loud: 'Set out his long-term plan to rebuild our NHS for good and transform services over the next 10 years.

I've worked in the NHS for decades and every government says exactly the same thing. I've been 'transformed' so many times I actually couldn't count them....

Yeah I genuinely clicked on that with an open mind but they've shot themselves in the foot with clearly falsifiable/overblown stuff. He "ended train strikes" - there are literally tube strikes on this very week. He "started the drive to recruit 6500 new teachers" - no, they've been doing recruitment initiatives for over a decade, Labour didn't "start" teacher recruitment.

If they'd had a shorter list of more quantifiable things, that'd be more convincing, rather than padding it out with exaggeration. For example if they'd written "xyz% fewer train strikes under Labour" or "xyz% more teachers recruited per annum" then I'd be happy. The assumption is that they can't say those things because the numbers aren't positive

Labour fell off a cliff long before last September... it started with the expenses saga, then continued with WFA/Farm IHT

That explains Labours fall from grace but what about the Tories and Badenoch? the official opposition, facing a v weak PM/Govt yet are 1% ahead in the polls....

Should Kemi B also resign to save her party?

New PM? whilst he should have gone a while a go, now he should stay, or certainly not resign over something which he "may" have not known about, especially given world events, the public will not forgive a PM or party that runs away, when in a few short weeks, we may well be facing huge supply and cost issues....

Gazing inward is never a good look.

This isn't a list of achievements but rather a list of aspirations.

Almost every item is 'Labour have launched a plan that they hope will one day..'

The only 'results' highlighted are all spin: Labour have not ended train strikes and they have not reduced energy bills (they've actually gone up significantly)

Oh yes I would also say not many Conservatives either. Although I think there are a decent amount of right wing thinkers on here so it will be interesting to see what happens in 2029.

The topic of the thread is Labour. So that's why I mentioned the amount of Labour supporters.

I think that some people always posture a bit more on polls when they aren't close to a general election. Then at the actual election they get cold feet and vote for a more mainstream party. I think a lot of people currently saying they'll vote Reform will end up voting Tory in the end to be "on the safe side". Especially as, in the run up to a GE, all the other parties will be investing their efforts in discrediting the Reform candidates. This is my totally unscientific prediction of how it'll go.

Reform are pretty mainstream now and by 2029 they will be part of the furniture (for good or ill) due to the councils. They aren't one of the two main parties though of course. Are we going to change a habit of a lifetime and vote for another party in enough numbers, that is the question. Have Labour and the Conservatives made a big enough balls up?

Well it seems from today's front pages that he was told...

Hilarious. "no one seriously imagined he would fail vetting".

Apart from most people with a functioning memory...

I reckon that Reform will have fucked up so many councils by the time a GE comes along that people won't trust them with the economy of the nation.

At which point people may turn back to the Tories as a known entity. Both Labour and the Tories are in a situation where the vote (left/right) will be split, but 3 years is a long time, so let's see where we are at that point.

We now know as well that Antonia Romeo, who Starmer appointed as his Cabinet Secretary, even though she'd previously told government staff to join a “gender non-conforming book club” as part of their development goals, was told that Mandy failed the vetting process shortly after her appointment.

According to Andrew Neil, he thinks The Guardian was given the story on Thursday because whistleblowers were fearing a cover up.

https://x.com/afneil/status/2046001503807127975

Same for the Greens.

They will have plenty of opportunity to do the same when they win in the local elections.