https://x.com/ft/status/2018300898246627461?s=46
https://x.com/gabriel_pogrund/status/2018345253133078813?s=46
https://x.com/paulembery/status/2018381944472367490?s=46
https://x.com/danneidle/status/2018250218655851006?s=46
https://x.com/faisalislam/status/2018325467388850410?s=46
This makes a lot of sense why our leaders have made the decisions they have in the past 60 or so years.
Very illuminating.
Devil worshippers
Straight to jail
I bet that’s not even a slightly isolated incident. That sort of thing must go on all the time with politicians and corporations, hedge funds, banks and so on.
Yep I was going to write the same thing. This is just confirmation of what we have always known and that’s that powerful people have an unprecedented amount of influence on government policy.
For me he has to go. Mandelson has failed in government on more than one occasion and even if he die lie about the extent of his relationship with Epstein there was way too much of a cloud over Epstein that Starmer should have just avoided Mandelson altogether.
Horrific judgment and he is also fighting calls to release the vetting shit
Heard him say if I knew then what I know now I would not have appointed him. Then the BBC put this at the end of the article version I read online:
For context: Mandelson’s friendship with Epstein was known when he was appointed as US ambassador in 2024. He was sacked last year when embarrassing details about their association were released.
I mean given that Boris Johnson went over Chris “Pincher by name, Pincher by nature” Pincher it’s a fair argument to make.
It should but it also doesn’t matter because in reality this should bring down the government given Mandelson’s influence in the party.
They’re on borrowed time.
If Starmer does go, which is unlikely, who would replace him?
Burnham is very popular but he’s not an MP, so who else is competent enough?
David Lammy 
I’d go with Lammy, but it’s likely they’ll stick with Starmer because he got them elected and is about as middle of the road as a politician can get, also, there aren’t many other realistic options.
This Mandelson story is symbolic of the failed political operation under Starmer. Its not a resignation matter though but the damage to his standing as PM, especially within the PLP, is irrecoverable now.
Genuine question: given that the public hates him and his reputation with the PLP is irrecoverable, how is it not a resignation matter?
Wes Streeting, but I don’t think that Starmer is going anywhere
Streeting is even more involved with Mandelson and McSweeney
At this time, it appears that he still retains the full confidence of his cabinet and most MPs even if they’re dismayed at his shitty political operation. I don’t think making a poor ambassadorial appointment is a resignation matter, yes Starmer knew about the association between Mandelson and a convicted nonce in Epstein but the bulk of the impropriety was unknown to him because Mandelson lied through his teeth about everything.
I don’t even like Starmer but I think his personal popularity metrics are skewed and weighted downwards. I just believe that he’s as unpopular as late stage Rishi Sunak lol
I think a McSweeney sacking is furtherest this should go. I think the PLP is very conscious about not replicating the chaos under the Tories by withdrawing support for a PM with a huge majority on the basis of his poor political judgement. I think if lose the Gorton by-election and May elections are disastrous, that will be enough of a basis for a loss in confidence.
I definitely see the point about not wanting to replicate the Tory chaos. I’d say the main point of my question isn’t so much can he survive, because he probably can. But should he?
If he’s effectively a dead man walking, I don’t see how it’s advantageous for him to stay.
The key advantage is that PLP is firmly running No10/No11 and the legislative agenda rather than the other way around, this may be a suitable arrangement to steer Labour from oblivion and draw a clear contrast to the neo Thatcherites in reform ltd. Most recent example is forcing a shift on the two child benefit cap which recently passed. It falls into a pattern of Starmer conceding on things to the PLP to preserve his position and the government shifting leftward.
I think the fundamental issue for alot of potential challengers is that although Starmer’s political operation is shit, alot of the issues he has faced/facing aren’t necessarily his fault and they will still exist after he’s gone given the current political environment. If people can question the authority of starmer’s mandate, what does that mean for his replacement with none?
I agree with some of the last paragraph and I think you’re definitely on to something with how easily the PLP seem to be able to bully him making for a good arrangement.
I think it’s fair to question the mandate Starmer has despite the majority won at the last GE. That majority is largely a function of the split in the centre right / right vote caused by Reform and not by any real enthusiasm for Labour. I’m not sure the country wanted them rather than got stuck with them. So I’m not sure their legitimacy is too much worse for replacing Starmer.
Do you mean they’re consciously being skewed intentionally by some sort of bad faith actors, or just that there are factors external to him personally that are distorting/affecting them?
I’ve seen that the five most unpopular PMs in history are the last five, in order as well, getting progressively more unpopular: May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and then Starmer.
It could be the case that each of these PMs is worse than the last, and personally less popular because of their own individual merits, but I’d say it is far more likely that the ever decreasing popularity of our PMs is indicative of the British public’s ever increasing disillusionment with and distrust of the political classes.