Starmer is in big trouble. If he goes, could gov fall - impact on the messy world we are in now

If something like this had of happened under the previous Conservative government, especially the Boris Johnson government, it'd have been old news the same day it broke…

It appears this is the only instance in recent years where a "borderline" recommendation was overturned by the FCO.

The Guardian is owned by its staff via the Scott Trust. Same as the Irish Times here (Irish Times Trust).

It used to be the Manchester Guardian.

My impression is that Starmer is neither loved nor hated, he's just bland. He is essentially a compromise PM after the scalding years of brexit turmoil which have in reality delivered sub par results.

The rate has their ten year gilt bond is experiencing the wildest blowout amongst the OECD as far I can see. With The Telegraph sale to the very pro EU Alex Springer group going ahead I can see groundwork being laid in the more conservative ends of British polity towards the economic necessity of at least aligning with the single market.

However it will take the emergence of pro version of UKip before momentum for rejoining the union gains traction, although the Greens and LibDems already fly that fleg in England.

The Mandy story is awful, but it's more likely to push those outraged more left than right. The right is toxic pit of Brexit droppings.

'Yes' is the short answer there. A substantial payout on the way I suspect, to supplement his lump sum.

I think myself it's the Matthew Doyle story that's the 'smoking gun' here, if there is one. I'm not sure we learnt anything this morning that we didn't know already about Mandelson, except that the vetting failure related to issues other than Epstein (presumably his Russian and Chinese links). Simply put, Starmer wanted a friend of a paedophile in Washington to pander to another more powerful friend of said paedophile (in the national interest, of course). And at the time, the media and the Tories and even Reform UK agreed it was a jolly good idea.

Cabinet Office suggested Mandelson did not need security vetting, says Robbins as he describes ‘constant pressure’ from No 10 – live

Robbins says security vetting shouldn't be 'pass/fail piety test', because UK state needs 'interesting' people working for it
Robbins said that security vetting should not become a “pass/fail piety test”. He explained:
If we turn DV [developed vetting] into a pass/fail piety test, what we end up doing is robbing the British state of a lot of very, very capable people with complicated lives and potential vulnerabilities. And I really, really don’t want that for the sake of this country. If anything, this government needs to be served by an ever increasing range of people with broad experience and interesting lives, not suddenly find that the only people we can employ in sensitive roles are ones who raise no issues whatsoever.

He is of course correct in that.

Appointing Mandelson is something terribly wrong though, not being all over his vetting when he was being put forward for the role means he's seriously incompetent.

All the bullshit from Labour about how much better they were than the Tories and they would clean up politics, all the bullshit from the UK media that they would bring in a new era of stability and essentially they've proven themselves to be every bit as bad as what came before them.

He's surely gone soon after May 7 anyway? Might as well hang on as a sort of caretaker at this stage, given the Iran situation etc. Deep down they're probably also wondering if something so awful might happen that Mandelson might be all forgotten about.

He wasn't called the prince of darkness for nothing.

Floodgates open as 67 Labour MP's officially ask Starmer to resign, 14 more needed and he is toast. At current rate it could be within the hour.