‘Oh, Mandy
Well, you kissed me
And stopped me from shaking
And I need you today
Oh, Mandy’
So sang Barry Manilow. I can imagine at one point, looking into his bathroom mirror, in the early days of his leadership, so did Sir Keir Starmer. Today, however, the government needed Mandy like a hole in the head.
Lord Mandelson having to resign in disgrace is one of the cast iron rules of British politics
Lord Mandelson having to resign in disgrace is one of the cast iron rules of British politics. That Sir Keir couldn’t have predicted this – or more likely, thought he could rough it out – speaks to the fact that it’s now increasingly clear that the man has zero political nous whatsoever. A combination of arrogance, inexperience and ineptitude has robbed him of any judgement whatsoever. Sir Keir famously likes football: we might as well now replace him with that octopus which used to predict the World Cup by eating food from a particular box.
Today the inevitable happened. The only really remarkable thing about the sacking of Mandy was that it was actually first announced to the House of Commons, rather than the government’s preferred form of policy publication which is leaking to client journalists.
Urgent questions on Mandy’s future had been tabled by Tory Neil O’Brien. MPs were licking their lips and putting their hobnail boots on. Before the verbal beating could commence however, the government threw in the towel – or should I say, the bathrobe. Yvette Cooper was nowhere to be seen. Instead it was left to Stephen Doughty, Minister of State for Europe, North America and Overseas Territories, solemnly to announce that ‘in light of additional information in the emails written by Peter Mandelson, the Prime Minister has asked the Foreign Secretary to withdraw him as ambassador to the United States.’ Even when finally doing the right thing, this lot manage to screw up.
The way the statement was phrased seems to give weight to the idea that Sir Keir thought Mandy’s creepy birthday card photo collage to his noncey pal was okay, but that an email asking for free air miles wasn’t. Cheers erupted from the opposition benches. A rare scalp had been claimed, in part, by the work of Mrs Badenoch yesterday.
The kicking, however, still happened. Stephen Flynn congratulated the minister on being spared from having to ‘shred his reputation’ like his cabinet colleagues who had spent the morning in the airwaves defending the indefensible. Sir David Davis gave us a tour of Mandy’s former greatest hits; from dodgy passports to secret loans. Sir Roger Gale demanded a public inquiry. Rupert Lowe pointed out that American sources had described Mandy as ‘an absolute moron’ with links to China and yet still the government pressed ahead. Even rebel Labour MPs had a go. Liverpool Riverside MP Kim Johnson got cheers from the Tories when she asked ‘what due diligence was done when everyone knew about his relationship with Epstein before the appointment.’ Out of the mouths of Trots and sucklings.
Of course there were plants from the legion of bottom-crawlers on the backbenches designed to minimise the horror. ‘Isn’t the Prime Minister stunning and brave for only taking a full 72 hours to sack his mate’, ‘doesn’t it show how kind and principled the Prime Minister is that it was only after cabinet rebellion, public pressure and the publication of massively dodgy emails by the press that he finally had the balls to get rid of the ambassador?’ That sort of thing.
Stephen Doughty, whose parliamentary role has so far mostly consisted of sputtering out No.10-approved soundbites about the treasonous Chagos ‘deal’ to an increasingly irate House, had drawn the short straw yet again. Through clenched teeth, he praised Sir Keir’s ‘decisive decision’. Andy McDonald congratulated the PM for moving ‘at pace’. ‘Swiftly and decisively’, was Perran Moon’s verdict. All these statements drew shrieks of laughter across the House.
Throughout, the front-bench offered a further glimpse into the reality of the state of the government. Number 10 must now resemble a cross between the downfall of the Republic of Salo in 1945 and the cancellation of The Tweenies in 2002. Just 18 months ago these people thought they were the bright heralds of the new dawn, the vanguard of progressive Britain. Now they have had to expend time and energy defending a paedophile’s pal, before then being given the order to reverse-ferret. Looking at their faces you realise it is slowly dawning on them that they are the stuffed shirts of an administration more corrupt, more mendacious and more incompetent than even its woeful predecessors. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
Comments