No one can look Starmer in the eye … and the Mandy saga is not going away | John Crace
This is the end, beautiful friend.It is the tragedy of almost all prime ministers that they are the last person to realise the game is up.Their race is run.The backbenchers are the first to know.They spend time in their constituencies.
They get it in the neck from voters who have had enough with whoever is in No 10,They are the ones who get told nothing seems to work any more and that the prime minister has to go,Then come the cabinet ministers,They are more protected from the real world and may feel a residual sense of loyalty to the person who gave them a job,But even they are not immune to the tsunami of discontent.
On Tuesday, you could see the scales fall from Ed Miliband’s eyes.Mid-interview, he had a lightbulb moment,.Just why was he bothering to defend the indefensible.Sod it, he thought, and just said what was on his mind.That appointing Peter Mandelson had always been a catastrophic mistake.
Later the same day, Yvette Cooper found herself on the wrong end of a question about attempts by No 10 to find a diplomatic post for Matthew Doyle, Keir Starmer’s former head of communications and close friend of a convicted sex offender,Yvette didn’t even try to soft soap it,It had been wrong, she said,Then on Wednesday, Pat McFadden, Starmer’s most loyal of ministers, refused three times in a radio interview to say Keir had been right to sack Olly Robbins,Pat had a smidgeon of self-respect left and he was determined to preserve it.
If Keir has lost McFadden, he’s lost almost everyone,Cabinet meetings are now largely sullen affairs,No one wants to look Keir in the eye,Starmer, though, fights on,Stuck in the parallel world of his landslide majority.
He wants to believe he can still make a difference,That he is a good man with a lone moral compass,The right man – the only man – who can lead the country at this time,But you can see the light dying in his eyes,A darkness visible.
Sunken hollows where there used to be a sense of purpose.Where dreams come to die.Frustration.Despair even.That everything that can go wrong has gone wrong.
And then still more goes wrong.Still, there are some consolations.Not least that when he is finally forced to resign, it will be nothing to do with the leader of the opposition.It’s almost as if Kemi Badenoch is playing a strange game in trying to maintain Starmer in Downing Street.How else do you explain her latest outing at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday? With the ongoing scandal of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador, you’d have thought all Kemi needed to do was turn up and tap in the open goal.
All that was required of Kemi was to turn up and say six times: “What on earth made you think that Mandy was the right person for Washington? Which bit of being sacked twice for breaking the ministerial code, being close friends with Jeffrey Epstein and being suspected of passing privileged insider information to a bank did you somehow miss?”That is Starmer’s real crime.His failure.That he was a mere bystander prime minister.A spectator in Downing Street as Morgan McSweeney set about finding plum jobs for all his mates.That is the question that’s troubling his Labour MPs.
That is the question on the minds of everyone in the country.We didn’t need to do any vetting on Mandelson to reach the conclusion he was a wrong’un.His nickname of the Prince of Darkness could have been a clue.We’d done our due diligence over the past 30 years.Instead, Kemi tried to turn PMQs into a matter of process.
And not only disappeared up several cul-de-sacs but turned something that could have been box office into something rather dull,Largely because it was not even clear if she understood the process she was trying to critique,All of which let Keir off the hook, once he had apologised again for appointing Mandelson,He seems to think that’s a get-out clause,As if that wipes the slate clean.
As a barrister he ought to realise that cases are rarely that simple.There was an air of desperation to Kemi’s questioning.She’s had three goes at trying to prove Starmer had deliberately misled the house – first on Monday during Keir’s statement, on Tuesday in the opposition day debate and again at PMQs – and she’s failed each time.Largely because Starmer hasn’t misled the house.He’s guilty of all sorts of things but not this.
But Keir lying is Kemi’s obsession,She can’t help herself,So she ties herself in knots,It was also ironic to hear Kemi complaining of No 10 putting pressure on Olly Robbins,The Tories have long argued for a civil service that does the government’s bidding.
But at the first sign of one, they cry foul.The real point that Kemi kept missing was that the correct processes in Mandelson’s appointment were followed.The processes themselves might have been hopelessly inadequate but that wasn’t Starmer’s fault.No 10 might have put pressure on Olly to expedite the clearance and bypass the vetting process but Olly was adamant in his testimony that the pressure had no effect on his decision making.Other opinions are available on this but for the time being we have to take Robbins’s word for it.
Kemi might also have made more of No 10’s “jobs for the boys” culture that sounded out a sinecure for Doyle,But she blew that one too,So Starmer will probably chalk this one up as a win,A small one,Insignificant in the grander scheme of things.
An elephant trap avoided,But the Mandelson saga is not going away,On Thursday we get the cabinet office permanent secretary in front of the foreign affairs committee,Next Tuesday it’s McSweeney,Get in the popcorn.
Tui cuts profit forecast as effects of Iran war cost travel group €40m
The Iran war has cost the travel company Tui €40m (£34.7m) so far, including repatriating almost 12,000 holidaymakers and staff, and forced it to cut its profit forecast for this year.Europe’s biggest holiday operator said it had taken the hit in March owing to the impact of the conflict in the Middle East, as it was forced to bring home 5,000 guests from two cruise ships anchored in ports in Abu Dhabi and Doha.A further 5,000 European holidaymakers were also repatriated from destinations in the region, with Tui saying its operations in Turkey, Cyprus and Egypt were particularly badly affected.In addition, the company returned 1,500 crew members from the ships, which were able to escape through the strait of Hormuz “during a pause in hostilities” on Sunday, and will commence their summer season itineraries in the Mediterranean from the middle of next month
UK inflation rises to 3.3% amid biggest jump in fuel prices in more than three years
UK inflation accelerated to 3.3% in March after the Iran war triggered the biggest jump in fuel prices for more than three years.In the first official snapshot of the damage to living standards in Britain from the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the consumer prices index increased last month from a rate of 3% in February. The rise matched the forecasts by City economists.Grant Fitzner, the ONS chief economist, said: “Inflation climbed in March, largely due to increased fuel prices … Air fares were another upward driver this month, alongside rising food prices
UK firms to face tougher checks on export licences to bolster sanctions on Russia
British firms will face “much tougher” controls to prevent their goods from reaching Russia via other countries, undermining sanctions and aiding Vladimir Putin’s assault on Ukraine.Under plans to be unveiled on Wednesday, the government will be able to require UK manufacturers to obtain a licence if they want to export to a country suspected of acting as a staging post for exports ultimately destined for Russia.It comes after the business minister, Chris Bryant, ordered a review of a decision to allow UK carbon fibre equipment to be exported to an Armenian firm with links to Russia’s war machine, after reporting by the Guardian.Liam Byrne MP, chair of the business select committee, had written to Bryant raising concerns about the planned export of machinery that can be used in the production of military hardware such as drones and missiles.In a subsequent evidence session with Byrne’s committee, Bryant said the government was planning to strengthen export licensing laws to plug gaps in export controls
Why Trump’s pick for Fed chair will not bring home the bank for the president
Donald Trump’s fate is to be frustrated by monetary policy.Even assuming he gets his way and Kevin Warsh succeeds Jerome Powell as chair of the Federal Reserve next month, it is unlikely that the president will finally gain control of the Fed.Trump has called Warsh a “central casting” choice for the Fed. And he certainly looks like Trump’s man. His monetary thinking seems blatantly partisan
City watchdog faces legal action over £9.1bn compensation scheme for car loan victims
A consumer group is preparing to take the City watchdog to court in the hope of overhauling a £9.1bn compensation scheme that it claims massively shortchanges victims of the UK car loan scandal.Lawyers working for Consumer Voice have written to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), notifying them that they intend to challenge the redress programme in order to protect drivers’ interests, according to sources familiar with the group’s plans.It will dash the regulator’s hopes of drawing a line under the motor finance scandal, in which drivers were overcharged for loans as a result of commission payments between lenders and car dealers between 2007 and 2024.The challenge would mean hauling the FCA to the upper tribunal, where a judge would be asked to review the merits of the long-awaited compensation programme
Takeaway coffee sales plunge as fuel and living costs dent Australian spending. Is the economy next?
For many coffee drinkers, takeaway orders are changing from a habitual purchase to an occasional treat, as elevated petrol prices and other living costs leave households feeling glum.This rapid shift in behaviour has disappointed cafe owners and surprised economists, raising an uneasy question: if takeaway coffee sales are falling, is the economy next?Changes in coffee purchases are an early indicator of consumer attitudes because Australians are generally unwilling to give up their daily habit until absolutely necessary.National Australia Bank research shows that more than 50% of consumers are cutting back on treats such as coffee and snacks, which the bank says are usually among the most resilient purchases.While the trend has been in place for a few months, it accelerated quickly when petrol prices ignited in March due to the Iran conflict.“We are hearing from cafes and restaurants around the country that they’ve seen a slowdown in what patrons are purchasing,” says Wes Lambert, chief executive of the Australian Restaurant & Cafe Association
AI hallucinations found in high-profile Wall Street law firm filing
‘An element of exploitation’: the world of TikTok child skincare influencers
UK could face ‘hacktivist attacks at scale’, says head of security agency
Rental platform unnecessarily collected the data of millions of Australians, privacy commissioner finds
Apple’s Tim Cook leaves behind complicated legacy on privacy
‘I’ll key your car’: ChatGPT can become abusive when fed real-life arguments, study finds