Mandelson scandal shortens odds on Starmer following him out the door
In many political scandals there is an agreed full stop, a time for the circus to move on: maybe a resignation, certainly a police investigation.But for Downing Street, Peter Mandelson risks being a headache that simply will not end.Mandelson’s future in public life is definitively over, or as definitive as you can be for a figure who, much as with the Conservative saying about Boris Johnson, would possibly need to be buried at a crossroads with a stake through his heart before you could completely rule out another comeback.After resigning from Labour as yet more revelations about his links to Jeffrey Epstein emerged, Mandelson has now departed from the House of Lords, and efforts are under way to strip him of his title.With Mandelson off the scene, at least until he breaks cover with another self-serving interview, the focus is very much on Downing Street, and how on earth the team around Keir Starmer thought it was a good idea to appoint such a tarnished, if well-connected, figure to be the ambassador to the Donald Trump court.
There are two interconnected elements to this very public inquest: one internal and the other external.On the latter, opposition parties will delightedly punch the bruise, using every parliamentary mechanism in their power to try to tease out new and potentially embarrassing information.The first stage of this is likely to be a Conservative opposition day debate on Wednesday, where the Tories are expected to push for the release of internal documents setting out what No 10 knew about Mandelson’s links to Epstein at the time he was given the Washington job.The aim of this will be to focus as much fire as possible on Starmer personally.“It’s either he knew and didn’t care, or just wasn’t curious enough to care, and neither is a good look,” one Conservative frontbencher said.
There was a similar verdict on Tuesday from Nigel Farage, who told a press conference that while he is himself mentioned 32 times in the Epstein files, he never met the child sex offender and “never went to the island”.While acknowledging Mandelson’s skills as a networker, Farage said Starmer and his team made “a grave, grave error of judgment” in making him ambassador despite his long record of previous misjudgments and poor conduct.Notably, the Reform UK leader said questions should be asked about the judgment of not just Starmer but Morgan McSweeney, his influential chief of staff.McSweeney is the focus of considerable anger from Labour MPs.Some of them have said privately they hope the Conservative opposition day debate does ferret out some internal No 10 documents about the ambassadorial appointment, mainly so they can see how much it was forced by McSweeney, a former protege of Mandelson, with whom he consulted regularly before the general election.
McSweeney was already disliked by some Labour MPs, in part as a proxy for their dissatisfaction with the government’s performance, but also because of his role as the head of a group in No 10 viewed as factional to a sometimes petty degree towards those on the left of the party.Even before the latest Mandelson scandal, there had been calls for McSweeney to be ousted if, as widely presumed, Labour fares badly in May’s elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments and English councils.But, as we saw in the Johnson era, changing the team around the leader will buy you only a small amount of time if your MPs, and the electorate more widely, conclude that the problem is not the team but the person they advise.This is the current Labour endgame, the place at which essentially all conversations about Starmer within the party now end up: how much longer does he have? With yet more evidence of his seemingly poor judgment likely to be on the front pages for days to come, the ticking of that clock has again become louder.
Elon Musk is taking SpaceX’s minority shareholders for a ride | Nils Pratley
To Elon Musk’s fanclub, there is nothing to see apart from more evidence of the great man’s visionary genius. SpaceX, the rocket firm, is buying xAI, the artificial intelligence developer, and the combination of these two Musk-controlled entities is being valued at $1.25tn (£910bn). Feel the positive vibes ahead of a stock market debut due in June! The most valuable private company in history! The largest ever transaction!Or, as Musk described it, he is creating “the most ambitious, vertically integrated innovation engine on (and off) Earth, with AI, rockets, space-based internet, direct-to-mobile device communications and the world’s foremost real-time information and free-speech platform”.SpaceX’s minority shareholders may have a less stellar view
FTSE 100 falls back from record high amid AI worries; gold heads for best day since 2008 – as it happened
And finally, the FTSE 100 has closed down 27 points or 0.26% at 10,314, away from the record high hit this morning.Although miners and precious metal producers rallied, as the gold and silver price jumped, the index was dragged down by Relx (-14.3%) and the London Stock Exchange Group (-12.8%), as investors reacted to US artificial intelligence firm Anthropic unveileing a tool for companies’ in-house lawyers
French headquarters of Elon Musk’s X raided by Paris cybercrime unit
Prosecutors have raided the French headquarters of Elon Musk’s social media platform X and summoned the tech billionaire and the company’s former chief executive for questioning as part of an investigation into alleged cybercrime.“A search is under way by the cybercrime unit of the Paris prosecutor’s office, the national police cyber unit and Europol,” the Paris prosecutors’ office said in a post on X on Tuesday, adding that it would no longer be publishing on the network.It said in a statement that Musk and Linda Yaccarino had been summoned for “voluntary questioning” in April in their capacity as “de facto and de jure managers of the X platform at the time of the events”. Yaccarino resigned as chief executive of X in July last year.The French prosecutors’ announcement comes amid a hardening of European attitudes to social media firms
From ‘nerdy’ Gemini to ‘edgy’ Grok: how developers are shaping AI behaviours
Do you want an AI assistant that gushes about how it “loves humanity” or one that spews sarcasm? How about a political propagandist ready to lie? If so, ChatGPT, Grok and Qwen are at your disposal.Companies that create AI assistants, from the US to China, are increasingly wrestling with how to mould their characters, and it is no abstract debate. This month Elon Musk’s “maximally truth-seeking” Grok AI caused international outrage when it pumped out millions of sexualised images. In October OpenAI retrained ChatGPT to de-escalate conversations with people in mental health distress after it appeared to encourage a 16-year-old to take his own life.Last week, the $350bn San Francisco startup Anthropic released an 84-page “constitution” for its Claude AI
LIV Golf tour hits out at decision to only award ranking points to top-10 finishers
The Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf Tour has hit out at what it regards as victimisation from those presiding over the sport’s world rankings process, despite seeing their wait of nearly four years for recognition by the system finally end.It was confirmed on Tuesday that those competing in LIV tournaments will receive official world golf ranking points but only when finishing in the top 10. A statement from the OWGR board said this “recognises there are a number of areas where LIV Golf does not meet the eligibility standards set out”.Since LIV competition started in 2022, the OWGR has not given any reward to those performing in that domain. This has led to previously prominent golfers tumbling down the rankings; Cameron Smith is now 221st, Sergio García 363rd and Dustin Johnson 662nd
IOC president gives clearest signal so far that Russia could be at 2028 Olympics
The International Olympic Committee president, Kirsty Coventry, has given her clearest signal yet that Russia could be back for the 2028 Los Angeles Games.A day after the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, said he wanted Russia reinstated to international football, Coventry used her opening address to the 145th IOC congress in Milan to argue that all athletes should be allowed to compete in sport – regardless of their government’s behaviour.Her comments are likely to cause tension with Ukraine after the sports minister, Matvii Bidnyi, branded Infantino as “irresponsible” and “infantile” for attempting to draw a line between sport and politics before the IOC president ventured into the same territory.While not referencing Russia directly, Coventry said: “Throughout the campaign and in many of our conversations since, I have heard the same message from many of you. Focus on our core
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