‘If someone had pulled the trigger’: MPs rue lack of challenger to oust Starmer

The most dangerous moment of Keir Starmer’s premiership came just after lunchtime on Wednesday, when mutiny was the talk of the Commons tea room.Anger is widespread across Labour – but it was at its most palpable among the party’s new MPs, as the Conservatives used a humble address to force the disclosure of the vetting documents and communications linked to Peter Mandelson, disgraced by his close association with Jeffrey Epstein.“At about 2pm yesterday, if someone had pulled the trigger, we would have moved,” one 2024 intake MP said on Thursday. “No one dared. I think that says a lot

Lord Triesman obituary

The wide-ranging diversity of the employment and pursuits in the packed public life of David Triesman, Lord Triesman, who has died aged 82, was fuelled by a visionary idealism he first displayed as a teenage schoolboy and which he thereafter sustained throughout a rollercoaster ride in sport, business and politics.He began his working life as an academic, spent nearly two decades as a trade union leader, ran the Labour party as general secretary for two years in the troubled run-up to the Iraq war from 200103 and then became a government minister in the House of Lords. A qualified senior football referee who had played for Tottenham Hotspur’s youth team in the 1960s, he served as chair of the Football Association from 2008 to 2010. He remained an active member of the Lords and numerous public bodies, and in 2011 founded his own consultancy dealing in property and private equity.In a letter he wrote from Labour’s headquarters as general secretary in 2003, he sought to re-engage the political commitment of disaffected party members, after the early shine of the Blair government was dimmed with disillusion, by defining his own lifelong fervour for a fairer world

Starmer has ‘full confidence’ in Morgan McSweeney, No 10 says amid calls for his sacking – as it happened

Keir Starmer has full confidence in his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, Downing Street has said.There have been calls by backbenchers for the sacking of McSweeney, whom many blame for his ally Peter Mandelson’s appointment to the ambassadorship.Asked if the prime minister agreed with calls for his chief of staff to be sacked, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said:It’s full confidence.It comes as Downing Street said it was talking with the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) about the process of releasing documents related to Mandelson’s appointment.The spokesperson said:We have begun discussions with the ISC about the process for releasing these documents

Mr Rules hits tipping point as Mandelson proves the one mistake that can’t be undone

It’s beginning to feel terminal. Not that there hasn’t been talk of Labour MPs wanting to remove Keir Starmer before. Just that this time there’s the sense of a tipping point being reached. No more second chances. No praying for a miracle that will never come in the May elections

Former Tory head of London council appointed Reform leader in Wales

Dan Thomas, a former Conservative leader of Barnet council, has been announced by Nigel Farage as Reform UK’s leader in Wales, three months before Senedd elections in which the hard-right party could win the most seats in the country.Farage received a standing ovation before he introduced Thomas at a sold-out rally at the International Convention Centre Wales, near Newport, on Thursday morning. Journalists were jeered and booed during the media conference.Thomas led Barnet council between 2019 and 2022, when the north London council was seized by Labour, and defected to Farage’s Reform party last summer. He stood down in December as a councillor for Finchley Church End – long synonymous with Margaret Thatcher – to move back to his south Wales valleys home town, Blackwood

Starmer apologises to Epstein victims as he seeks to weather Mandelson scandal

Keir Starmer has attempted to reboot his faltering premiership, apologising for appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador and urging his MPs to unite behind him.The prime minister gave a lengthy speech on Wednesday about community cohesion, but faced a barrage of questions about his leadership after one of his most turbulent days since entering Downing Street.With his authority over the Labour party and the Commons looking shakier than ever, the prime minister insisted he understood MPs’ concerns and issued a frank apology to victims of Jeffrey Epstein.Starmer said he regretted appointing Mandelson in Washington given his relationship with the financier and convicted child sex offender, about which he said the Labour peer had repeatedly lied.“The victims of Epstein have lived with trauma that most of us could barely comprehend, and they have to relive it again and again