Kier Starmer offered a dignified and full apology yesterday over his appointment of Mandelstein. Subject to transparency via the investigation, that is sufficient in my view. Why do I say that, you may well ask?
Starmer actually sacked Mandie where others did not. He has persuaded M to step down as a Lord. In due course and subject to there being sufficient evidence, Mandie will be prosecuted and possibly jailed. Later on we are likely to see similar outcomes with Michelle Mone and others. All takes time, but the law moves at a very slow pace. Farage law is not a suitable replacement for the rule of law as some CONform nutjobs suggest (Farage Law amounts to saying “Your eyes are too close together or you have a bit of a tan … so, JAIL time).
James O’Brien asked the question why did we not know all of this when Mandie was appointed as “Ferrero Rocher Ambassador and Defence Against The Dark TrumPutin Arts” to face down Trump in 2025. I was in fact one person who did predict that this appointment would end in tears in time – it was not a question of if but when. If you work in HR, one normally has a list of essential and desirable qualities plus contra-indications for your selection process. Mandie did possess some qualities which will have been judged as postives, and I suspect that McSweeney et al did not use my checklist below to look at the massive list of contra-indications. Starmer’s weakness is perhaps that he listened to McSweeney. It’s a forgiveable leadership sin, especially when weighed against the actions that Starmer has now taken to rectify the error. I say this objectively as someone who is not a massive Starmer fan. At the time, we must remember that we were beleagured by Brexit, and therefore wanting to be friends with ANYONE and EVERYONE on the international stage. Although it’s not clever, I think I understand why Starmer may have come to the conclusion that Mandle was an essential evil to tame the 5 Ts : Trump’s Toddler (Todger !!) Temper Tantrums. Although I very much doubt that proper HR processes were used, a sober analysis of the situation may have revealed the looming problem of Mandelstein to those possessed with hubris when advising / lobbying Keir Starmer.
Starmer stood up for decency and the rule of law yesterday and, for that, I give him a free pass. That said, it comes with some Terms and Conditions:
Morgan McSweeney must go. He is the architect of much of this and will have lobbied Starmer to accept Mandelstein, having also persuaded him to oust Sue Gray for opposing him.
Brexit must be ended as a priority, not in 2032, as some Labour MPs suggest. Fix the fundamentals as Keir likes to say a lot. Brexit lies at the heart of a lot of Britain’s problem as our Brexit Iceberg shows
Policy making which prays to the far right fascist fringe must stop. Remember, 90% of Reform accounts are bots. Many of Starmer’s bad decisions have been aimed at appeasment of the far right. It is ALWAYS a mistake to appease fascists.
More should be made of the good works that Labour are doing. This is a comms issue, which once again lies at McSweeney’s door.
I was shoe horned onto LBC at 11.57 today (Fri 6 Feb) (thank you by the way) to try to explain all of this in ‘just a minute’. Find the playback on the LBC app or here on our radio interviews with MSM:
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