The Commons Weekly: Thursday 5th – Thursday 12th February
After last week’s ‘umble addressing and PM-skewering it was perhaps inevitable that the Chamber would be a little less frenetic as it ran down to the Half Term Recess on Thursday 12th February. Although the bulk of the political comedy continued outside the Chamber, there were some opportunities for further PM-baiting and Labour squirming.
Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire, Conservative, Shadow Leader of the House) had the first bash, on Thursday 5th February, reiterating that the PM had known about Mandelson’s continuing relationship with Epstein at the point that he appointed him Ambassador. Worth repeating, but hardly dramatic and probably less important than his request for reassurance that the Intelligence & Security Committee would be given un-redacted documents from No 10 about Mandelson’s appointment. The Shadow Leader of the House has a rather lugubrious speaking manner at the best of times. This was not even the best of times.
Yvette Cooper (Pontefract, Castleford and Knottingley, Labour, Foreign Secretary, Balliol) came to the House to make a statement about violence in the Sudanese civil war that has now been going on almost unremarked for three years. She thinks that violence is rather a poor show. Predictably, however, Mrs Balls was challenged by Dame Priti Patel (Witham, Conservative, Shadow Foreign Secretary, Keele) who asked if the Foreign Secretary was ashamed of the government’s and her Prime Minister’s appointment of Mandelson as Ambassador. Cooper made it obvious that she really is ashamed, but took the exculpatory line that she had been the Foreign Secretary who had removed Mandelson as Ambassador. This seemed to claim quite a lot, given that No 10’s narrative seems to involve Starmer getting up in the middle of the night to sack Mandelson himself. Better get these stories straight at some point. As an aside, TWOP undertook in-depth analysis (google) and has discovered that Witham is in Essex. This was more informative than either Mrs Balls or Dame Priti’s verbiage
As well as Sudanese violence, there was some fairly forgettable discussion of the new “National Cancer Plan” and another go at labelling continuing Israeli action in Gaza as genocide, but the general lack of engagement or excitement demonstrated that mostly that political focus had moved outside the Chamber.
In the House, Labour’s outrage at Starmer’s appointment of Mandelson was running up against the obvious lack of credible candidates to replace him while Rayner waits for the outcome of an HMRC review of her second home stamp duty saga and Streeting is blocked, at least for the moment, by his own historic proximity to Mandelson.Outside the House the tides of political opinion, or at least the opinions of the political class, seemed to move in two opposite directions over the weekend: eviscerating Starmer’s bovine lack of political nous, but also concluding that any challenge to his leadership was unlikely until the results of the local elections due on 7th May make it clear beyond doubt how much of an electoral liability the PM represents to his party now.
On Monday 9th February, with the clock running down to Recess, attention focused outside the Chamber on the resignation of the PM’s Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney, the messy, “mutually-agreed” my foot, departure of the Cabinet Secretary Sir Chris Wormald, and No 10 Communications Director Tim Allan and the Scottish Labour leader’s call for Starmer’s resignation. McSweeney had been identified as the ginger lamb to sacrifice on the Mandelsonian altar while the issue of the PM’s competence had become such an obvious focus of attention. Reinforced by information in “Get In” that had made it clear how important McSweeney had been in encouraging Starmer towards Mandelson when his initial inclination had been to appoint George Osborne, bizarre though that might have been.)
Labour’s benches were deserted all day – most backbenchers were probably glued to Sky News blathering on with endless interviews of Labour historical figures in the absence of anyone with a clue. Prof Lord Blunkett is usually wheeled out in these situations and, hey presto! there he was, although disappointingly without guide dog. He would still make a far better job of PrimeMinistering than the current incumbent.
On Tuesday 10th Mandelson managed to totter in to the Commons vicariously through James Cartlidge (South Suffolk, Conservative) challenging the Ministry of Defence’s selection of Palentir for a £240m contract, on a single-source basis, as Palentir had been a client of Mandelson’s advisory company, Global Counsel. This was fairly reasonably seen off with the note that the arrangement with Palantir followed on from a contract awarded by the previous Conservative government in 2022 and that the Secretary of State had decided to award the 2025 contract without consulting or considering advice from Mandelson.
On Wednesday PMQs Starmer attempted to respond to Badenoch’s thrusts unconvincingly, that Labour wasn’t as bad as Johnson, Sunak or Truss. This was not a strong defence when most No 10 staff seem to have just “resigned”.
In another strong performance, Kemi Badenoch (North West Essex, Conservative, LOTO) broadsided with: “The Prime Minister said, and I quote “I never turn on my staff. When they make mistakes, I carry the can.” What changed?” Fluster was successfully induced.
Starmer had left an hostage to fortune on the board with a similarly unconvincing defence of his ennoblement of his previous Comms Chief, Matthew Doyle, now Lord Doyle of Great Barford. Our Matt had been discovered, between the time of the announcement of his peerage and his actual ennoblement, to have campaiged in 2017 on behalf of a Labour councillor, Sean Morton, then recently convicted of having child pornography pictures and other extreme pornography including people having sex with dogs but with whom the idiotic now-Lord decided he shoud support as a friend.
Morton’s depravity had been brought back in to focus by his breach of his sexual offences prevention order in 2024 and by his subsequent imprisonment. Starmer’s defence was, entirely predictably, that he hadn’t known what was going on and hadn’t been told the truth. It was Sir Ed Davey (Kingston & Surbiton, Liberal Democrat) who probably scored the highest rhetoric score for his comment that “to appoint one paedophile supporter cannot be excused as misfortune, but to appoint two shows a catastrophic lack of judgment.” The PM was clearly rattled and went off on a totally irrelevant “Austerity” rant. Banged to rights then, Sir Ed concluded smirkily, to general House agreement.
The House was pretty much deserted on Thursday 12th February as the clock wound down to Half Term for members with children and, perhaps more likely, grandchildren of school age. There was, however, an appropriately themed adjournment debate brought by Sarah Edwards (Tamworth, Labour) on school minibus safety with a packed house (3 members.)
So while the Commons breaks up for the week and heads off to sunnier climes hopefully not haunted by the Ghosts of Mandy Past, some of us have Mock As to “prepare” for and then take. The Commons Weekly will therefore return on 5th March for a bumper edition. We are too good to you really.
Thank you for reading and please check out our instagram @theworldofukpolitics,
Alex
Leave a Reply