I have been involved in politics for over fifty years and have never seen a prime minister so skilfully dismembered by a leader of the opposition. At best they win skirmishes score a few points, get a few cheers and maybe the splendid Quentin Letts gives them a paragraph. Normally they are lucky to call it a draw. Week after week Kemi B has bested Starmer. But on Wednesday she destroyed him. After a laser focused cross examination, coupled with with some gentle torture and a little humiliation, she reduced him to a quivering wreck. And obtained a confession. The moment she invited him to hand over sensitive documents to the Intelligence Select Committee, the more he obfuscated and blustered and the more she built a cast iron case against him of a cover up. It was masterful, because it rang true and hit a chord with Labour back benchers. One by one they put their careers on the line. One by one a dagger was thrust into the dark heart of Number 10.
Although Angela Rayner claims the credit, the dye was set well before she rose. When the whips are running round the chamber like headless chickens you know something is afoot. The numbers were being crunched. Then there was that moment when Nick Thomas Symonds, one of Starmer’s oldest friends and leading for the government, received a text in mid flow. I wonder what it said. But it was so important that he passed it to Johnnie Reynolds the chief whip. I suspect it was “we are fucked, hold the fort but promise nothing until we have worked it out”.
I have known Peter Mandelson since he was rebuilding Labour into an election winning machine. He has the most remarkable gift of understanding what issues need to be addressed and how to deliver. He is one of the most formidable political strategists of the twentieth and twenty first centuries. He rebranded Labour with a rose. He created Tony Blair. He wasn’t a major part of New Labour he was the beating heart of it.
Tony Blair said that his project would have succeeded “when the Labour party learns to love Peter Mandelson”. But the beating heart was black and malignant well before Epstein came onto the scene. With one phone call senior journalists and editors could be sacked at a whim. And were. He delighted in making the lives of journalists a misery and destroying them. He was the man you sucked up to get a political job. If you were stupid enough to displease him malicious stories would appear in the press. People would refuse to work with you. He was the machine and if you were lucky he would deign to make you a tiny cog. An easily replaced one.
And here lies the problem. Until his third and final sacking he still had immense power and influence within the party. With the exception of Angela Rayner and the left who hated him most, ministers held him equally in awe and fear. He made them. They were part of his circle. He had created them in his own image. Well, not quite. So while the press work themselves into a frenzy about when Starmer will go ask yourself this. Who can replace him? Wes? Don’t be daft they were as thick as thieves. Lammy? I know, but he is so up himself he honestly thinks he’s in the running. And he was close to Mandelson. Andy Burnham, whom I have a great deal of time for, was such a senior Blairite that he must have had close links with him. So whoever stands you best be prepared for the press to dig out those snaps with the great man. Those paens of adulation you showered on him.
So we get back to Rayner. Let’s get real here. Her whiffy tax affairs haven’t yet been sorted. They would have to be desperate and mad to put her in power. But if she does get the job, the party will be root and branch socialism and a major lurch to the left. Clear red water between her and the Tories. But what ever happens they are back in the game.
So it’s going to be like one of those balloon debates. Who does Starmer throw out to have a chance of survival? Rachel Reeves should have gone months ago, but getting rid of her now is too late. Morgan MacSweeney? Possibly, but what would it achieve in electoral terms?
The only way for Starmer to have a chance of survival is to show leadership and judgment. He can’t. He doesn’t understand politics. He doesn’t understand people. He doesn’t know what he is there for or what he believes in. The best you can say is that he is a manager, but even that is wrong as Number 10 is a shambles. I suspect that they will hope it will blow over in a week or two. But it won’t. Epstein is a gift that will keep on giving.
The ISC will be salivating at those GCHQ intercepts they will have a chance to see. Those little snippets from Langley about his visits to Epstein Island. Those MI5 files…..
I’ll probably be proved wrong, but my gut instinct is that unless he decides to pack it all in, unless their are mass ministerial resignations, he will lock himself in a bunker and delude himself with his mantra, “I’m not a quitter…..I was lied to by Mandelson…..I was let down by the system….lessons have been learned….my heart goes out to the victims.” And just about every cliche you could possibly imagine. But the people have stopped listening. They just see the wickedness of the arrogance of men with power who think that they are unassailable. I wonder if Mandelson would have been appointed if Sue Gray had been chief of staff?
And what of Reform? It must be very annoying for them to be elbowed out of the limelight by the two major parties. They are nothing more than a Frankenstein party made up of misshapen body parts that nobody wants. Their relevance as a public spittoon will only last a few more months at most.
There was a lovely old man called Donald Bruce whom I used to drink with in Annie’s bar in the 1980s. He was Nye Beven’s PPS in 1948. I once asked what he thought of our politicians when he had rubbed shoulders with the likes of Churchill and Lloyd George. He paused for a moment, took a suck of his pipe and a sup of his beer and looked me straight in the eye. “The thing you should understand is that most politicians have feet of clay and the rest are wankers”. If only he had met Starmer. He’d have had a double whammy.