Mandelson got the job because he wanted it. It’s easy to forget how pro MAGA and Trump Labour had become by the beginning of 2025. They thought Trump had a soft spot for the UK, and we could get a trade deal, Mandelson could make it happen. Mandelson probably spun this in the first place. Lol.

I don’t know how this works but I would have thought that this level of involvement would need Parliamentary approval. A defensive role should extend only to protecting Cyprus I would have thought.

Telegraph newspaper editorial on Mandelson's appointment in December 2024 versus editorial today

The pressure would have come from Peter Mandelson via Morgan McSweeney.

John Smith 😪

Ooh.

Fuck a duck

James Orr has spent his entire life fist at a very expensive and elite English private boarding school, and then at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He’s very well educated and entirely clueless at the same time. A highly reactionary person who has growing influence in the US and British right.

This is funny.

Thank you. Yes. So I’m learning. I apologise for being kind out of touch. I don’t think I like this word though.

Nobody’s going to notice that.

A sober one.

🤭

Wut u dun?

If he resigns does this mean that JD Vance is the new PM, I mean David Lammy.

There’s going to be one hell of a piss up if he wins this. It’ll be like the Olympic Hockey final x 100.🏒🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻🍻

😐

Is this signed? Most US trade deals don’t actually exist in reality

It’s only about 50 metres before it reaches the lake. It widens out before then.

Just after I took this it’s head went under.

Ok

I hope your little doggie isn’t scared.

This is like the worst party you’ve ever been to, and just as you think it’s winding down someone brings out Cards Against Humanity.

I had MontyPythonscrapbook. It included scenes written for Life of Brian that didn’t make the film, including an incredibly blasphemous one about the Immaculate Conception.

I wouldn’t be able to resist saying stuff like, ‘I’d like to buy some cheese’, or ‘Biggus Dickus’, to him and he’d think I’m a half-wit.

Yes. I suppose disgruntled is usually an adjective. Defanging is being used as a passive past participle in the Palantir thing. Anyway it’s quite an unusual word to use in English, to the point where I was unsure that it existed. Is dégriffé a French equivalent?

Yes. But fanging or defanging are the present participles of the verbs to fang or defang. Defanged, is that the word they used?, I’ve lost track🙂, is the past participle of a verb.

Not many leaves.

Sometimes bits of paper would stick to the opal fruit. I used to eat it anyway.

Arsenal and Tottenham. It’s grim up north.