Nicely put!

Spot on!

Yep. Speaks volumes about their priorities!

Sacked Foreign Office chief describes 'pressure' from No 10 and 'dismissive' attitude to Mandelson vetting Olly Robbins is giving evidence to MPs after Keir Starmer accused Foreign Office officials of deliberately withholding that Lord Mandelson initially failed security vetting.

Starmer's attempt to defend himself yesterday already looking shaky as Olly Robbins points to No 10's initial reluctance to subject Mandelson to vetting and constant pressure to deliver the 'right' decision. Starmer's framing of the whole saga increasingly threadbare.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ce...

Probably attending the latest Managing Cognitive Dissonance (Advanced Level) training module!

Zack gets it: culture is also a site of struggle!

Scathing form Labour veteran John McDonnell

"And when he became PM the reward for McSweeny was control of No 10"

"And for Mandelson the highest diplomatic office"

"And the unspoken message for civil servants: what Mandelson wants Mandelson gets"

The hole he's digging is getting steadily deeper.

It's quite interesting how many different ways they've found to misjudge the mood here, but yes, this is particularly offensive.

Well said. Reed's as dishonest as they come. And dirty tactics will invariably backfire on Labour. They must be desperate.

AI Use Appears to Have a "Boiling Frog" Effect on Human Cognition, New Study Warns A new study claims to offer the first causal link between AI dependency and cognitive erosion. Researchers warn of long-term implications.

“We find that AI assistance improves immediate performance, but it comes at a heavy cognitive cost”
“After just [about] 10 minutes of AI-assisted problem-solving, people who lost access to the AI performed worse and gave up more frequently than those who never used it.”
futurism.com/artificial-i...

In case anyone needs reminding - I'm looking at Labour Ministers here - further evidence that giving Palantir contracts with the NHS and other UK state organisations is an act of treasonable madness and unparalleled stupidity.

I'd say it's worse than that, he's a shill for finance capitalism and US imperialism.

In spades!

Fatal flaw: Keir Starmer’s leadership vacuum threatens to swallow him up The PM’s current and former colleagues say the Mandelson scandal has exposed the hollowness of his hands-off style.

“He’s furious with the state? Well, bad luck,” one ex-colleague of Starmer’s said. “You are in fact in charge of the state.”

Damning stuff. A failure on multiple fronts. A fish, of course, rots from the head down.

www.politico.eu/article/keir...

Looks that way!

You don't "change your mind" with promises: you either deliver them or you don't.

Fail to deliver one promise and that's excusable. Failure to deliver all of them is called betrayal.

No way Lammy wasn’t told Mandelson failed vetting, says former foreign secretary Exclusive: In an interview with The Independent, former foreign secretary James Cleverly sets out the reasons why ministers must have known Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting

James Stupidly decides to add his two penn'orth to the ongoing Starmer/Mandelson farce.

The thing that Starmer and his cronies can't wriggle out of is that he announced Mandelson's appointment in December 24, before the security vetting had even commenced...

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Liz Kendall reminding us that she's a complete shit.

Haha, yes!

Once upon a time there was a ruler who made a bad decision. All the courtiers and servants knew it was a bad decision, but they put into effect the bad decision, for the ruler had already made and proclaimed the decision. And when it turned out to be a very bad decision indeed, those courtiers and servants were sacked by the now “furious” ruler.

The decision of a Prime Minister

Only one person decided to appoint Lord Mandelson

The Empty City blog

emptycity.substack.com/p/the-decisi...

Has Trump met his match in Pope Leo XIV? IF PRESIDENT Donald Trump ever thought that he would have an ally in a Pope born in the United States, then recent events would come to show that he was seriously deluded.While Pope John Paul II and B...

An unexpected turn of events. But welcome nonetheless!

PS. I wonder if JD Vance is reconsidering his conversion to Catholicism.

morningstaronline.co.uk/article/has-...

The Collapse is Real – Lebanon Ceasefire Marks a Historic Strategic Defeat A ceasefire in Lebanon was announced on Thursday by US President Donald Trump, but its reality tells a very different story. The ceasefire was not the

'The reality, increasingly evident to observers across the region and beyond, is that the balance is finally shifting. For the first time in decades, the trajectory of history is no longer bending in Israel’s favor.'

www.counterpunch.org/2026/04/17/t...

Absolutely! 🙂

Professional footballers feign injury.

Professional cyclists feign good health.

Keir Starmer feigns anger, after yet another completely self inflicted disasterclass.

Wonderful. Sir Laurie will be squirming. All richly entertaining!

Resignation would work just fine but I can't resist an old-fashioned literary trope! And, yes, the latest from No 10 is simply nonsense.

Yep!

Yep. With immediate effect!