obv tho all your other points stand, UK is too intertwined with USA on military & other sectors....

i slightly disagree in that the appointment was more due 2 internal Lab politics (pleasing McSweeney/Mandelson) rather than appeasing Trump as Trump already liked the previous diplomat so why did they get rid of Karen Pierce?

What Starmer didn’t do.

I still like Ed.

Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief-of-staff at the time, was desperate for his mentor Peter Mandelson to become British ambassador to Washington, even though the Prince of Darkness’s close ties with sex trafficker and abuser Jeffrey Epstein were already widely known.

Over 18 months as PM. Has collapsed Labour's polling share from low 40s in early 2024 to high teens now. Policy agenda remains unclear. Has fired 2 chiefs of staff, 2 cabinet secs, 4 comms directors, head of FO. Poor relationship with Cabinet and MPs. But somehow this is social media... 🤔

Also they have social media in Canada and Carney's doing fine.

They have it in Spain and Sanchez has been PM since 2018.

And in France where Macron's been President since 2017.

He sent a crook to deal with a crook. The Tories, Reform and the media who are clutching their pearls today wholeheartedly approved of it at the time.

Beyond saying that the appointment of Mandelson was a mistake which he wouldn’t have made if he had all the facts, and apologising for it…

he didn’t even seek to explain *why* he decided to appoint him (in such haste) in the first place. 2/4

Britain sidelined in talks on Carney-backed defense bank The U.K. Treasury has expressed little enthusiasm for an initiative to provide lower cost loans to finance the armed forces.

Further evidence of a lack of deep thinking in government about the reality of the world. Or even waist-high thinking.

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

I know so many Brits how never set foot in Ireland yet have citizenship since Brexit. It's like Argentines with Italian passports

They'd be better off just going for it and saying 'we wanted a snake for a snake's court' rather than pretend they didn't know Mandy was dodgy

@pimlicat.bsky.social and @sturdyalex.bsky.social discuss Best for Britain’s report, “Is it Time to Talk about EU Membership?” - and how, of all people, Donald Trump helped shift the conversation towards rejoining the EU.

Listen to the @quietriotpod.bsky.social episode: https://quietriotpod.com/

We all need to lodge an official complaint. It takes no time at all, and I've dropped a link to BBC Complaints in the comments. This is shocking.

BBC News is seriously lost in the woods and has been for years. Labour should have cleaned house the minute came into govt. Not doing so means we now have, not one, but two Reform Broadcasting Corporations.

OMFG I had to go and check that this ACTUALLY happened.

Since when does the BBC ever do chyrons with a political party's branding, rather than their own? Not to mention this is during a pre-election campaign purdah.

(h/t @iainsol.bsky.social)

I mean. He’s now disliked by the Trump administration which is quite the achievement given the most singular aspect of his approach in that regard stands a reasonable chance of bringing down his government.

Something a bit weird is that virtually no one has Starmer’s back on this stuff — a measure of his unpopularity on all sides. Even Boris — for most of the time — had an entrenched body of support. Starmer otoh has managed to be intensely disliked by both the opposition and Labour supporters.

Also - I'd quite like interest rates being set by the ECB right now.

The main battleground in UK politics over rejoining the EU will still be border control and migration. Battles over currency hark back to a pre-cashless transaction era in which the Deutschmark, Franc, Lira and Schilling had a much greater physical presence in the lives of voters

I suspect the people on the UK Right who in response to these polls keep saying "but what about support for joining the Euro, checkmate Rejoiners" will get a bit of a shock over the next few years

Also, the idea things improved under Morgan does seem slightly at odds with reality. It was just different chaos, not less bad.

What does Starmer think being Prime Minister is? A recurring series.

Il discorso integrale di Meloni in Parlamento sull'ultimo anno di governo L'appello all'unità europea per fronteggiare la crisi energetica, i risultati degli ultimi quattro anni, la reazione dopo la sconfitta al referendum e la strategia per l'ultimo anno di legislatura. Co...

A real shift is underway. Witness Meloni's speech to Italy's parliament. She criticised past PMs for for being "satisfied with a pat on the back or an endorsement tweet" by US presidents, adding: "history is knocking at the door, and Europe must not fail this test.”

www.ilfoglio.it/politica/202...

🧵...If Starmer's premiership ends in disgrace over the Mandelson scandal it will not, in my view, be a story about one man doing something wrong.

It will be a story of a whole country doing something wrong. And that thing is desperately trying to preserve the special relationship at all costs.

🧵...like Mandelson's past associations, he knew that he was risky, but he thought that he would work in the court of Trump."

"If Keir Starmer, when the Epstein files blew up as a story, had turned around to the country and been honest about that, he would be in a far better position today.”

Breaking: wife reports seeing Catherine Connolly, the president of Ireland emerging from the Intercontinental. Full security detail, three black vans waiting, guys with buzz cuts, suits, with earpieces scanning passers-by, walkie talkies crackling. If only they knew who she really was...

So I just got sacked by @collegeofeurope.bsky.social by email

My course next academic year has been cancelled, I was not even asked about its future

More than 10 years teaching there ended in an email saying “Thank you for you understanding and for your cooperation”

Residents on street that won Reform’s energy bills prize say Reform hasn’t paid Reform’s competition promised to cover the winning street’s energy bills for a year

👀 People on street that won Farage’s energy bills competition say Reform hasn’t paid

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/reform-...

Tom Brufatto on Times Radio: "The whole purpose for seeking closer relations with Europe has been to improve the British economy and help with the cost of living.

"Effectively, trying to undo some of the red tape and the trade barriers that Boris Johnson's Brexit deal imposed on the UK economy."