Latest / The Fourcast / Starmer accused of lying about what he knew about Mandelson appointment by Tories

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Starmer accused of lying about what he knew about Mandelson appointment by Tories · The Fourcast

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  Either kissed Arm and Yvette Cooper have lied and misled the
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  house, or they have demonstrated extreme ineptitude and not one
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  of them asked the most valid question.
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  You are. Accusing him of lying
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  deliberately, of knowing that he was lying as he spooked.
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  This is the most serious accusation and I absolutely
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  don't believe. It I have called out my own side
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  where I feel that prime ministers have acted
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  inappropriately and I will do so.
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  Again, people are sort of backing off the idea of plotting
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  to get rid of him. Is he suddenly in peril again?
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  Because this does look really bad.
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  Hello, and welcome to the forecast.
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  Peter Mandelson is the problem. That won't go away, certainly
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  for Keir Starmer, who was once again unexpectedly fighting to
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  save his political career at the end of this week because of the
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  revelation that Peter Mandelson was failed by the security
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  vetting process, but that that decision was overruled,
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  apparently by the man in charge of the Foreign Office at the
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  time, Olly Robbins. And the Prime Minister is saying
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  he didn't know about it. In fact, he has said he no
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  longer has confidence in Olly Robbins and he's been removed
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  from his job. But a lot of people, including
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  the leader of the opposition, are saying they don't believe
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  it. They think the Prime Minister is
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  lying. They're making very, very
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  aggressive allegations about the way he has misled parliament and
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  the public about what happened with Mandelson, and they are
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  calling for his head. Joining me today, a woman who
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  worked in the Foreign Office and has gone through security
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  vetting before she became a member of parliament, Alicia
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  Kearns. And from the Guardian, Polly
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  Toynbee, thank you both very much indeed.
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  Alicia, you and your leader Kemi Badenoch are being very punchy
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  and very clear that you think Starmer is a liar and that he's
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  lying about this. Is there any evidence for that?
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  Look, I I've been through this process.
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  I've sat through developed betting.
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  I've been sat locked in a room with a very old man for half a
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  day being asked about every single aspect of my life in
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  incredible intimate detail. It took months and months and
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  months. I know what is involved, but
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  also I've been a civil servant at the Foreign Office, so I know
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  the sorts of decisions that senior officials are willing to
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  take and not willing to take. And the idea, first of all, that
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  a senior civil servant would be willing to dismiss the concerns
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  of the security services without running it past a minister, let
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  alone as bad, is a nonsense. But on the reverse side, the
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  idea that Keir Starmer, former head of the Crown Prosecution
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  Service, someone who worked on sensitive cases and things like
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  Northern Ireland, who when he got concerned about this case
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  months and months ago started looking into it.
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  The idea that he didn't say, did he pass vetting or were there
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  any red flags at any point? The idea that he didn't ask that
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  question is absolutely mad when his entire focus on this has
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  been that he believes that process failed.
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  He has made about process failing and now we find out the
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  process was not carried out in the way it was and he has misled
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  Parliament because he told us that due process was followed as
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  it would for any ambassador appointment and that is not the
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  case. Well, there's a couple of things
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  about that, isn't it? I mean, first of all, we, we
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  don't know what he asked and what he didn't ask because
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  Downing St's position is that he was, he was misled effectively
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  by the Foreign Office and by Olly Robbins who was, who was
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  running it. And that he hasn't misled
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  Parliament because due process was followed, because even
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  overriding a developed vetting finding is within due process.
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  There was a rule within the system, which Darren Jones has
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  now brought to an end, that allowed the Foreign Office to
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  say, well, even if there is a an advice not to appoint, because
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  of the developed vetting, you can appoint and say that he's
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  been through the system. So.
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  So neither of those things that you're saying are quite right.
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  Forgive me. They are, though.
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  So first of all, the idea that he didn't ask those questions,
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  in which case there was a fundamental issue with his
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  leadership. Are you telling me that if you
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  suddenly had an entire process where you found that someone had
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  lied to you, you would not ask the question in hindsight, going
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  rack over it, raking over the evidence, Did he pass vesting,
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  yes or no? Secondly, on Olly Robbins, Olly
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  Robbins was hired 3 weeks. He took up post three weeks
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  after Mandelson had developed vetting security given to him
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  and was made ambassador. So the idea that Olly Robbins is
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  responsible for this is an absolute nonsense, and actually
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  it shows how weak the Prime Minister is.
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  Well, no, the the point about due process, you know, and
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  whether Parliament has actually been misled.
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  The the point is, even though it's weird and surprising and
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  and very annoying to a lot of people that this happened, it is
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  apparently within due process because it doesn't break any
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  rules. National security, so every post
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  I've had in government, even at Ministry of Justice where I was
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  just getting a basic SC clearance, a security clearance,
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  I had to wait six months to get that before I could take up the
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  job. The offer is always subject to
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  you getting clearance. I know many people who have not
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  got the clearance that they wanted to do the jobs they
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  wanted. I actually had the level of
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  clearance above developed vetting called Strap that you
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  get on top of that. If you really need to see stuff
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  that is sensitive, the idea that that is a small thing to have it
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  rejected is a nonsense, no. No one's saying that the the the
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  point is is whether it's within within the process and you know
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  there. Is a process.
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  It it does sound bizarre, but you know, it's it was within the
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  process that that could be over, that could be overruled.
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  No civil servant would do that, I'm afraid, without running it
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  past ministers. That would be completely not, in
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  which case the ministers aren't running their department.
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  But that is just not tenable for a position for them to have, not
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  least when they say that they've gone through all the process and
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  made it. Probably more importantly, they
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  said in many letters, in writing and in parliament in person,
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  that the same process as followed As for every other
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  ambassador. No other ambassador would have
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  been given this job if they'd failed to develop vetting.
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  Polly I mean, that is what's really weird about this whole
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  thing, isn't it? You know, why would a senior
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  civil servant decide to overrule the findings of developed
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  vetting on their own? There was nothing in it for Olly
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  Robbins to do this, and that's what makes it incredible.
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  It is incredible. It's extraordinary.
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  It's as, as Keir Salman said himself, staggering.
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  But the idea that Keir Starmer would go into Parliament and lie
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  outright about a security vetting and that just wouldn't
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  happen, that is not the man he is now.
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  He may have all sorts of faults, but one of them is not being
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  Boris Johnson marching into parliament and producing
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  outright lies. Somebody should have told him.
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  I find it extraordinary that Olly Robbins should have taken
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  it upon himself. I mean, he is a very senior
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  figure. He's a very experienced figure
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  and maybe he felt he was protecting the Prime Minister
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  who had already announced Mandelson's appointment, and it
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  would be embarrassing to then have to withdraw it and appoint
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  somebody else. I mean, Olly Robinson is a is,
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  is a clever man and he's been around the the idea that he
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  would do this unprecedented thing off his own bat to protect
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  the Prime Minister. It, it just, it just stretches
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  credibility, doesn't it? It does, but it's even more
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  incredible that Keir Starmer would go into Parliament and say
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  the opposite of what was the truth.
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  He should have known, you could say.
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  He should have run a system that made sure that he knew
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  everything important that was happening.
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  But, you know, I think very few, few people would imagine that
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  he, that a former director of public prosecutions would lie
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  outright. I just don't think that's the
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  case. I mean, of course you get the
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  whole opposition and all of their press today saying Kier
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  should go, Kier should go, but they always do.
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  That's the job of oppositions to always call for the head of the
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  Prime Minister with every possible opportunity.
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  I mean, something has gone badly wrong here, but not necessarily
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  something illegal 'cause after all, Robbins was acting within
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  due process. And as you say, Darren Jones has
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  hurried to change that due process 'cause it's outrageous
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  that anybody should be able to override a security vetting of
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  that sort of importance. And it's very rare it doesn't
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  happen. It's very rare that somebody
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  doesn't pass that security clearance, and even rarer that
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  it should be overridden. So something odd has happened
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  here. But what's odd is not that the
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  Prime Minister has lied. Can I just on our two
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  assumptions there, though we seem to be having this
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  conversation on the basis that Olly Robbins did this.
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  There is no evidence at this time that Olly did this.
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  And I have a lot of frustrations, Olly, in terms of
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  the way he's handled my correspondence with him about
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  Mandelson's pay offs and things like that.
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  But he wasn't imposed. So a man has been sacked for
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  supposedly not running a proper vetting process for a job that
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  he wasn't in charge of when he wasn't in charge of the vetting.
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  So this whole assumption that Ollie has somehow done this, he
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  evidently did not because he was not imposed.
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  Well, hang, hang on. We just got to get let's, let's,
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  let's go through the process because you're right.
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  Philip Barton was in charge of the Foreign Office when Peter
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  Mandelson, you know, was effectively appointed.
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  But the the appointment doesn't become formal until he has gone
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  through the vetting process. And in that intervening time,
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  Philip Barton steps down, Ollie Robbins takes over.
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  That's why Ollie Robbins is in charge of that vetting decision.
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  You know, Mandelson has been announced, but he's not made
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  formal until that process is finished.
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  That's that's what's going on. If you look at the pictures, so
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  when you're a civil servant you have a badge like people doing
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  every single job and your badge has a colour code.
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  Yeah, he was given a green ATV badge, wasn't it?
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  It was. Going to be a green one.
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  It also says the date from which your pass is valid and unless
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  I'm mistaken, the pass that there are photos circulating on
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  the Internet. Unless they've been doctored and
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  in the age of AI, who knows. They are dated from the 6th of
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  January. That's before Olly Robbins took
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  up his post. So somehow he is walking.
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  Yes, but you can get. You can get temporary clearance
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  that happens all the time. You know developed betting.
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  You should not be walking around with a pass that is backdated to
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  the 6th of January if you don't have it.
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  This is, you know, I was never given a temporary developed
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  vetting when I was working on some of the most sensitive
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  issues in in government. I was told to be paused.
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  But again, this idea that Starmer things seem to happen to
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  him a lot where he's not informed about things, things to
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  happen a lot where he doesn't ask the right questions.
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  Why isn't he asking those questions?
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  David Maddox, a journalist, asked #10 about six months ago,
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  is it true that Manderson didn't pass his betting and he was
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  dismissed at that point, are we really saying in this whole
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  appalling saga, at no point has Keir Starmer before Tuesday said
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  to his team, did Mandelson pass betting or were there any red
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  flags? Because I know I'd have asked
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  that question. And I think Polly, you'd have
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  asked it as a good journalist, you'd have asked it as well.
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  You know, we'd have all asked that question.
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  Alicia, the mistake that was made plainly was to let him go
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  ahead and take up his appointment before the vetting
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  process had been gone through. And it meant that it was
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  possible this embarrassment would happen.
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  But I suppose because it's so rare that anybody fails their
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  vetting, they just thought, oh, well, it's just rubber stumping.
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  But with a character like Peter Mandelson, you'd say nothing.
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  With Peter Mandelson is rubber stumping.
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  Everybody knows that he is a risky character who lives a a
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  risky life and you take a big risk in appointing him in the
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  first place. All of that is true.
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  There are a lot of mistakes that have been made along the way.
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  None of them are legal and nothing that points at all to
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  Keir Starmer himself having lied to Parliament, which would be a
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  resigning matter. And it certainly.
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  Isn't the sort of, you know, the lack of thoroughness or lack of
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  curiosity around the detail bad enough, Polly, you know, that he
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  didn't actually ask? I mean, he, he knew that there
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  were concerns. There were concerns with his own
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  team. There were concerns within his
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  own team about appointing Mandelson.
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  It's rather as if he just didn't want to know.
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  He didn't want to hear. So he didn't ask the question.
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  Well, he probably knew Mandelson was risky.
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  Everybody told him. Everybody would have told him.
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  You're taking a big risk here and decided that the upside of a
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  man who did rather rapidly get on well with Trump at a time
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  when appeasing Trump seemed to be the most important thing to
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  do. He knew that wants to change.
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  He knew there was a risk. And you could say, right, you
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  know, he shouldn't have taken that risk.
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  None of this is a resigning matter.
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  And the idea that he should resign over Mandelson, unless,
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  of course he did lie, it is absurd.
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  I mean, you know, prime ministers don't resign over
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  saying something that it was seemed that that appeared to
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  them to be true at the time. Can I just be clear, Alicia,
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  when you say he's he's lying. Are you saying you think Starmer
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  knew and is denying it or that he told the Foreign Office to
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  overrule the vetting? I mean, what do you think the
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  lie is? He told parliament that due
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  diligence was followed. There are lots of quotes so
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  things like where he says let me find the exact word.
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  Full due process was followed during this appointment as with
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  all ambassadors. Well this isn't true.
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  The process was in part followed, then he or his
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  government intervened. That's not town.
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  So you're saying that was a lie? Yes, that is not.
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  Rather than, well, yeah, but something can be untrue without
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  it being a lie, can't? I mean, for it to be a lie, he's
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  got to know that it's not true. With you, there are a lot of
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  lies by a mission in this situation, so Yvette Coopers
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  letter to the foreign affairs committee is riddled with them.
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  Things like these security vetting procedures are
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  independent of ministers. After Mandelson's appointment,
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  the vetting was undertaken and concluded with DB clearance
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  being granted by the Foreign Office.
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  Well, yes, it did conclude because someone, the Foreign
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  Office, either David Lammy, and he seems very clear that he
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  never wanted Madison in the 1st place, or #10 in which case it's
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  Starmer who wanted him, intervened and told the Foreign
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  Office to override their process and to make sure he was
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  appointed. And if they didn't, are we
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  really saying that Philip Barton or Olly Robbins took that
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  decision without ever speaking to Starmore, his closest team?
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  I don't believe it because I have dealt with some of those
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  sensitive, complex issues. And even when you want to
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  protect a minister or a Prime Minister, you have a meeting
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  with them where you say how much do you want to be told?
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  Because we recognize this is sensitive and we need to protect
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  you. How much do you want to know?
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  Are we reading from now that happened?
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  That is very, very serious accusation indeed.
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  You are accusing him of lying deliberately, of knowing that he
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  was lying as he spoke and that when they said ministers were
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  not involved, that is a lie that Yvette Cooper lied.
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  This is the most serious accusation and I absolutely
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  don't believe it. And that's what absolutely fine
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  for you. But Holly, I was tough on my own
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  side. Look at my record.
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  I have called up my own side where I feel that prime
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  ministers have acted inappropriately and I will do
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  so. Again, but you're you're you're
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  you don't have any evidence as the trouble.
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  I mean that that's the trouble with the.
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  I have a litany. Accusation.
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  No, no, that's a slightly different point.
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  There are, there are lots of things that Keir Starmer and
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  Yvette Cooper have said which turn out not to be true.
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  For them to be deliberate lies, they would have to have known
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  that that that what they were saying wasn't true.
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  And, and that is what there is no evidence for at the moment.
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  And that's why it's interesting for the Humble Address.
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  We should have had all this information revealed to us and
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  yet somehow it was withheld. That is a deliberate act of
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  obfuscation. That is lying on behalf of
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  government not to do that. The fact that the Guardian has
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  had to release it. There are two options here.
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  I will give you that. Either Keir Starmer, Yvette
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  Cooper have lied and misled the House or for the last few
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  months. This isn't days, this isn't some
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  new breaking issue. For months they have
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  demonstrated extreme ineptitude and not one of them asked the
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  most valid question or most important question.
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  Did he fail vetting or were there red flags?
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  And the idea that they did not ask those questions is gross
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  incompetence. So it's one or the other and
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  they can decide which one it is, and their supporters can decide
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  which one it is. But I'll take no lessons in not
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  telling Prime ministers where I think they've done wrong,
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  because I've done so consistently since the moment I
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  was elected, regardless of party colours.
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  Nobody, no, nobody else at the time was saying he hadn't passed
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  vetting. It was not in the air.
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  It was not thought if they didn't ask because they'd been
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  told. Though, Because David Maddox
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  asked the question. There was an independent story,
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  wasn't? There the the Guardians, the
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  guardians expose of of what's happened is utterly shocking and
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  totally amazing. But it does seem to be that
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  civil servants off their own initiative, for what reason, I
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  don't know whether out of a good intent to protect their
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  ministers and the Prime Minister who knows why, decided not to
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  reveal that he had failed his vetting.
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  And that's astonishing. And as, as Keir Salma himself
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  says, staggering. And you can say, well, it's a
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  weak Prime Minister who allows such things to happen on his
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  watch. And he's been accused of that
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  before. He's been accused of all sorts
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  of things. He may not be the world's best
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  Prime Minister, but to accuse him of deliberately lying and of
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  Yvette lying and of David Lammy lying, that is in a whole other
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  are. Are are you saying, Polly, that
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  the the failure to have a grip on this and to have asked the
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  right questions is, is not a resigning matter for Keir
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  Starmer? No, I don't think I mean you.
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  Prime ministers are better and worse and, and and have their
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  eye on the ball on some things and not on others.
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  They make mistakes and you could make a mistake, but if every
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  mistake was a resigning issue, you know you'd have them out
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  every week. The issue is the cover up
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  though. That's the problem.
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  It's the same conversation. I had that direct conversation
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  with the Prime Minister before. He has had months to ask the
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  right questions and months where he's continued to parrot the
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  same lines and to brief against the civil service.
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  A man who said you never blame your own team seems to have
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  sacked 3 people now because of his decision to hire Mandelson.
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  And it was the same with the Chinese spy case.
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  They wanted to say that they had nothing to do with it.
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  There was gross incompetence on the CPS side there and on the
• 18:24
  government side where they failed again to do what they
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  should have done. And I'm sorry, but you cannot
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  see it. As Prime Minister says.
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  The decision I made personally, once I made it, once it broke in
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  the news, it was awful. We had to sack him.
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  I didn't go back and do the real research.
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  I blame the process. I made it all about the process,
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  but I didn't ask questions about the process.
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  I just blame the process and that's what the Prime Minister
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  is saying here. The mistake he made was to
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  appoint Mandelson, and an awful lot of people thought so at the
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  time. But the idea that, you know, a a
• 18:54
  man who's extremely punctilious about the correct way of doing
• 18:59
  things, Keir Starmer is, you know, he is a man who believes
• 19:02
  in the law, unlike, say, Boris Johnson, who never believed the
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  law ever applied to him, would not go into parliament and lie.
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  He just wouldn't. It's not his character and his
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  failings are other. Isn't, isn't a bit that we
• 19:15
  haven't got to Morgan McSweeney and that, you know, Morgan
• 19:20
  McSweeney was the was, was the man who was really running the
• 19:23
  place. He was the one who wanted
• 19:24
  Mandelson in place. He was the one who would have
• 19:27
  been talking to Philip Barton, who was running the the Foreign
• 19:31
  Office at the time of the appointment.
• 19:35
  And, you know, no doubt there would have been conversations
• 19:37
  about the concerns that were being overridden by the Prime
• 19:41
  Minister. And we still, you know, haven't
• 19:44
  had Morgan McSweeney interviewed by Parliament to try and find
• 19:49
  out what actually went on and whether he's the reason this
• 19:53
  happened rather than Keir Starmer.
• 19:55
  I'm sure the investigation will do that.
• 19:57
  We'll call him in. I mean, he is today sending out
• 20:00
  people to deny he knew anything about it.
• 20:02
  We don't know. He may or or may not.
• 20:04
  But not on the record. I mean, we've no idea whether
• 20:06
  that's true or not. We've no idea.
• 20:08
  An awful lot of things crossed Morgan Mcsweeney's desk that he
• 20:12
  dealt with that he never passed on to Keir Starmer and didn't
• 20:16
  pass on to other ministers. He took too much, too much
• 20:18
  control. He would slap down ministers as
• 20:21
  if it were in the prime minister's name, without the
• 20:23
  Prime Minister necessarily knowing.
• 20:25
  He would, you know, send out black Marks and briefings
• 20:29
  against certain ministers. But again, isn't that damning of
• 20:32
  Keir Starmer, You know, that this was going on when he was
• 20:36
  supposed to be in charge, You know, and it really raises
• 20:39
  questions as to Starmer's suitability for the job he's
• 20:43
  got. I think, you know, a lot of
• 20:44
  people will find a lot of criticisms of Keir Starmer, as
• 20:47
  they do of any Prime Minister. But he he finally got rid of
• 20:51
  Morgan McSweeney, which is a good thing because McSweeney was
• 20:54
  very much the one who promoted the idea of sending Mandelson to
• 20:59
  Washington anyway. And that was a bad error.
• 21:02
  He was very much a protege of Mandelson's.
• 21:04
  I think there are probably rather too many people around
• 21:08
  the government and in various departments who are of the old
• 21:11
  Blair era and carry with them some of the attitudes of those
• 21:15
  times. I mean, not all of them.
• 21:16
  Someone like Jonathan Powell has an excellent appointment to have
• 21:20
  put in. But there are others around
• 21:22
  various ministries where you'd think perhaps actually it's a
• 21:25
  long time ago, the last Blair government types are very
• 21:28
  different. This is a very different
• 21:30
  government, and Morgan McSweeney was too much in Hock to all of
• 21:34
  them. But he's gone.
• 21:36
  Finally, he's gone. I.
• 21:37
  Mean, Alicia, if you put your sort of former Foreign Office
• 21:40
  hat on in terms of sort of getting to the bottom of this,
• 21:44
  you know, Ollie Robbins has already given evidence to Emily
• 21:47
  Thornberry's committee, and she was very unimpressed with his,
• 21:54
  you know, with his carefully calibrated answers.
• 21:56
  In retrospect, What kind of paper trail would there be for a
• 22:03
  process of vetting that's that finds him unsuitable and is then
• 22:09
  over overruled? So we will have all the
• 22:11
  paperwork from the civil servant side that will be there.
• 22:14
  But the conversations about over ruling might have been done in
• 22:17
  person. They might have been done by
• 22:19
  text or by WhatsApp or over the phone if Morgan McSweeney
• 22:22
  behaved in the way that Polly suggests.
• 22:24
  And I would again make the point that you are responsible for
• 22:27
  your staff and the way they behave.
• 22:29
  And the fact that neither Mandelson nor Jonathan Powell
• 22:32
  have ever appeared before Parliament for due to scrutiny,
• 22:36
  we have been unable to scrutinize and the Foreign
• 22:38
  Affairs Committee has failed to get Mandelson in front of them,
• 22:40
  let alone Powell. We are in a very poor state when
• 22:43
  it comes to scrutinize the activity of this number 10 when
• 22:46
  it comes to foreign policy, and it is unacceptable that we are
• 22:49
  in that place. So I think we're gonna find it
• 22:52
  really hard to scrutinise. The idea that Morgan Sweeney is
• 22:54
  ever gonna come and give evidence is a complete, you
• 22:56
  know, it's for the birds. So I think we will have all the
• 22:59
  hard work of civil servants on the developed betting side.
• 23:01
  But that is all very personal and it will likely never see the
• 23:04
  light of day. And and too fair it shouldn't
• 23:06
  because there are people's deep seated personal.
• 23:09
  You have to, you know, in developed betting, you have to
• 23:11
  talk about what type of porn you might watch or sexual exploits
• 23:15
  you've had, all financial dealings, everything, you name
• 23:18
  it, you have to sit and describe in intimate detail so they can
• 23:21
  ascertain whether or not you can be blackmailed.
• 23:23
  That will probably never see the light of Dale.
• 23:25
  What we need is for Keir Starmer to say #10 is going to open up
• 23:29
  the books. We're going to have proper
• 23:30
  transparency. We are all going to give
• 23:32
  evidence on this and you're going to get proper scrutiny.
• 23:35
  But all we've seen is people like Jonathan Powell Mandelson
• 23:38
  never, ever, ever becoming before Parliament.
• 23:40
  So I don't think that's going to change, unfortunately.
• 23:43
  I think the papers that we're going to get are going to be
• 23:45
  released are of a kind that have never been released before.
• 23:49
  And some of it will only be seen by this curity committee.
• 23:52
  But I don't think the level of detail of what happened in the
• 23:56
  appointment of somebody and in their vetting has ever been
• 24:00
  released in public before. So I don't think you can say
• 24:03
  there's been much of a cover up here.
• 24:04
  I. Think you can regard you had to
• 24:06
  reveal stuff that should have been released by the humble
• 24:08
  address. We laid a humble address it.
• 24:10
  This isn't something I've picked up since Madison sacked.
• 24:13
  I've been arguing against his appointment since it was briefed
• 24:15
  about. I was one of the few people who
• 24:17
  came up very strongly against it from the very, very start.
• 24:20
  The Humble Address release should have told us that he
• 24:23
  failed vetting and that was deliberately withheld.
• 24:26
  And if it wasn't deliberately withheld, then I'd love to hear
• 24:28
  the explanation as to why that wasn't in the cache of documents
• 24:31
  that should have come out at the start and why the Guardian
• 24:33
  therefore has had to do this expose.
• 24:35
  Although again, as I say, Maddox had this six months ago.
• 24:38
  He had multiple sources telling him that Madison had failed
• 24:41
  vetting and at the time I'm #10 completely dismissed it.
• 24:45
  The question is sort of what why we haven't found out yet is is
• 24:48
  interesting. But I mean, I said, I suppose
• 24:50
  they their, their answer might be this would have come out, you
• 24:54
  know, in due course after the Intelligence and Security
• 24:57
  Committee have decided what can and can't be published.
• 25:02
  But but we'll never know because, you know, that bit of
• 25:05
  it is sort of secret. And it does undermine trust,
• 25:08
  rather, when a newspaper ends up uncovering something like this,
• 25:12
  doesn't it, Polly? The Intelligence and Security
• 25:14
  Committee would have seen it all anyway.
• 25:17
  And I think if they see something that is utterly
• 25:21
  outrageous, I think they can go back and say, listen, this
• 25:23
  should be made public. It's for them to decide what is
• 25:26
  and isn't made public, and if there is something that they
• 25:29
  really feel absolutely stinks and should be made public, it's
• 25:32
  for them to say so. Just finally, Polly, I mean,
• 25:35
  from a Labour perspective, you know, it's, it's, it's very,
• 25:40
  very odd timing this. I mean, the, the sort of the the
• 25:43
  campaigns against Starmer, which were in full swing a few weeks
• 25:47
  ago seem to have, you know, stopped, You know, the, the war
• 25:51
  and his positioning on the war seemed sort of by him quite a
• 25:55
  lot of time right up. And, you know, certainly up
• 25:57
  until May the 7th and the the elections on that day.
• 26:03
  And, you know, people were sort of backing off the idea of
• 26:05
  plotting to get rid of him. Is he suddenly in peril again
• 26:10
  now? Because this does look really
• 26:11
  bad. I mean it's always alarming when
• 26:14
  you know, we have 80% of our newspapers are are Tory and very
• 26:18
  fanatic. So when they have all have, you
• 26:20
  know, clear on the brink on their front pages, it rattles
• 26:25
  people a bit. But I do think things have
• 26:27
  calmed down quite a lot really, because there is a war on,
• 26:30
  because there is a real crisis, an economic crisis coming our
• 26:34
  way, a global crisis, an oil crisis.
• 26:37
  It's, it would seem a rather frivolous thing to be for Labour
• 26:42
  to be running. It's long and complicated and
• 26:44
  very fraught. Choosing a new leader system
• 26:47
  right in the middle of all this, I mean, who knows, after the
• 26:49
  election, the local elections are likely to go badly for
• 26:52
  Labour. I think people might still think
• 26:54
  again and wait until there are calmer times.
• 26:57
  After all, just three years to the next election, it might not
• 27:00
  be best to choose a new leader so far away from the next
• 27:03
  election. A lot of people are saying,
• 27:05
  well, if you want to change a leader, change him, say a year
• 27:09
  out, not three years out. Alicia, are you at all torn on
• 27:12
  that one? You know that while while you
• 27:14
  know as a as a Conservative politician, you want chaos in
• 27:17
  the Labour Party and you want the Prime Minister to be forced
• 27:19
  out, but as a patriot, it's not a great time to be leaderless,
• 27:25
  is it? Look, I'm not someone who wants
• 27:27
  to see chaos. Actually I want to see a
• 27:29
  government. You will see me work cross
• 27:30
  party. I was elected to chair the
• 27:32
  Foreign Affairs Committee with the support of the House.
• 27:35
  It wasn't as a conservative with only conservative support.
• 27:38
  I had overwhelming support from across the aisles.
• 27:41
  And if you ask anyone in parliament, they will say
• 27:43
  Alyssia works cross party. That's how she gets things done.
• 27:45
  I've changed 2 laws in the last three weeks working cross party.
• 27:49
  That's how I got it done. I think the only frustration is
• 27:52
  that people's ambitions in politics have a way of blinding
• 27:55
  them even to things like war, where's, you know, his
• 27:58
  leadership bid that's stalled because he is so close to
• 28:01
  Mandelson. So every time that comes out in
• 28:03
  the media, that stalls him. Angela, her bid is very much
• 28:07
  alive, but her view is that, A, she wants the May local election
• 28:11
  results to fall on Starmer, not on her, but B, she thinks that
• 28:14
  HMRC is going to clear her by the time of the local elections.
• 28:17
  That's why she's not moving forward with her bid.
• 28:19
  I can tell you now there are lots of Labour MPs coming to me,
• 28:22
  talking to me about who's marshalling who, who now all of
• 28:25
  a sudden when they turn up in the chamber, always has two
• 28:27
  people sat either side of them as their pretorian guard.
• 28:30
  Who's doing this? Who's offering this person this
• 28:31
  job? They're telling you.
• 28:33
  We're going because often it's better to have friends on the
• 28:36
  other side of the chamber because unfortunately people in
• 28:38
  your own party often want to stab you in the back because
• 28:40
  they see you as someone in the way of them getting their job.
• 28:44
  Whereas having cross party friendships, there's actually a
• 28:46
  lot of the heat gets taken out of it because you can support
• 28:48
  each other through it. And also, you know, it's amazing
• 28:51
  amount of Labour MPs who've returned this parliament who
• 28:55
  want to have a conversation with us because they say, wow, it is
• 28:57
  tougher in government and you can talk about that and you can
• 29:00
  support them through it because ultimately we're all people.
• 29:03
  And I don't want to see MPs struggling with how difficult it
• 29:06
  is because it is really difficult being a government and
• 29:09
  it is really hard when you are an MP and you are held
• 29:11
  responsible for the behaviour of all of your colleagues and
• 29:14
  everyone else around you. And therefore I will always open
• 29:17
  my hand, a friendship to someone if they are someone that works
• 29:20
  across party and is decent and kind to other people to support
• 29:23
  them because that's what we should have in our politics.
• 29:26
  I'm very glad to hear you say that because I think in life as
• 29:29
  a politician in general, let alone if you're from the ruling
• 29:33
  party, is very difficult indeed and often underestimated.
• 29:36
  And the skill of being a politician is very real.
• 29:39
  And it it's a real talent and a real art that's often not
• 29:43
  recognized. But it's a bit of Westminster
• 29:45
  title tattle about everybody who's who's who's aligning up to
• 29:49
  be the next leader. Every party.
• 29:51
  It's going on even with the Lib Dems.
• 29:52
  It's going on everywhere, except perhaps with Farage because he
• 29:57
  is his party and but this happens all the time.
• 30:03
  It's, as you well know, it's happening within your party too.
• 30:05
  Endless. Who's going to take over from
• 30:07
  Kemi? Nobody thinks Kemi's going to be
• 30:09
  there at the next election. It's part of the to and fro of
• 30:12
  Westminster life. Not a very savoury part of it,
• 30:15
  but it just is. We must leave it there.
• 30:17
  Polly Twenby, Alicia Kent, thank you very much indeed for joining
• 30:20
  us. That's the forecast.
• 30:21
  Until next time, Bye bye.