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Peter Mandelson and Epstein: how much did Starmer know? · The Fourcast

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Any association with this prolific, internationally famous
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paedophile and sex groomer should have been a red black.
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Virginia, it's very clear she wasn't talking about one man.
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It was that whole world. She used to talk about the 1%,
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That 1%, you think they can do anything?
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His incredibly long letter? It fit the language of the rest
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of the birthday notices to Epstein perfectly.
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They all had that kind of like grim, icky, euphemistic chatter
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about sort of sexuality. Anything that's hanging over
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this whole conversation, it's about that.
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Donald Trump is in that book as well.
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And does it actually put more heat on him that Mandelson has
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gone over his relationship with Epstein?
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Hello and welcome to the forecast.
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For the third time in his political career, Peter
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Mandelson has fallen from high office in a scandal linked to
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rich and powerful men. This time it was his
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relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein that
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proved his undoing. Sacked from his role as UK
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ambassador to the US after leaked emails showed him
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offering support for Epstein even after a sex offence
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conviction, Downing St. said the Prime Minister found the depth
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and extent of the relationship reprehensible.
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But questions are now being asked about Sir Keir Starmer's
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judgement in appointing him in the 1st place, given Lord
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Mandelson has attracted, some would say courted controversy
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throughout his career. He was widely considered to be
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doing a good job in Washington, though with a good rapport with
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President Trump. Is that relationship now
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damaged? To discuss this, I'm joined by
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the film maker Richard Sanders, who produced the Dispatches
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documentary that first revealed the friendship between the two
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men, the Labour peer Aisha Hazarika, and the author and
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political journalist Ian Dunt, who has written extensively on
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Lord Mandelson. Well, Ayesha first.
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He had to go, didn't he? Absolutely.
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I mean, I think many people felt that when the extent of his
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close personal friendship with Jeffrey Epstein came to to
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light, you know, people knew that they were friends.
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But I think the the level of kind of affection, I mean, they
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felt like they were love letters being being written and you
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know, to use colloquial phrase, I mean, they kind of gave
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everybody the ick. I mean, it really was, some of
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it was quite kind of stomach training, stomach training
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anyway. But to have these letters to
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somebody who, you know, was really kind of the modern day
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equivalent in America of what Jimmy Savile was in in the
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United Kingdom. So absolutely, with that
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question, he definitely had to go.
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Ian Dunn it it's been a shameful episode and and shaming to
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Britain as well. In the eyes of the US, maybe.
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Yeah, I mean, it's quite hard. There's not a lot more of our
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national reputation for us to uphold at the moment, and we're
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really struggling to keep what we do have.
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This isn't really helping. We had a really good ambassador
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to the US, Karen Pierce, you know, seasoned diplomat, not the
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kind of person who ends up on the kind of islands that we're
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talking about here. You know, had a long career
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stretching back to the 80s, starting in Japan, had managed
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to, you know, build the bases in that kind of subtle old
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fashioned British Foreign Office sort of way across the spectrum
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in the US. And then you get this decision,
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which felt kind of weird at the time of being, well, we need a
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political operator. And you think, wait, you don't
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really need you're absolutely, you've got a really good about
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now. Why would you be making any of
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these changes? And at that point, we knew
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everything that we know now. I mean, fine, so a few emails
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have come to light, but it wasn't like the basic facts.
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We said today the material facts, which the material facts
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have not changed at all. Well, well, let me bring in
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Richard on that point, Richard Sanders, because, you know, we
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made this film together back in 2019.
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The government pops up today and says, well, there's a material
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change now in what we knew about Mandelson's, Mandelson's
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relationship with Epstein. What did we find out in 2019
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that we broadcast to the world? It was very frustrating really,
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because back in 2019 we had an interviewee, he was an anonymous
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interviewee. He was a close friend of of
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Epstein's, you know, a man, interesting man, a very, very
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wealthy man, had had his own yacht, had various connections
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with the intelligence services himself.
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And he told us this extraordinary story of visiting
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Epstein while he was supposedly in prison, you know, sort of
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very, very luxurious prison. And while he's there, he gets
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this phone call. Because he was allowed out on
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day release. To do this.
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Calls in his office. Yes, I mean, you know, and he
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was only in prison for a year and he gets this extraordinary
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phone call from this gentleman called PT and he's sort of
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listening to it. He's trying to work out what it
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is. And and the phone call itself is
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interesting. This person wants Epstein to
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arrange a meeting. Once the phone was hung up, it
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became quite clear that that PT was Peter Mandelson and it and
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it was clear that they were very close friends.
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The tone of it was they were very close friends and and also
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in Peter Mandelson didn't deny this at the time.
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What is it as I have no recollection that meeting, which
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is a rather rather different thing from denying something.
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We got a lot of legal push back at the time.
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A lot of legal push back, but it evaporated after we'd actually
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gone to. But he also said an interesting
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thing. He said why would I need Jeffrey
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Epstein to make my bookings for me in New York?
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Which is precisely the point. Why indeed?
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And we'll talk, we'll come to, you know, why Mandelson was sort
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of seduced by rich and powerful men in a second.
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But Aisha, all of this given what we knew back in 2019 that
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we put out on air and what has dribbled out since, it raises
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serious questions, doesn't it, about Sir Keir Starmer's
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judgement in appointing Peter Mandelson to this plum job?
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Well, it's now coming to light that concerns were raised the
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Labour peer Morris Glassman, who's very close to Morgan
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McSweeney, who is Keir Starmer's chief of staff.
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You know, it's said that he submitted a memo, you know,
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close to the time saying, look, I'm, I think this is a difficult
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appointment. But I think the calculation was
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from Keir Starmer's team that the prospect of negotiating with
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Donald Trump was going to be so difficult, particularly when a
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lot of people in the cabinet had sort of slagged Donald Trump off
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over the years. You needed somebody.
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But including Peter Mandelson though.
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Absolutely. But you needed somebody who
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could kind of sort of be a Trump whisperer who could move in
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those sort of circles, which Peter is very good at doing
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because he does like wealth and he likes wealthy men and and
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powerful men as, as, as we've seen.
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But I think what what should have been a big red flag is the
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fact that anybody with a close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein,
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massive, massive red flag. Don't forget the Prince Andrew
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story and saga in our country, the Emily Maitlis interview, the
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fact that he kept his friendship going with Jeffrey Epstein even
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after he had been convicted, and the fact that, you know, Prince
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Andrew had to be sort of discarded from, from, from the
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royal family. I mean, any association with
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this prolific, internationally famous paedophile and sex
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groomer should have been a a red flag.
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But I think the calculation was that the government and I, I
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kind of understand from a, you know, from a business point of
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view, from a trade point of view, you know, they were just
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thinking about, look, we don't want to get massive tariffs from
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Trump. We want to have a good deal with
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Trump. But I think you also have to
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remember your your values in this.
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Ian Dunn, you should never have been appointed in the first
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place. No, I mean obviously not.
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And then having been appointed, they needed to be much quicker
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off the mark of realising what the significance of what's
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happened this week was. In fact, they failed him.
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So yesterday you get like Prime Minister in PMQ speaking very
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confidently about something that you're looking at and thinking
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like, is that line going to hold?
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Like it doesn't feel like it's going to hold.
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Sending out minister this morning and the immigration
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minister to hold that line and you're thinking like this line
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is not going to hold. So that's someone there who's
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not going to forget the fact that they've been sent out to do
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that, who will be a bit more reticent about going out to hold
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the government line next time. Once you build a lot of people
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around you who feel that way, who question your judgement, who
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don't know if they'll be hung out to dry and made to look a
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fool by the fact that you're going to U-turn on something
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that you currently seem terribly confident about, that's when
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things start to become quite difficult for you in Parliament.
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That's what's scuppered plenty of Conservative prime ministers
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over the last, you know, decade and a bit.
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So no, I would worry quite a lot about the decision making that
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lay behind both the original appointment and the things that
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have happened this week. And Peter Mandelson has already
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been turfed out of Cabinet jobs in the past.
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I knew you were there when some of that.
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Yeah. I mean, look, he, he's very much
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seen as the sort of Icarus, you know, kind of character in, in,
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in the Labour Party. He was, you know, he had to
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resign because of a loan he took from a man called Geoffrey
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Robinson. He then had to resign over an
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issue about passports for 2 Indian businessmen, the Hinduja
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brothers, although he was subsequently cleared of that.
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So he is somebody that is kind of a high risk, high voltage
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person. But I think the other thing that
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I just like to sort of see in all of this, Kathy, is that,
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look, this New Labour government has also got a really important
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mission and that's to have violence against women and
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girls. And it's really proud to be a
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party, even though we haven't had a female leader, we're very
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proud of of delivering for women, particularly in terms of
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violence against women. And I think a lot of women in
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the Labour Party were really horrified about this.
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We've just had this big grooming scandal in this country, the
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Pakistani grooming scandal. I met some victims recently in
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Parliament and it was so painful listening to them.
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And the long tail of this kind of abuse from women who were
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groomed from a young age by paedophiles and raped for sex.
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People think these are crimes that happened like, you know, 20
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years ago. Get over it, move on.
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No, for these women, the long tail of these crimes, I mean,
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Virginia Jeffrey took her own life.
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And I think in a mix, in the midst of all this, who's up,
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who's down, What kind of characters, Peter?
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There are victims who are everyday reliving this horror
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and trauma. Well, and Richard, it was very
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clear in that just excruciating birthday book that we're we're
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that we saw 238 pages running joke about Epstein's appetite
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for young women. I mean, horrifying.
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But there'll be other people now sweating because they know that
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they've looked at what's happened to Peter Mandelson.
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They know that they might be next.
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Tell us about that. Well, there's a lot of people,
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you see when we did the film in 2019, all this business about
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the the Epstein list. And will the Epstein List be be
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produced? I don't think it's, it's quite
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as mysterious as that. We, there had been a lot of
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legal proceedings over the years.
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And we looked into those legal proceedings really carefully.
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And there was a massive documentation online.
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And when you really picked it apart, you got, you know, a lot
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of names, all very rich and very powerful, a lot of them very
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well known. Some world leaders in there.
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Now, in the year after our film, I got to know Virginia quite
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well. I used to speak to Virginia on
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the phone all, all the time and she was very keen to go go after
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them. She she wanted to go after them.
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But obviously it's the legal implications.
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You're going to get sued by these people.
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But is that going to start happening now, do you think?
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I mean, because there's talk the Epstein victims talking about
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sort of putting together their own client list and getting out
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there naming and shaming. Yeah, well, I mean, it would, it
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would all depend on the lawyers. I mean, you know, we, we, we
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discussed this making follow up films and, and, and the problem
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was the, the risk of being sued by extremely wealthy people.
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Are you sure you know a client list?
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Is that? Is that where this now goes?
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Well, I think where they should go now is instead of just
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talking about the careers of very, you know, rich men, I
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think this needs to move to the victims and justice for the
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victims. There are many, many men
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implicated in this. This is a a, you know, a very
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elite network of, of men. And I think when Peter Mandelson
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did that interview with his son and he said, you know, my heart
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goes out to to those victims. I hope and I sincerely hope he
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did mean that. And I think one thing he could
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do, because nobody is coming forward to help those victims
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and, you know, give any evidence or talk to them about what they
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know. And that's what, you know, will
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move this case forward. So I would strong I would like
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to see him reach out to the victims groups now and sit down
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with them and tell people what he saw and what he knew to help
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these victims. I mean, there's no implication
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that he was involved in the abuse in any way whatsoever.
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I should just make that clear. But what do you think of that
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suggestion that Peter Mandelson should sort of help expose and
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name and shame some of these rich and very powerful men?
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Yeah, that'll be helpful. I don't think it's like, but I
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mean, you know, it would be encouraging if we were to see
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something like that. I mean, I think we, we've
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understood the, the pattern with him.
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It's strange, you know, because we just had like a summer of
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Oasis and everything's about the late 90s.
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Now I just feel like I'm back in the late 90s.
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It's exactly the same story that we were dealing with like 1998.
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It's the first time we had a resignation.
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It's the same resignation is always the same.
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It's always the same circumstance.
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It's like, should you really have been friends with this
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tremendously wealthy man when he was EU commissioner, by the way,
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in between these two lives? Exactly the same stories coming
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out. Should you really have been
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seeing this Russian oligarch? Should you really have been
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hanging out with this person from Microsoft when they're
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under investigation? You know, over and over It's the
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same story with him. When someone exhibits the kind
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of behaviour you see like that just happening over and over
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with regularity unchanged over about 30 decades, you sort of
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think I very much doubt this person's going to change anytime
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soon. And I'm afraid I wouldn't have
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much hope that he will. What is it about wealthy men
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that appeals to Peter Mandelson? I mean, for certain people, that
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is a very attractive kind of social milieu to be in, and I
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guess he's one of them. What's interesting about his
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incredibly long letter was that it fit the language of the rest
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of the birthday notices Epstein perfectly.
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They all had that kind of like grim, icky, euphemistic chatter
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about sort of sexuality. And he's all the same with
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Manson and stuff about the Yum, Yum this and that.
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It was all, it was icky, right? But it was the exact language
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that all the other letters were using.
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He clearly fit in that society and that kind of social context.
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Aisha. Well, I mean, I think Peter has
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always been very seduced by, by wealth and he's always,
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obviously always been attracted to it.
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And, you know, you know, I, I know Peter reasonably well.
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I've worked with him over the, the years.
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And I think for people who are very, very close to him, the
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frustration is he is a, he is a great political mind.
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And he's also his own worst enemy in the sense that, you
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know, he has this ability to self sabotage his his his
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career. And he is obviously, you know,
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like a moth to the flame, attracted to extreme wealth and
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these very particular types of very wealthy, very powerful men.
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You don't really get that many powerful, wealthy women.
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So it is powerful, wealthy men. Ian, how's the state visit going
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to go now? That's going to be really
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difficult. I mean, mostly because, of
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course, the thing that's hanging over this whole conversation is
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fact that Donald Trump is in that book as well.
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And despite the fact that, you know, the far right in the US
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have been pretending for over a decade now that they're
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tremendously worked up by elite network.
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So they've completely imagined in their head, the second that
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they get presented with a real elite network that implicates
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their hero, they suddenly don't have anything to say.
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Nevertheless, he is in that book and in any rational world that
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would be the the first thing and the only thing that we would be
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talking about over the last week as as a globe, as a world,
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that's what we would be discussing.
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And does it actually put more heat on him that Mandelson has
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gone over his relationship with Epstein?
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It's going to make it a tremendously difficult thing for
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Keir Starmer to navigate, which is the conversation about Peter
15:34
Manson on the one hand, and what he needs to do to keep Donald
15:37
Trump sweet during a state visit, on the other.
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And there's a very small area in between those two circles that
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you can operate within in the way that isn't going to upset
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attitudes on one side or the other.
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And I think Starmer's going to really struggle with that.
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That is a problem of his own making.
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And if they'd been a little bit more cognizant and strategic
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about the way that these things could work out, that problem
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would not necessarily have had to have taken place.
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Ian is right. Look, Peter Mandelson not being
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here orchestrating and conducting this state visit will
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make it more difficult. And of course, there will be
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more scrutiny and more heat on Donald Trump now because of of,
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of the Epstein connection. And of course, all of this also
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makes it quite difficult for the royal, uncomfortable for the
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royal family because of the Prince Andrew link as well.
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So this is all going to be very, very tense.
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But, you know, also we've got a new foreign secretary as well
16:29
who will be kind of navigating this.
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I mean, it helps that David Lammy does have a good
16:33
relationship with JD Vance. I'm sure David Lammy as Deputy
16:37
Prime Minister will, will now probably move into quite an
16:39
important position. But I don't think we should kid
16:41
ourselves. This state visit is going to be
16:43
quite, quite tricky. Just on the point about about
16:46
Trump, it's very important to bear in mind.
16:47
Who denies any wrongdoings? And as Virginia was quite clear
16:51
that she'd never been abused by Trump, Epstein world was
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fundamentally a democratic world, as was Harvey Weinsteins.
16:58
Okay, Bloomberg have 18,000 of Epstein emails or I think
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Trump's name pops up three times.
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There's a story that it's very odd it hasn't been picked up
17:06
more. Yesterday the Times reported
17:08
that there's a memo Peter Mandelson sent to Tony Blair in
17:12
2002 saying you really ought to meet this man.
17:14
Now. It wasn't meet him to discuss
17:16
this or something specific. It was just in general.
17:18
He's a useful person to know. I'm amazed no one seems to have
17:21
asked Tony Blair, did you meet? Him, don't worry.
17:23
We've been bidding for him. But but I mean, how damaging is
17:27
this whole thing to Trump, though?
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I mean, I take your point that this was a sort of a bigger
17:31
problem for the Democrats. But you know, Trump happens to
17:33
be the one in power. So how problematic is the whole
17:35
thing? For him, I think it is
17:37
problematic. Trump and he fell out at a
17:39
certain point before Epstein went to prison, they fell out
17:42
and that that relationship stopped.
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So I'm not sure how much more there is to come out about Trump
17:48
than has already come out. I mean, I used to talk to
17:50
Virginia. That's been bad enough, though.
17:52
It's been bad enough. I used to talk to Virginia quite
17:53
a lot about Trump. She he was sleazy.
17:55
You'd see him around. He was a sleazy, unpleasant
17:57
presence. But other men loomed much larger
18:00
in her memory. Just coming back to the state
18:03
visit and sort of picking up the pieces from this mess, Who will
18:09
be, I mean, we know we've got an acting ambassador, but who's
18:10
going to be the permanent replacement or who should be?
18:14
Karen Pierce. Well, I mean, look, I do agree
18:17
with what Ian said. I mean, Karen Pearce was a
18:20
really well respected figure. I think having a, a female
18:24
ambassador is a, is a, is a really good thing.
18:27
She was somebody who, you know, the, the White House felt that
18:31
they could work with. You know, she was really
18:33
respected by the, by the, the department.
18:37
And I think as well, I think civil servants and the
18:41
diplomatic service were always felt slightly uncomfortable
18:44
about this top job being a political appointment rather
18:49
than being an appointment that went to sort of a top diplomat
18:52
who had really, you know, cut their teeth around the the
18:55
world. And so it should revert.
18:56
To that in your. View Well, I just think after
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after everything that's happened, I think that would
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make a lot of sense. I mean, let's see what number 10
19:04
decide to do. But I think bringing Karen back
19:06
would be no bad thing. Ian is it going to be sort of a
19:09
political now? And hopefully we would go back
19:12
to the default setting and go for that kind of person.
19:14
And there is a reason that we have these people in those kind
19:16
of jobs and and they don't typically get themselves into
19:20
trouble like this. It would also be quite good, I
19:22
think for for the Labour government.
19:24
Just have a think about the kind of language and principles that
19:27
had established at the beginning when it came into government.
19:29
We will be cleaner than clean. We are going to show that you
19:32
can kill populism by virtue. Just showing like we are going
19:35
to get rid of sleeves. We're going to get rid of this
19:37
kind of behaviour. Now we've we've seen things that
19:40
I think are very much, I thought the rain I think was very, very
19:42
minor and extremely forgivable and a bit silly on tax.
19:45
It's not. It's nowhere near the kind.
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Of other people see it differently.
19:47
But we do see it differently. But I mean, I, I would be
19:50
surprised if you went to most people with what do you think
19:52
the moral severity of these two stories is last week or this
19:55
week? Most people would obviously
19:56
think this is a much graver kind of situation that we're talking
19:58
about this week. But on that basis, it's a good
20:00
chance for them to say, hang on a minute, let's make sure we're
20:02
living up to that language and those principles that we
20:04
expressed when we first came into government.
20:05
I just think so, so kind of fascinating from a kind of a
20:09
feminist point of view. It just shows you about this
20:13
kind of network of these incredibly powerful this these
20:18
elite men and the sort of impunity with which they thought
20:22
they could behave. And the fact that they earned a
20:25
lot of money or they ran these big businesses where they held
20:28
these great positions in office. But has that.
20:30
Changed now I. I, I mean, I, I hope so, I don't
20:33
know. And I think so many people will,
20:36
will look at this and just think, you know, this sort of
20:39
inherently sort of patriarchal sort of behaviour, which is, and
20:44
this sort of behaviour that impunity men who clearly felt
20:47
that they could just get away with it because these were the
20:50
masters of the universe. These were kind of these global
20:53
emperors and they were above the law and they were above morality
20:57
and they were above decency. I mean, and, and, and the
21:00
tentacles of Jeffrey Epstein go, you know, as you say, it's not
21:04
just one political party. It was Democrats, publicans, you
21:08
know, the Labour. I'm sure there's political
21:10
parties all over the world. Business, business.
21:12
The royal family, you know, there is a Nexus of this
21:16
absolutely like disgusting, venal, sickening behaviour which
21:20
these men for decades have just been able to get away with.
21:23
So that that's Virginia used to talk about that all the time.
21:27
She was very clear. She wasn't talking about one
21:28
man. She wasn't even talking about
21:30
the, the, the sort of circle around him.
21:33
It was that whole world he moved in.
21:34
She used to talk about the 1%, that 1% who think they can do
21:38
anything. Well, let's talk about the
21:39
politics more broadly. Aisha, You're well plugged into
21:42
the entire parliamentary party, of course.
21:44
How disgruntled are people? Well, I mean, there's no way to
21:47
sort of sugar the pill. I mean, there has been a very,
21:50
very difficult couple of weeks for the, for the.
21:53
Labour Party, I mean, it's been disastrous, hasn't.
21:55
It of course it's been very, very difficult, been coming
21:57
back, doing a reset and then at the end of that week, you know,
22:00
losing Angela Rayner who you know, I think she had to go
22:04
given what she did. But it was a great loss to the
22:06
party because she was a really good communicator.
22:10
She was held in a great amount of affection.
22:12
She was a great campaigner. And now a week on losing, you
22:18
know, one of the kind of prime jobs in, in, in the government,
22:22
you know, in terms of those sort of trinkets given out, it's,
22:25
it's terrible. And I think the members and the
22:28
Parliamentary Labour Party are are definitely sort of jittery,
22:32
but they're not just sort of jittery in an internal way.
22:36
They want this get Labour government to succeed, right?
22:38
They really want this Labour government to succeed because
22:41
the alternative is absolutely terrifying.
22:44
The prospect of staring down the barrel at Prime Minister Nigel
22:47
Farage is absolutely terrifying. For Labour's incompetence is is
22:51
bringing that day further forward.
22:53
By the minute things have not been going well and the Labour
22:55
Party does and the the kind of leadership absolutely needs to,
22:59
to get a grip. But in terms of where the mood
23:01
of the party is, it's, it's very worried and it wants the kind of
23:07
leadership and it wants to pull together to sort of do good for
23:10
the country and tell that story. But at the moment it just feels
23:14
like there's so many sort of scandals happening.
23:16
And they want to, they want this Labour government to, as, as Ian
23:19
said, do what they promised to do, which is come in, change the
23:23
country, fix this country for the, for the better, you know,
23:26
and, and, and get on with building a sort of positive
23:29
Britain. And they want to move on from,
23:31
from from these distractions. Much anyone at the moment who is
23:36
like even from the center right to the sort of socialist left is
23:41
just desperate for this government to succeed because
23:44
you're seeing the stuff in the wings.
23:46
And the stuff in the wings is not the conservatism that we're
23:48
used to. And we we're having somewhat
23:52
like a mainstream politician stand up and talk about
23:55
basically like mass deportations.
23:57
Like it's what like some kind of normal policy.
23:59
It's a far right policy. That's what it is.
24:01
It's far right talk. It's far right rhetoric and we
24:04
know that there is this poison. And yet when you look for some
24:08
kind of leadership, what you see from the top of the Labour Party
24:12
is just this sort of sense of like we, we are unwilling to
24:14
speak about our values. Like we're just not going to say
24:17
we're unwilling to speak with any kind of emotion at all.
24:19
The only criticism we will make of even a policy, as extreme as
24:21
that is we think that you've constructed incompetently.
24:25
It's like that's not the problem with the policy.
24:26
The policy policy is that it's a moral obscenity.
24:29
So there is just no sense of a progressive voice seemingly like
24:32
in this country at all. It's really hard to find it
24:35
anywhere to the point that you end up with, you know, like the
24:37
leader of the Green Party and the FT, like, you know, that's
24:40
where you're getting your. It's a ridiculous state of
24:42
affairs. So Are you sure if the
24:45
leadership doesn't get it's act together, is Keir Starmer
24:47
potentially out of a job before the next election?
24:50
I, I don't, I don't think so because I do think that even
24:54
though people are disgruntled, remember I think you have to
24:56
just look back through history. It is not often that Labour wins
24:59
a general election. Keir Starmer is only the 7th
25:03
Labour Prime Minister in the history of British politics,
25:07
right. And so I think even though
25:09
people are, are definitely not happy at the moment and
25:12
grumbling, I think people do also remember that we don't
25:16
often have a Labour government. It was hard fought for and to be
25:19
fair to Keir Starmer, he is the person that got the party over
25:23
the line for many, many years. Labour is very, very good at
25:26
losing elections. He did something that that no
25:28
Labour leader's done for a long time and I've worked for a
25:30
number of different Labour leaders.
25:32
He got Labour over the line, but what he's got to do is he's got
25:36
to sort of get his team together and look, there are some really
25:42
important things that are happening.
25:43
Things are starting to turn a corner with the NHS.
25:46
There's record investment going into infrastructure and
25:50
planning. You know, the defence spending
25:52
is, is, is, is doing lots of good work for kind of jobs up
25:55
and down the country. Massive shipbuilding coming back
25:57
to to to to Scotland with this Norway deal.
26:00
So and the economy is stalling and immigration is still.
26:03
Going home, but that but it's wrong to say that there's like
26:06
it's not balance say that there's nothing good or nothing
26:09
positive happening. But Labour apps.
26:11
It has to get a grip. And one thing you said, you said
26:13
emotionally, and that's so important.
26:15
It's no point just pointing to charts and graphs going look
26:18
what's happening. It's about having an emotional
26:21
connection and having an emotional dialogue because
26:23
people out there right now are so anxious.
26:26
They're anxious about the economy, they're anxious about
26:28
immigration, they're anxious about crime, anti social
26:30
behaviour, what they're seeing. And Labour has got to be more on
26:34
the front foot, a better kind of speaking, a language that
26:38
connects with people. Ian Keir Tom has never been
26:41
capable of speaking that language.
26:42
Do you see him safe in his job until the next election?
26:45
Or do you think if things keep on, you know Farage is still
26:48
ahead in the polls for the next year?
26:50
2 Whatever then it's curtains for Kier.
26:54
The you can hear the whispers. I mean, even the way the people
26:57
have been talking about Andy Burnham, you know, in this
26:59
slightly sci-fi sort of way, it's quite hard to see the
27:01
blocking of how you get him into part of it.
27:03
But you know, even that the sort of, you know, these attempts are
27:06
just finding some kind of alternative.
27:07
You can hear the whispers starting to build now.
27:09
Still, the good money would be on Kier Starmer leading into the
27:11
next election. Absolutely, Aisha.
27:13
Finally, you're in the Lords for Labour.
27:14
You're looking forward to sharing those benches with Peter
27:17
Mandelson. Well, let's see if he, you know,
27:19
comes back and wants to. I mean, he might want to stay in
27:22
America for, for a while. That will be a decision for him.
27:25
Would he be welcoming the Lords though?
27:27
You'll have to ask some of his other colleagues.
27:29
What I'm asking you, do you welcome him back to the Lords?
27:32
I mean, is it, is it appropriate that he's, he's been sacked from
27:34
one of the plum jobs, is it right that he turns it up back
27:37
in the Lords? The Labour, that isn't it.
27:39
I mean, the way the Lords operate says there's a lot of
27:42
people that are under, you know, a lot of scrutiny.
27:44
And I think it's important to say he's not broken the law and
27:47
you've said that he hasn't done. We've established, you know,
27:50
we're not saying that he himself, but it was his.
27:52
But he might have broken the Lord's code of conduct, which
27:54
would. Require him to be suspended.
27:56
That will be for the, for the Lords of authorities to, to, to
27:58
have a look at. All I can say is he hasn't done,
28:01
you know, things like other people have done, like dodgy PPE
28:05
and things like that and, you know, sort of done.
28:07
He hasn't, I think it's really, really clear he's not broken any
28:10
rules or, you know, done anything like like that.
28:12
But you know, as I say for Peter, if he's serious about
28:17
having sympathy for those victims, I would really like to
28:22
see him to reach out to, you know, the the lawyers of the
28:25
victims, some of the victims and, and, and talk to them
28:28
because his knowledge, and we're not saying he is, he's done
28:31
anything wrong, but his knowledge could really help
28:33
them. Richard, would the victims
28:34
welcome that? Oh yes, certainly.
28:36
I mean anyone who can, who can speak up and provide evidence.
28:39
The other one person who knows absolutely everything is Gilane
28:41
Maxwell as well, of course. Richard Sanders, Ian Dunt and
28:45
Aisha Hazarika, thank you all very much for joining us.
28:47
That is it for this episode of THE FORECAST.
28:49
Until next time, goodbye.