BRIAN READE: ‘Summer of intercourse is coming however Starmer’s trying more and more impotent’
We’re hotting up for a summer of sex, but it’s Stamer who looks shafted, says Brian Reade, who asks how could he miss the legal red flags around toxic Mandelson?
Latest shambles with Peter Mandelson and Keir Starmer (Image: POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
A Labour backbencher wants the nation to cast off its inhibitions and indulge in a “summer of sex”. Samantha Niblett has launched a “Yes sex please, we’re British!” campaign so we can all talk about carnal matters, even planning to hold an exhibition of sex toys in Parliament.
She could be on to a winner. Not only is Westminster the UK capital of lechery (think disgraced ex-MPs like the aptly named Chris Pincher or tractor porn enthusiast Neil Parish) but a summer of sex will fit well with the national vibe. As in, with the Second Coming of Jesus of Mar-a-Lago worsening the effects of the already flatlining economy, it feels like we’re all screwed.
Right now though it’s Niblett’s boss, Keir Starmer, who looks well and truly shafted. He claims to be “furious” with the Foreign Office for allegedly failing to tell him that his pick for US ambassador, Peter Mandelson, had failed their security test.
But even if they didn’t tell him, which sounds bizarre, what does it say about the judgment of a Prime Minister elected on a ticket of clearing up Tory sleaze, that he was hell-bent on giving the highest and most sensitive post outside of Cabinet to a twice-disgraced ex- minister so dodgy he couldn’t pass his own government’s security test?
The irony is that this week Starmer finally saw some good polling, as 43% of voters said he made the right call when he chose to stay out of the Iran debacle, way ahead of all the other party leaders. Yet had Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney (Starmer’s ex-adviser who lobbied heavily for his good friend Peter) still been in place, it’s almost certain they would have told the PM to follow Blair’s advice to support the US to the hilt.
And he probably would have. The line Starmer’s new right-hand man, Darren Jones, was pushing yesterday was that Mandelson’s security scandal is a “failure of the state”. Which may be true. But Starmer is at the top of that state, and more than any other previous PM he feels very much part of the mandarin class. His go-to boast is he used to be the head of the Crown Prosecution Service, making him the most senior lawyer with a forensic eye for detail. So how could he miss legal red flags around toxic Mandelson?
How could such a brilliant lawyer promise a Hillsborough Law would be on the statute books before the disaster’s 36th anniversary. Which was a year ago. And it still is not. The thing about blaming “state failure” when you have been the head of it for almost two years is that you come to symbolise that failure. Right now most British people feel that the state is not working for them, and on an almost weekly basis Starmer and his government give that credibility.
It’s why Labour are predicted to lose more than a thousand seats at next month’s local elections. That’s a thousand hard-working councillors thrown under a bus due to a burning resentment, not towards them, but their government’s failure to get a grip.
After the latest Mandelson shambles Starmer looks increasingly impotent. After next month’s election wipeout not even a couple of Samantha Niblett’s little blue pills will be able to arouse his chances of survival.
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