PM under intense pressure to explain what he knew before PMQs last week when he gave the former US ambassador his backing
Good morning. All governments face crises; something goes wrong, often someone gets sacked, and then they move on. Very occasionally, there is a proper leadership challenge, normally culminating in a vote. But there is also something in between, the permacrisis, where ongoing criticism of the leadership drowns out most other party/government activity, with no resolution. The Theresa May and Boris Johnson premiership were in permacrisis for months or years. After the last week, Keir Starmer is close to being stuck in this version of political purgatory too.
There are various strands to the Labour turmoil story, and I will unpack them as the day goes on, but here is a quick summary based on the state of play this morning.
Starmer is under intense pressure to explain what he knew ahead of PMQs last week about the emails from Peter Mandelson in which Mandelson strongly backed Jeffrey Epstein at the time of his first child sex offence conviction. The Tories have demanded an explanation in response to reports that officials did know full details before PMQs, even though Starmer subsequently justified defending Mandelson on Wednesday before sacking him on Thursday on the grounds that new information (ie, the full details of the emails) only came to light on Wednesday night. This claim has made the Mail splash.
If the PM really believes in accountability, he would stop hiding, face Parliament, publish the Mandelson/Epstein files and tell the truth about what he and his Chief of Staff knew and when.
It’s time to deliver the “transparency revolution” he promised. No more excuses.
Starmer will be forced out as leader if next year’s elections are as bad for Labour as the polls predict, the leftwing Labour MP Richard Burgon has claimed. Burgon told today:
Lots of MPs are looking to the elections next May, the opinion polls suggest it’s going to be a complete disaster unfortunately. I think it’s inevitable that if May’s elections go as people predict, and the opinion polls predict, then I think Starmer will be gone at that time.
It feels like we are years and years into an unpopular government, rather than a year into a government that’s just got rid of the Conservatives. We’re losing votes to the left, we’re going to be losing seats to the right.
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