Philip Stephens

Alex Younger, MI6 chief from 2014-2020 fascinating on incoherent/unclear objectives, how that works for the politics but is disastrous for the operations, in our podcast yesterday

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"Mr Speaker, as @GIGACHAD_1776 said to me on X yesterday"

Why hasn’t Starmer written Trumps a blank cheque and ordered the RAF to bomb Iran? …..is there anyone on the right as much as left who can imagine Badenoch as PM?

It was as if directed solely at Chris Mason’s latest article..

Be glad of Starmer’s caution over Iran Bellicose critics of the UK prime minister have learnt nothing from the recent past

Spot on

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“Hanging on to President Trump’s latest words is not the special relationship” …a useful message there from Starmer for the BBC’s hyperbolic political reporting as well as for Badenoch.

“You cannot respond to illegality with more illegality, because that is how humanity’s great disasters begin". Sanchez has a point.....

Having handed the Canadian election to Carney, Trump now seems determined to keep Starmer in No 10 …

Persistence and resilience …

Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey:

"Tax exiles like Isabel Oakeshott and washed up old footballers who mock ordinary people who stay in the UK and pay our taxes... As we protect them, it's only right for tax exiles to start paying taxes to fund our armed forces, just like the rest of us".

Let's just hope the war does not persuade the grifters, spivs and tax evaders to return to Britain....

The Board for Peace starts its first war...

you would never guess from this that Labour got 15 times as many votes as the Tories in this (otherwise disastrous) election

I will write later on how Labour's defeat in the Rochdale by-election in February 2024 foretold the outcome of the general election result a few months later.....

The same Charles Kushner sent to jail in 2005 by a judge who described him as a "revengeful, hateful man".

the Guardian, for all its posturing, never does the basic decent thing that can really help tackle pay inequality of putting salaries on its job ads 🙄

The sooner it's a legal requirement to put salaries on job ads, the better.

Met apologises to Commons speaker for sharing tipoff with Mandelson’s lawyers Exclusive: Police meet Lindsay Hoyle to explain error after Hoyle shared tip that Mandelson planned to flee UK

It is very funny how Mandelson’s fury over his arrest has led to the Met apologising profusely, but to someone else entirely.

Remember the Corbyn mania? Polanksi has just about junked all the green stuff and taken Corbyn's place on far left

Tesla now a legacy EV maker....X a legacy social platform

This feels undervalued.

Given Trump's devotion to western hemispheric hegemony of Monroe Doctrine will next move be on Falkland Islands? Give US strategic command of South Atlantic and Antarctica, pop of just few thousand. Lot easier than bombing Iran. Irritated already with Starmer about Chagos. And, yes, they have oil!

Mandelson's lawyers deny he was planning to flee abroad Statement comes after former cabinet minister arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office

thanks to Mandelson’s lawyers we now know why the police accelerated their investigation yesterday

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UK PR executive left role after US embassy raised concerns over online posts [FREE TO READ] Gavin Megaw’s exit from Hanover followed complaint by embassy to American Pharmaceutical Group

free speech latest as.ft.com/r/31e7b634-1...

when broadcasters repeat Mandelson claim he was “not motivated by financial gain”

please also report the $75,000 of financial gain Mandelson received from Epstein in 2004 and 2004

and the £10s of thousands Mandelson’s husband received from Epstein in 2009/10

plus free flights & mansion stays

I keep thinking this. Why can't they just say, Mandelson has stated that he considers etc. They need to take that step back instead of sounding quite so, well...understanding

What has Reform learnt from its first taste of power? [FREE TO READ] After grabbing hundreds of local council seats from Labour and the Conservatives, the populist party has faced a reality check

Spent many months understanding how Reform has approached the first test of its entry into government, from the rhetoric to the budget setting of this month: finance

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It is not fair if it misleads/confuses audiences…suppose it may have changed but advice of media lawyers used to be that no obligation to include non-attributable denials …

No obligation falls on BBC if Mandelson refuses to issue public denial..

But they could be clearer - they could say “a source close to Lord Mandelson has told the BBC he has denied any wrongdoing” etc

The Mandy Rice-Davies response comes to mind