Doug Fitchet

@CommonsForeign @YvetteCooperMP @FCDOGovUK @EmilyThornberry This is just embarrassing. The vetting procedure doesn’t need a review. Is it not more likely that Starmer wanted Mandy, let that be known, and now you’re blaming the vetting process and civil servants? The audit trail might not say that, but we’re not idiots.

The Foreign Secretary, @YvetteCooperMP @FCDOGovUK has written to our Chair @EmilyThornberry on the vetting process for former Ambassador Lord Peter Mandelson. Read the letter 👇

@Cu_chullain86 @mamboitaliano__ We live in Edinburgh - some places here are the same now. Seems like certain places/views get Instagram-famous and the influencers just seem to try and recreate the photos. No interest in anything - just about getting that photo. Really shallow way of life.

@DougFitchet @mamboitaliano__ The Louvre is the same. I remember looking at a Da Vinci painting and I was the only one looking at it. Nearby there were hundreds of people with selfie sticks trying to get a shot of the Mona Lisa. They didn’t give a crap about anything else.

🚨 And here it is: the tragedy of our time in a single frame This is what social media and “influencer culture” have done The Gate of Heaven, Lake Como, Varenna, Italy 🇮🇹 A line so absurd you’d think it’s the last restroom on earth Make it make sense

@LilyBart112 @mamboitaliano__ Trust me, the elbows were out after that - only so much patience! And don’t get me started on the large headset-wearing group tours that were there clogging it all up - they need to stop all that nonsense! Last went in the 80s as a kid and it was great - wouldn’t go again.

@DougFitchet @mamboitaliano__ So why do people wait patiently while influencers keep everyone at bay? I’ll step aside for someone’s quick snapshot, but not waiting in a line for some person’s photo shoot.

@therichardcobb Milne had been brilliant but is fatigued (and was injured), Halkett better than Hanley by a mile. Hope I’m wrong, but Clarke will go with loyalty and play defensively against Haiti, panic against Morocco and then need a result against Brazil. Shankland will get 10 minutes.

Mad that Halkett, Milne and Watt can do well enough to impress their fellow professionals but not quite well enough to convince Steve Clarke to consider them for a friendly against Japan.

@JamesMelville I, for one, am grateful that we have a PM that is so openly emotional about his lack of knowledge of many such important matters. Gives me comfort that he will sack those that do not inform him of broken promises or failed security vetting etc. True leadership.

Keir Starmer denies knowing that he deliberately broke the pledges in the Labour manifesto. Starmer has revealed that no one told him not to break the promises he made before the 2024 general election. “I was kept in the dark about this. I’m absolutely furious about it.”

@DavidPBMaddox @Independent In February Starmer told parliament that the vetting process noted the links to Epstein? So he knew that, but not the outcome? You exposed it months before that, of course, but he can’t even mislead convincingly these days.

Tomorrow's @Independent front page independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

@Peston 1) he didn’t 2) he did

Attached is the template for the summary recommendation of the vetting outcome when an appointment is being made to a sensitive government post. In Peter Mandelson’s developed vetting case, the vetting officer ticked both red boxes - ie “high concern” about the appointment and “clearance denied or withdrawn”. Two huge questions are still outstanding: 1) why Olly Robbins over-rode the “don’t appoint” recommendation? 2) how it was that Starmer did not know about the vetting officer’s “don’t appoint” recommendation till Tuesday evening?

@PippaCrerar And yet there’s none of the emotion from today? It’s just a carefully worded retrospective record.

NEW: Downing Street has published a summary of the meeting on Tuesday evening when Starmer was told that Mandelson was appointed despite failing to clear security vetting.  The email, from his principal private secretary Dan York-Smith, said: "The PM was not aware of any of this before the meeting, including that it was even possible to grant clearance against the advice of UKSV." It shows he instructed officials to establish facts so he could update MPs as soon as possible.

@adeyteegg @BethRigby Absolutely this. Where’s the emotion and anger we heard from the PM today? Where’s the “the PM is furious” in this note for record if it’s genuinely when he first found out about this issue?

Starmer’s team desperately faking a paper trail does nothing to overcome how impossible this set of events would be. There is zero chance he couldn’t have known, journalists are literally exposing that Downing Street were made aware 8 months ago. The lies are unravelling and instead of flailing about in his death throes Keir should just come clean. Nobody belies this tosh.

You don’t see this often: Cab office has published a summary of the Tues evening meeting when Starmer was told by his Mandelson appointed despite failing to clear security vetting. The record of meeting states Cat Little, perm sec of FCDO, reviewed the files and found that the recommendation from the vetting officer was that DV should not have been granted to Mandelson. The record of meeting also notes PM didn’t know it was possible to grant DV against the advice of security vetting & PM said further fact finding required to “understand the FCDO decision making process and reasons for granting clearance and to determine whether ministers, having been provided (incorrectly) with assurances about the process, had inadvertently misled Parliament when commenting on the process which had been followed” It’s also published the security vetting recommendation template, which hasn’t been filled in (that will be provided to the ISC as part of the humble address) but will presumably show that Mandelson was red boxed (“clearance denied or withdrawn”)

@jimbenson76 @BethRigby It might well be a contemporaneous ‘record’…but where’s all that fury and anger from the PM that he showed today? It’s almost as if it’s a carefully worded record that they wanted to share via friendly outlets.

@BethRigby Beth, please could you ask them to provide the original email headers so we can verify the exact date and time of this correspondence? At present, it appears the material may have been created retrospectively, following the Guardian’s report.

@BethRigby That has to be the most backside-covering record ever written. Are we seriously to believe that Starmer was completely oblivious to Mandy possibly failing vetting until Tuesday night? He seems to have been remarkably calm and considered in his language and response (unlike today)

@MikeRea15167544 @PippaCrerar Yes, anyone else with a passing interest in politics might have thought the DV process would be challenging! I wonder if the PM’s “I wasn’t told the outcome” defence is subtly worded, and differs from the likely reality of “I knew”, “I instructed” or “I should have known”.

@DougFitchet @PippaCrerar Indeed. Given that Mandy was called "the Prince of Darkness" for about 20 years must of triggered some concerns?

NEW: Keir Starmer says it's "staggering" and "unforgiveable" that he wasn't told Peter Mandelson failed security vetting - and that he's "absolutely furious" about it. He'll address MPs on Monday. “That I wasn’t told that Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting when he was appointed is staggering. “That I wasn’t told that he had failed security vetting when I was telling Parliament that due process had been followed is unforgiveable. “Not only was I not told, no minister was told, and I’m absolutely furious about that. “What I intend to do is to go to Parliament on Monday to set out all the relevant facts in true transparency, so Parliament has the full picture.”

@fraserihudghton Unfortunately I did likewise! The lack of rigour and detail is stark. It feels like they’re trying to make Scotland different in all the wrong ways. They’ve exhausted the votes that can be bought by giveaways and can’t work out how to attract anyone else. Scotland has stalled.

@DougFitchet I agree. I read the manifestos last night and SNP/Greens near tipped me over into depression. Maybe that was the intention.

Very good breakdown of the ‘food price cap’ promise yesterday. The thread running through it and various sections of manifesto (+ high profile failed Holyrood laws in recent years) is the need to confect a scenario where an ‘other’ - ie Westminster - knocks it down. Artificial creation of situations like this are unnecessary. They make @scotgov seem disingenuous. Portraying Scotland as helpless prey a big turn off for many. A pro-business, anti-red tape, but profoundly Scottish position which emphasises wealth creation and runs in sharp contrast to UK Govs woke mentality would be more attractive. Could even bolster the pro-independence vote when people have belief that comes with money in a bank account. Instead we seem stuck in a backward race to where business growth (and the public certitude that comes with) is just an aside, plugged into manifestos littered with tiny violins. Every woke box ticked. Parties likely to do well (SNP/Greens) prefer us to be victims in need of government rescue. That suggests their own confidence (or business acumen?) is not present. If they don’t have it I see no reason why voters, businesses or the economy will.

@theSNP You do understand that ‘free’ and ‘funded’ means it’s being paid for by other people? It comes out of their pay. Which has the opposite effect on the cost of living for people that work and contribute.

We will protect the best cost of living support package anywhere in the UK. A re-elected SNP government will protect free prescriptions, free eye tests, free tuition, free bus travel, lower Council Tax, free school meals, the Baby Box and funded childcare, while going further to help families with the cost of living. Make it #BothVotesSNP on May 7 for a government that’s on your side.

@Dennynews The bit that’s most unclear is how it’s going to be paid for when energy and fuel costs are going through the roof…how much will the bus operators be subsidised?

It’s unclear how this works. If you get on a coach at Buchanan Street bus station, will it cost £2 to get to Edinburgh Airport? £2 to get to Inverness?

@EMackintosh1 @theSNP So: Unnecessary Unworkable Costly Jealousy Tardy and unworkable Costly (again) Fantasy and costly (yet again) Divisive, costly and unnecessary. In that order.

A bold & ambitious @theSNP manifesto - on Scotland’s side. 🚌 Nationwide £2 bus cap 🧃 Cap on prices for essential food 🏠 £10,000 for first time buyers ✈️ Private Jet Tax 💻 Online harm tackled 👩‍🏫 Teacher Job Guarantee 🌱 Net zero by 2045 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 An independence referendum

@MorrisMay @Dennynews Exactly…since we have a single, internal UK market we’d get fewer goods/less choice or likely poorer quality goods to ensure profits remain intact.

@DougFitchet @Dennynews In addition, producers/wholesalers seek markets that pay a higher price. Empty shelves and queues for basics ensue

Waiting for John Swinney to launch the SNP manifesto in Glasgow. You’ll notice the placard top left: “Price cap on essential goods”. This was a previous call made by the party in 2023: dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/…