Graeme Purves

Scottish Elections, the State of Scottish Labour and Independence | Kirsty Hughes in her Europe & Scotland Newsletter. #ScottishPolitics🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 kirstyhughes.substack.com/p/scottish-ele…

@JasonGroves1 I hope Olly Robbins fights for his career and doesn't allow Starmer to use him as a patsy. I hope he has integrity and comes out to tell the truth!

@JasonGroves1 @suziegeewizz It wasn't a secret from ministers. Starmer read the vetting report at the time. He admits it here...

@JasonGroves1 This guy? The guy that gave evidence to confirm Mandelson was a political appointment and one that Starmer wanted to go ahead with? Yeah, I don't think Olly is to blame tbh.

So the story seems to be that Olly Robbins - a career civil servant leading a dept that had warned against Mandelson's appointment - decided of his own volition to overrule the security services and to keep it a secret from ministers. Righto

Starmer's go-to excuse: 'I was in the dark'. Don't believe it. He's deeply in the loop From Jimmy Savile to Peter Mandelson, Starmer has followed a trajectory of career-enhancing ignorance. He knows far more than he lets on. It's the reason, after all, why he was knighted Sir Keir Starmer must be the most ignorant man ever to have entered high office. Here are a few highlights: * As Director of Public Prosecutions, Starmer was apparently never consulted on his office’s decision, in late 2009, not to prosecute prolific, and highly connected, paedophile Jimmy Savile, despite Savile being one of the most famous figures in Britain. Starmer claims he didn’t even know that his own Crown Prosecution Service had opened a file on Savile, a friend to the then Prince, now King, Charles. It will never be possible to confirm or dispute Starmer’s account because all the CPS files related to the case were destroyed – under Starmer’s watch. * Again as DPP, Starmer was supposedly not informed that the CPS was insisting through 2010 and 2011 that Sweden press on with sexual assault allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, despite a lack of evidence. Assange had deeply embarrassed the UK and US by exposing their war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Starmer’s officials again secretly destroyed the email trail between the CPS and Sweden that would likely have illuminated his role in the affair. * As Labour leader, Starmer apparently had no knowledge of the fraudulent activitiesbeing carried out by Labour Together, the shadowy think tank that brought him to power, including its covert campaign to smear journalists who tried to expose its criminal acts. * As prime minister, Starmer claims to have had no idea of the depth of the ties between Peter Mandelson and serial paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, even though Mandelson was the most influential figure in the Labour party backing his bid to become leader. In return, Starmer would promote Mandelson in late 2025 as ambassador to the US. * Starmer said this week that he was kept in the dark that Mandelson had, in fact, failed vetting by the British security services for the post of ambassador. That requires that we believe his own Foreign Office, which overruled the security services’ decision, did so without consulting with him. This is one long trajectory of career-enhancing ignorance and incompetence. Does any of it sound even vaguely plausible? There are lots of clues as to what might really be going on. Such as a spate of secret flights to Washington by Starmer in 2011, when he was DPP, to meet top US law officials that, against protocol, went unrecorded. What was discussed will never be known because all CPS files related to the flights were, once again, destroyed. However, the meetings are likely to have included discussions, later acted on, to seek Assange’s extradition to the US for political crimes so he could be disappeared into one of its super-max jails. Or Starmer’s decision in 2017, as a shadow cabinet minister, to secretly join the shadowy, CIA-linked Trilateral Commission without telling the Labour party’s then leader, Jeremy Corbyn. Notably, Lord Mandelson has also enjoyed the rare “privilege” of being invited to join the Commission. Or Starmer’s failure to declare to Labour members that his campaign to become Labour leader had been underwritten by prominent pro-Israel lobbyist Trevor Chinn. Secrecy and destruction of records have been a consistent pattern under Starmer. Chinn was also the key funder of the Labour Together think-tank, which failed to declare its funding – and main donors – in violation of Electoral Commission rules, most likely to prevent Labour members knowing that its activities were being bankrolled, and the party captured, by billionaires like Chinn. Starmer is far more in the loop than he lets on. After all, that is precisely why he is Sir Keir Starmer. For nearly two decades, his job has been to do exactly what the British establishment has demanded of him. Find the article, with links to sources, in the reply post ⬇️

IMPORTANT: PMQs Wed 4 Feb Starmer asked 'did the security vetting he received mention Mandelson's relationship with Epstein' Starmer answers: 'yes it did' So Starmer had seen the DV vetting So how can he have been unaware that Mandelson had failed that DV? #receipts

The problem with Starmerism is that you eventually run out of other people to blame.

Genuinely, if there weren't elections 3 weeks away you'd be expecting his party to be making moves to remove him as soon as possible.

@meljomur @Heccles94 Starmer, with less charisma and integrity. 🤨

@Heccles94 Imagine Wes Streeting as PM. See it could get worse.

It’s hard to see how Starmer shouldn’t go. But I can’t see any clear way forward which benefits society at the minute if he does.

@ProfJMitchell Given your vast practical experience in developing successful public policy, do you expect to be called upon to advise the incoming Reform/Labour government?🧐 #GrovesofAcademe #IvoryTowers

When I teach public policy courses -undergrad, postgrad, practitioners training, I care less about *what* people support but insist on a focus on *how*: the (opportunity) costs, unintended consequences, coherence, spillovers, implementation... The *what* is meaningless otherwise.

@ZackPolanski 🇬🇧MSM Then: ‘He’s a human rights lawyer, he’s forensic’ 🇬🇧MSM Now: ‘He didn’t know anything about it…’ Clueless Keith or Conniving Keir, either way he should Resign‼️

There's no way today should end without Starmers resignation. Any other outcome would an absurd scenario where this Labour Government - and all in it - would be laughing in our faces.

.@HackneyAbbott: ".. it is inconceivable that ministers didn't know.. its just not possible that number ten didn't know" 🎯

[senior politician trying to defend themselves] No, no. You've got it all wrong. I'm just implausibly stupid.

A former Labour frontbencher told me about a culture of fear permeating the party: “Everyone is so scared to speak, and people are getting suspended for anything.” The Mandelson-McSweeney-Starmer regime ruled Labour with an iron fist, but their fall now looks closer than ever.

BREAKING: Another MP calls for Keir Starmer to resign. Following my investigations into the Mandelson-McSweeney cabal running the Labour Party, the MP for Thirsk and Malton, @KevinHollinrake, granted me an exclusive interview this morning. Here’s what he told me:🧵

I don't normally publish conversations with Downing Street but this was my initial exchange with Downing Street's then director of communications over Mandelson failing vetting on 11 September last year.

As Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson passed classified government information to convicted paedophile and “best pal” Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson had two deputies at the time: David Lammy and Pat McFadden. Lammy has vehemently defended Mandelson in the past.

The North Yorkshire MP told me about Starmer’s rise to power: “We were first elected in the same year and I always thought he was a decent, honest bloke, but since he’s become PM he’s proved anything but. Starmer would say black is white to save his own skin.”