Peter Potts

@IainDale parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render his bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

New Article: Oh Mandy - The Sequel... The Scandal That Exposed Starmer "Starmer reminds us that he was a barrister. He knows that ignorance is no defence in a court of law. It follows therefore, that it is no defence in the court of public opinion." Read iaindale.com/articles/oh-ma…

@JChimirie66677 parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render his bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

The Warning Came in 2023. The Ignorance Defence Was Always a Lie The claim at the heart of Keir Starmer's survival strategy is simple. He did not know. He was not told. The system failed him. Set against that claim is a single reported fact that, if confirmed, ends the argument entirely. The Mail on Sunday is reporting that the security services handed Labour a dossier in 2023, while still in opposition, detailing Mandelson's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and raising concerns about his links to hostile states. Senior shadow ministers received it. The warning was formal, documented and delivered more than a year before Starmer announced the appointment in December 2024. If that report is accurate, the ignorance defence does not merely weaken. It disappears. A Prime Minister cannot claim he was kept in the dark about a security risk that his own party was formally warned about before he even took office. Set this alongside what is already on the record. Lammy has admitted his department was under time pressure to complete the appointment before Trump's inauguration. Civil servants treated the announcement as a fait accompli before vetting was complete. Robbins told a Commons committee in November that it was clear the Prime Minister wanted to make this appointment himself. Helen MacNamara, former Whitehall ethics chief, said Robbins's job was to do what the Prime Minister wanted. And the vetting process, working exactly as designed, subsequently said no. Now Liz Kendall and David Lammy are telling us Starmer would have blocked the appointment had he known. The claim requires us to believe several things simultaneously. That a Prime Minister so invested in the appointment that civil servants treated it as beyond question would have reversed course on the word of a vetting recommendation. That a man who knew about the Epstein connection, who had been warned about reputational risk in the formal vetting advice, who received the 2023 dossier through his shadow ministers, somehow remained genuinely ignorant of the security services' conclusion. And that Lammy, whose department sponsored the vetting, overrode the recommendation and admitted to time pressure, played no conscious role in ensuring the appointment proceeded. None of that holds together. The Kendall defence is hypothetical assertion dressed as character witness. The Lammy admission is the most revealing detail in this morning's reporting. Time pressure is not a justification for overriding the security services. It is a confession that the political timetable was placed above the security assessment. The appointment had to happen before Trump's inauguration. The vetting outcome was therefore, in practical terms, irrelevant to the decision. Robbins understood this. MacNamara has said so explicitly. The Prime Minister wanted the appointment. The civil service's job was to make it happen and manage the risks. When the security services said no, the Foreign Office reached for exceptional powers because the alternative was telling the Prime Minister that his chosen ambassador could not take up his post days before the new American administration arrived in Washington. Kendall and Lammy are asking the country to believe that same Prime Minister would have calmly accepted that news and cancelled the appointment. The man who sacked a civil servant for following the rules. The man who told Parliament three times that due process had been followed. The man whose own officials recorded in writing that they believed he had inadvertently misled the Commons. The 2023 dossier, if confirmed, closes the last door. Starmer was warned before he took office. He was warned during the appointment process. The security services said no. The appointment proceeded. The ignorance defence was always implausible. It is now, on the available evidence, unsustainable. Monday's statement will not save him. It will be measured against everything the documents have already established.

@KemiBadenoch parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render his bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

The Prime minister is putting his own interest above the national interest. The buck stops with him and the only decent response is to resign.

@pritipatel parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render this bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, gave the single most important diplomatic role for Britain to his Labour pal, Mandelson who failed vital security vetting for many important reason’s. Starmer claims he had no idea about it, so he sacks the most senior professional civil servant and blames everyone else for his incompetence. Starmer is a liability for Britain and must go. He is not fit to run the country.

@DPJHodges @ramonagusta parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render this bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

OK. So if he wasn't prevented by law, then there are only two other explanations. One is he did tell someone, and Starmer has been lying all along. Or the other one is he didn't tell them because he felt, or had been told, they didn't want to know.

@Telegraph @Goosey30111568 parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render this bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

🚨 EXCLUSIVE: Lord Mandelson was targeted by the Russian state for decades, The Telegraph can reveal. 🔗: telegraph.co.uk/politics/2026/…

@Channel4News parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render this bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

Pressure grows on Starmer over Mandelson appointment channel4.com/news/pressure-…

@PeterStefanovi2 parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render this bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

Keir Starmer tells the Mirror in Mandelson vetting row he's going to make it "crystal clear" he wasn't told about vetting failure - and should have been mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…

@AaronBastani Best thing you have ever posted , hope he blitzes a Banksy one day #Fraud.

This is Ghost Pitùr. An anonymous counter-cultural street artist in Brescia, Italy he….removes pointless tags and visual crap on otherwise attractive buildings. Otherwise known as cleaning up other people’s mess. Let a thousand Ghost Pitùrs bloom!

@mikegardner_wb parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render this bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

Pure cringe. Kendall tries to deflect from the issue by paying lip service to Labour caring about the victims of Epstein, but Trevor Phillips quickly skewers her.

@mjdaly57 @missyouemmy @francesbarber13 parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render this bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

Let it go. It’s like a weight lifted off your shoulders. I first voted in 1979. It started for me on that day in 2016 when the right wing of the PLP staged their coup to bring down Corbyn. And everything that’s played out since that’s led to this squalid Mandelson and Starmer imbroglio. Ten years of betrayal by the most ruthless bad faith actors I’ve ever seen in my life. Never Labour. Never again.

And I admit I’ve voted Labour all my life. I just feel despair now.

@Steven_Swinford parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render this bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

The government's case against Olly Robbins is two-fold First, that he was 'wrong' not to tell the PM or foreign secretary that Mandelson had failed security vetting. Second that he failed to inform the prime minister even after he made a series of public statements that due process had been followed, and eventually that he had been cleared The Robbins response is that he was bound by law not to inform ministers about the vetting process. And that the UK Security Vetting report was advisory - that it was for alone to make an executive decision Both of those positions are going to be tested to destruction this week in Parliament Here's Liz Kendall talking to @TrevorPTweets: 'I think it was wrong not to tell the PM or the foreign secretary that UK security vetting advised against the appointment and that the foreign office took a different view. That was wrong at the start. 'And then subsequently wrong because the prime minister and ministers made a series of statements in Parliament about it. It think that was a failure. That is why he lost the confidence of the prime minister and the foreign secretary.'

@JChimirie66677 @sachah46 parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render this bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

Starmer Was Warned About Russia and China. He Proceeded Anyway. Tomorrow He Calls It Unforgivable Tomorrow Keir Starmer will stand at the despatch box and tell Parliament it was unforgivable that he was not told Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting. He will present himself as a Prime Minister betrayed by his own system. He will speak of outrage and of lessons learned. He should not be allowed to do so unchallenged. Tonight the Telegraph has disclosed that Starmer was handed a due diligence report before the appointment was announced in December 2024. That report cited concerns about Mandelson's business interests in China, his connections to a Russian conglomerate whose chairman was an ally of Vladimir Putin, and his continued involvement with that organisation well after Russia's annexation of Crimea. The Telegraph has separately established that Mandelson was targeted by Russian intelligence for decades. Starmer read the report. He proceeded with the appointment. The UKSV vetting process subsequently reached the same conclusion. Senior Whitehall sources have told the Telegraph that the vetting findings largely restated the security risks already drawn to Starmer's attention. One source put it plainly. The reality is that Starmer had already been warned about the major risks and he had waved them away. Downing Street's response is to draw a distinction between due diligence and developed vetting, arguing that the two processes are separate and carry different weight. The distinction is technically correct and substantively irrelevant. A Prime Minister who reads a report flagging China and Russia concerns about a candidate, appoints him regardless, and then expresses staggering outrage when a more rigorous process reaches the same conclusion, has not been kept in the dark. He has chosen not to look. Consider what followed that choice. Mandelson was not merely appointed. He was granted Strap Three clearance, the highest level available to the Foreign Office, giving him access to information that could put intelligence sources at risk if leaked. A man targeted by Russian intelligence for decades. A man whose China connections alarmed American senators sufficiently to refer a dossier to the FBI. A man who had maintained a relationship with a convicted paedophile long after conviction and shared government information with him. That man was given access to material that could endanger lives. And the Prime Minister who had read the warnings says he was kept in the dark. Lord Glasman, one of Starmer's own, sent a memo to Morgan McSweeney after Trump's inauguration warning about Mandelson's Epstein connections. The 2023 dossier from the security services warned Labour shadow ministers about his links to hostile states. The due diligence report warned about China and Russia. The vetting process said no. At every stage, at every level, from the security services to his own party's senior figures, the warnings arrived. At every stage they were set aside. Tomorrow's statement will be framed as an act of transparency. It should be read as an act of audacity. A Prime Minister who received multiple warnings about a candidate's security risks, appointed him anyway, granted him access to the most sensitive intelligence material available, and then sacked the civil servant who followed the rules, is not a man who was let down by his system. He is a man who used his system to get the outcome he wanted and is now asking Parliament to believe he had no idea what that outcome would be. The country was promised full transparency. What it will receive tomorrow is a carefully constructed account of ignorance from a man the documentary record shows was warned, repeatedly and formally, before he made his choice. He read the warnings. He waved them away. The despatch box will not change that.

@Steven_Swinford @Artemisfornow parliamentary comments about vetting failures & the independent article render this bullshit just that … wilful blindness , reckless ignorance , failed duty to act #Starmer #Mandelson #Vetting

Sir Keir Starmer's war with Olly Robbins just went to a whole new level The government has tonight taken the pretty extraordinary step of publishing what appears to be* a new legal opinion on the legislation surrounding national security vetting Allies of Robbins have cited the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act, which states that ministers do not oversee the national security vetting system Robbins is using this as part of his argument for not informing Starmer that Mandelson had failed his initial security vetting. The process, they say, is 'rightly independent' - something ministers have also said in the Commons But the government appears to have commissioned new legal advice which states: 'No law stops civil servants sensibly flagging UK Security Vetting recommendations' The government appears to have commissioned an ad hoc legal opinion as ammunition for Starmer ahead of his appearance in the Commons tomorrow Allies of Robbins point out two things. 1) This appears to be new legal advice - it didn't exist when Mandelson was appointed 2) It doesn't demonstrate that Robbins *should* have informed Starmer. It is effectively passive They say that the government appears to be attempting to retrofit a legal opinion to make Starmer's argument against Robbins * I say appears to be as it doesn't seem to have been signed off by a government lawyer, but that's v much the suggestion I'm getting from inside Govt

Official side of the Mandy scandal continues to unravel. Starmer says he only learned about Mandelson flunking his vetting test last Tuesday. Couldn’t tell Parliament til he’d done lots of checking. But we now know his two most senior civil servants — Cabinet Secretary and Secretary to the Cabinet Office — had known for weeks, had the relevant docs and already done the checking. So he could have gone to Parliament late Wednesday or anytime Thursday. The fact he didn’t is the reason, I believe, the story leaked to Guardian on Thursday — whistleblowers feared a cover up to took matters into their own hands.

@_InfoGram_ Tit Walzer

🔴This is ABSOLUTE BRAVERY 🔥 🇺🇸Governor Tim Walz — "We are sick of this. A weak, reckless, Idiotic president just threw us into a war nobody asked for. No threat existed. No objectives were set. No exit plan exists. This is pure fascism." What a COURAGE 🔥 👏

#BBC #Starmer BBC trying to dig Starmer out of his grave with their framing of 5 easy questions … ridiculous … they ain’t setting this agenda. 1. What did McSweeney know and when ? 2. Why were the Independent article and parliamentary comments not followed up ? For starters.

@WojtusciszynP Paul is known for packing his flute with high grade herb and smoking it until his little remainer brain goes POP ! . #StarmerTheClown

This whole media frenzy instrumented by the Guardian has been done at this time to derail Labour just before the elections at a time when the PM had good approval ratings over his handling of the war with Iran, plus good news with the economy starting to pick up so nothing new!

@afneil The independent told them , as did a statement made by an opposition minister in parliament …

Government comes out swinging making clear there is no law that prevented Oliver Robbins from informing the PM or other relevant ministers from sharing the outcome of Mandelson’s security vetting. Nor should there be.

Oh