Ed Hall

@zarahsultana How can you make a thing about you without telling anyone you're making it about you?

Yesterday I was suspended from the Commons and escorted off the parliamentary estate for calling the Prime Minister a barefaced liar. I would do it again. Every person in this country knows that Keir Starmer is exactly that. I will always speak truth to power.

I was at the Prime Minister's important statement on the Peter Mandelson scandal. Mistakes were made but the Tory party are all about faux outrage when they presided over scandal after scandal They even had no anti-corruption tsar after last one resigned following Boris blunders

Starmer 2022: "Look, there are only two possible explanations. Either he's trashing the ministerial code, or he is claiming he was repeatedly lied to by his own advisers and did not know what was going on in his own house and his own office. Come off it."

@BethRigby He knew Mandy had a relationship with a paedophile, had a Russian company board seat post-Crimea, and hung out with Chinese govt figures. Obviously he would fail DV. Unless the vetting found something else, Starmer had already approved this. The PM had approved the job already.

ANALYSIS: Big day for PM. Two major tasks today. On procedure - he has to correct the record in the Commons and demonstrate he did not knowingly mislead the House over Mandelson appointment. But the real battle will be the politics and what it says about him - with serious Qs around integrity, judgement, taking responsibility. Meanwhile, the civil service quietly (for now) fulminating

@SaulStaniforth Cracking work @susannareid100

Susanna Reid to Douglas Alexander: "you're asking people to believe that a PM who used to be a DPP.. can have the wool pulled over his eyes.. it absolutely beggars belief & I imagine viewers are asking, do you think we're stupid?"

@SkyNews @TrevorPTweets Out of interest, what was out "exit plan" from WW2?

.@TrevorPTweets: Are you happy to be led by Sir Keir Starmer into the next general election? Liz Kendall: "100%, because he is a man of guts and strength and courage." #TrevorPhillips trib.al/aJdjpuD

@afneil @AJABurnett

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.

@Keir_Starmer prepares for today's shenanigans in #whitehall and #westminster as #mandelsongate refuses to die.

@PippaCrerar @JuliaHB1 @Keir_Starmer had already been told there were risks about the twice-sacked individual that involved China and Epstein and appointed him. The appointment had already been made, with those risks already presented to the PM and dismissed. Unless the vetting is about another risk?

EXCL: Keir Starmer would have blocked Peter Mandelson from serving as the UK’s ambassador to Washington had he known he failed security vetting, David Lammy tells me. The deputy PM also says: - it was “inexplicable” that Oliver Robbins opted to leave Downing Street in dark over outcome. - he was “shocked and surprised” when he first learned on Thursday what had happened. - neither he nor his advisers at time he was foreign sec had known about – or asked for information on – vetting process or its conclusions

@SBarrettBar Meanwhile... Starmer and Macron are currently preparing speeches for a big conference to demand the opening the Straits of Hormuz, which will be fun, given that they just re-opened.

BREAKING 🚨 I understand that Number 10 is arranging a special, emergency, cabinet meeting in central London tomorrow Where every cabinet minister and civil servant who needs to, can have their phone stolen Details to follow

Leaders @Keir_Starmer and @EmmanuelMacron are currently preparing speeches for their big conference to demand the opening the Straits of Hormuz, which will be fun, given that they just re-opened.

@115tpryan @CalumMillerLD No 10 senior spads are DV cleared and I know of two examples where they managed it in about a week, with referees and background checks. It was annoying for others as the DV backlog in government is a hold up to employment.

@CalumMillerLD But political appointees aren't DV'd. SPADs turn up the day a minister is appointed and operate without DV. Any vetting is light touch at best. So the reality could be a light touch process saw Mandelson waived through. Not great but there's precedent. Think Boris Johnson.

No10’s account is incredible. I held Developed Vetting for nearly ten years and spent three years at the heart of the Cabinet Office. I have never heard of a Developed Vetting denial being overruled. Here’s why…🧵

Funny how British PMs tend to pop over to Paris before resigning. Is it something in the water? #starmer @BBCPolitics @afneil #mandelson

@shanaka86 "Vice Chief General" is a new rank. 😬

JUST IN: You do not fire your Army Chief of Staff in the middle of a war for no reason. You fire him because of what comes next. Pete Hegseth called General Randy George on April 2 and told him to retire immediately. The Pentagon confirmed it within hours. No reason was given. Not publicly. Not privately. A senior Army official told Fox News that Hegseth offered George nothing: no misconduct, no operational failure, no policy disagreement on the record. Just a phone call and a career ending in the middle of the most significant American combat operation in two decades. George is the 24th general or admiral Hegseth has removed. But he is not the 24th. He is the one that matters. The Army Chief of Staff. The man whose signature sits between a president’s intent and the order that sends soldiers across a beach or into a tunnel complex. The 82nd Airborne is deploying right now. Marines from the 31st MEU are staged on the USS Tripoli. JSOC operators are at forward bases in Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Kharg Island, 90 percent of Iranian oil exports, sits 16 kilometres off a coast that someone will have to decide whether to approach. And the four-star general whose job it was to advise whether that approach should happen was removed 48 hours after Trump told the nation the war would continue for two to three more weeks. The replacement is Vice Chief General Christopher LaNeve. He was Hegseth’s senior military aide before this appointment. The man who carried the Secretary’s briefcase now commands the Army the Secretary is reshaping. The chain of command did not break. It shortened. The distance between a television studio and a combat order just collapsed to zero intermediaries who were not personally selected by the man giving the order. No reason was given. That is the tell. When someone is removed without explanation during a crisis, the explanation is the crisis itself. George either objected to something or was about to. The ground option. The power plant strikes. The Kharg raid. The escalation that turned a highway bridge in Karaj into rubble on the same day he was told to leave. Something in the next two weeks requires a chief who will not push back, and the Pentagon solved that problem by installing one trained as Hegseth’s aide. A former Fox News weekend host just fired a four-star general with combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, replaced him with his own former assistant, and did it during a live war in which the next decision could put American soldiers on Iranian soil for the first time in history. No hearing was held. No misconduct cited. The Army woke up on April 3 with a new chief it did not choose, in a war it did not start, preparing for a phase the previous chief apparently could not be trusted to execute. The question is not why George was fired. Every general in the building knows why. The question is what order is coming in the next fourteen days that required removing the one man in the chain of command who might have said no. The war has no perimeter. The chain of command has no objectors. And the next phase has no one left to stop it. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

@USronaldcarter Nobody abandoned anyone. The US went to war without putting in the hard yards first with its allies. Even if other states wanted to be supportive, every single Nato ally was blindsided by a decision that has huge consequences on them. That is poor leadership and poor allyship.

🚨 NOBODY KNOWS HOW FUCKED NATO ACTUALLY IS RIGHT NOW. In the last 72 hours, watch who walked away: 🇫🇷 France: Blocked US military overflight for weapons to Israel — FIRST TIME since war began Feb 28. Israel cut ALL defense procurement from France. 🇮🇹 Italy: Denied Sigonella air base landing to US bombers. Defense Minister said relations are "solid and loyal." DAYS after blocking US planes. 🇪🇸 Spain: Closed ENTIRE airspace to US operations. Blocked Naval Station Rota AND Morón Air Base. PM Sánchez called it "not NATO collective defense." 🇵🇱 Poland: Refused to redeploy Patriot batteries. US burned through 1,200+ interceptors in 16 days. Poland said no. 🇨🇭 Switzerland: Denied 2 US reconnaissance flights. Suspended $120,000,000 in weapons exports under "neutrality laws." 🇬🇧 UK: PM said "this is not our war." Trump told them to "build up some delayed courage." 🇩🇪 Germany: President Steinmeier called war "possibly illegal." WHILE hosting Ramstein — largest US base outside America. That is: France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Switzerland, UK, and Germany. All in ONE week. When this many allies abandon you at once, it's not a disagreement. It's a collapse.

@Eurostar hosted a fabulous evening at @IkoyiLondon tonight for a small group of frequent travellers. What a lovely group of people, and what a stunning restaurant. Eurostar catering managers there to hear feedback. Often first to complain, but not tonight. @MichelinGuideUK 2*

@netblocks What happens when millions of cloud servers, apps, email clients and enterprise databases try to update at the same time? Are @awscloud and @googledrive and other operators ready for that?

⚠️ Update: #Iran's internet blackout has entered day 32 with most users cut off from the outside world for over 744 hours. Extended digital isolation is bringing new challenges for Iranians, from expired domains and accounts to unpatched servers on a degrading national intranet.

And as an Easter bargain, chiselbury.co.uk @chiselbury are offering a 20% discount until 6 April using the code EASTER2026 😀

@lenatrobins @AnthonyAinsdale I blame Napoleon.

@AnthonyAinsdale When asked about this the prick we have as PM will blame the last government.

The french have 21 frigates & destroyers - 19 of which are at sea. We have just 12 - 2 of which are at sea. It's just embarrasing isn't it.

@MatthewStadlen Perfectly reasonable questions, don't you think?

So can we be just be clear? Journalists are alleging that Morgan McSweeney staged the theft of his phone, lied to police, and wasted police time, in order to hide messages to Mandelson? And that the Prime Minister might be implicated in a cover-up? These are extremely serious and defamatory allegations.