Samantha Hathaway

@PatrickChristys To open up the Straits (after the USA have taken out Irans Navy and Air defence)

How ridiculous is this? Starmer’s flying to another country to co-host a Zoom call to escape the Mandelson scandal

@mikegardner_wb 🤣

BREAKING NEWS: “Starmer denies knowing he was Prime Minister” Sir Kier Starmer has revealed that no one told him until last Tuesday he won the 2024 election and had become PM. He told Beth Rigby “I was totally kept in the dark by my officials. I’m really angry about it.”

@EssexPR Chagos, Chinese solar farms, Powell, spies, anything else?

There are rumours that it was Mandelson’s China links that made him fail the vetting… When you look at the Embassy deal and other matters, you have to ask… Is Keir Starmer compromised?

@Steven_Swinford Little let the Cat out of the bag

BREAKING: Number 10 has published a summary of the meeting on Tuesday evening when Sir Keir Starmer was told that Mandelson was appointed despite failing to clear security vetting It states that Cat Little, the permanent secretary of the foreign office, reviewed files confirming that 'the recommendatoin from the vetting officer had been that DV should not be granted to Peter Mandelson' 'The PM was not aware of any of this before the meeting, including that it was possible to grant DV against the advice of UKV' It will also publish the template summarising the recommendation not to give Mandelson clearance. It will be published - filled in - with the next tranche of documents. It includes a box for ''clearance denied or withdrawn', which presumably applies to Mandelson

@JuliaHB1 We said this last night, bet he leaves the country! 🤦🏻‍♀️

Flying to another country to co-host a VIRTUAL summit. You couldn't make this stuff up. 🤯

@laird01554927 But this has wider National Security implications

Anyone else totally bored with everything Mandelson, apart from the Westminster bubble, and the right wing media who love this, with so much going on in the World let it drop. Starmer has done well with World events and let his finish that. #bbcbreakfast #skynews #GMB

@Peston @ONS Not construction

The claim of the Chancellor and PM that the economy was recovering nicely before Trump’s Iran war has this morning been corroborated by @ONS. See attached. All history now though, due to Trump’s extreme energy shock

@christiancalgie 🤣🤣🤣

Darren Jones is first minister to do interviews since last night: - Claims he has suspended the right of departments to overrule the recommendations put to them by UK security vetting - Says it’s astonishing it was ever allowed - PM not told about this until Tuesday evening. Asked Cabinet Secretary to investigate so he could go to the Commons - Olly Robbins was sacked, not resigned - Says he wants nation to believe the government

@PhilMyers53 @Keir_Starmer Errr National Security??

Personally, I don't think @Keir_Starmer is a liar. He's acknowledged his mistake. Nobody died, now back to Trump and Badenoch + Farage and joining his war....

@GreatBritishTT Saying out loud what we all feel since the banking crisis, green shoots stamped out by Covid and Ukraine War and now compounded by a high tax, low growth government.

Britain's poorest tenth has less real income, after housing, than in 2004. The middle hasn't moved in 15 years. The top already pays 60% of all income tax. UK real wage growth: 15th of 19 in the G20. Not a recession. A policy regime. The Quiet Depression → gbtt.info/wages-by-decil…

@JChimirie66677 Something we’ve been arguing against for years now in the countryside, huge solar panel farms, Chinese supplied, springing up over prime farmland. They won’t work when China turns the kill switch and we can’t eat solar panels.

Exercise Turnstone: What the Government Knew and Wouldn't Tell You. Peter Kyle went on television this morning to tell us to relax. Enjoy your beer, he said. Enjoy your meats. Enjoy your salads. This from a minister whose own government has been war-gaming, under the codename Exercise Turnstone, a scenario in which Britain's carbon dioxide supplies collapse to 18% of normal levels by June. A scenario in which chicken and pork disappear from supermarket shelves. A scenario in which competition rules are suspended and emergency legislation is rushed through Parliament within days. The war in Iran is the convenient explanation. But convenience and truth are not the same thing. Britain did not arrive at this moment of food vulnerability because of events in the Strait of Hormuz. It arrived here because of choices made in Downing Street and the Treasury long before a single missile was fired. The Iran conflict is the match. This government built the bonfire. Start with the land. At the last count, ground-mounted solar panels already cover an estimated 52,000 acres of British countryside. The government's own target requires solar capacity to increase to nearly three times its current level by 2030, with up to 65% of that coming from large-scale ground installations. CPRE analysis shows that 59% of England's largest solar farms sit on productive agricultural land, with almost a third classified as the nation's best and most versatile farmland. Fields that grew wheat are being sealed under panels for up to 60 years. Rewilding compounds it. Hundreds of tenant farmers across England, Wales and Scotland are being removed from land their families have worked for generations, replaced by carbon credit schemes, ESG funds, and institutional investors. The National Trust has plans to rewild 250,000 hectares of its estate. One farmer walked away from land he had worked for 30 years after being told to cut his livestock by 85%. The government's own land use targets earmark 760,000 hectares, nine percent of all agricultural land, for full conversion to non-food use by 2050. Nine percent. Gone. Then there is what the Chancellor has done to the economics of farming and food production. The April 2025 National Insurance hike and the minimum wage rise, up 40% since 2020, have driven costs through the entire food supply chain from field to shelf. Food inflation hit 5.1% by August last year. The Food and Drink Federation forecasts it will reach at least 9% by December, and that projection was made before the Iran conflict added further pressure. These are not global commodity prices at work. Analysts are explicit: the current round of food price inflation is domestically driven, a direct consequence of fiscal decisions made in the October 2024 Budget. The IMF has already said Britain faces the worst economic hit in the G7 from the Iran conflict. That is partly because we are more exposed than we needed to be. A government serious about energy security would not have banned new North Sea licensing while Norway, drilling from the same sea, reached a 16-year production high and sold us £20 billion worth of oil and gas last year. A government serious about food security would not be converting prime arable land into solar parks and rewilding estates while war-gaming CO2 shortages in secret. Peter Kyle said the public should be reassured. Reassured by what, exactly? By a minister telling them to enjoy their salads while Cobra plans for the shelves to empty? The government does not have a food security problem caused by Iran. It has a food security problem caused by itself. The war simply made it impossible to hide.

@Steven_Swinford We have lost confidence in the PM and his cabinet

BREAKING Sir Olly Robbins, permanent secretary at the foreign office, is out The PM and foreign secretary have lost confidence in him No 10 says foreign office failed to tell the PM and anyone in No 10 that Mandelson had failed security vetting He will be leaving his post

@PaulBrandITV @BBCNewsnight This is laughable, the failure to inform the PM of a failed security vetting of such an important position is a failure of national security, why would a civil servant take this on their shoulders and not inform.

Starmer will be relieved that the vibe among Labour MPs tonight seems to be that they believe the PM and blame the civil service. Both Chris Curtis and Barry Gardiner on @BBCNewsnight angrier with Foreign Office than Starmer, suggesting Olly Robbins should be the one to resign.

@CalumMillerLD Failures to inform of the failed security vetting is a failure of national security in itself, why would a civil servant take this on their shoulders.

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…🧵

@Liam_Holman99 It’s inconceivable that the PM (and Lammy) did not know the most important ambassador appointment failed vetting, he’s either a liar or an incompetent Leader.

Starmer did not lie. He was lied to.

@DavidDavisMP @AllisonPearson Whichever scenario, he knew and lied, he did not know at all, stated mandleson lied personally to his face but he never even met, each one is misleading and a failure of a leader

In what sort of Government does the Foreign Office override a vetting failure for the most senior ambassadorship in the world without notifying the Prime Minister? It must be presumed that Starmer knew of this vetting failure when he officially appointed him. Frankly, this calls into question the Prime Minister's claims that he made the decision because Mandelson had lied to him, since he would have had the accurate conclusions of the vetting process when he made the decision. theguardian.com/politics/2026/…

@Steven_Swinford @julianHjessop The broader question is if the PM did not know such an important appointment had failed vetting, why is he still in his job, surely he would have checked, asked?? Or he appointed him before vetting and regardless.

If the official line ends up being that Keir Starmer didn't know, his private office didn't know, that Number 10 didn't know, that the Cabinet Office didn't know, it poses so many questions Taking that claim at face value for a moment: 1) Why did Starmer assert ***categorically*** that Mandelson had cleared security vetting when he hadn't? 2) Why did Starmer and No 10 repeatedly, over a period of many months, say that 'due process' had been followed when it hadn't? 3) Why did the Foreign Office not inform the prime minister that Mandelson had failed his vetting? 4) Is it really credible that the foreign office decided to take this decision in some kind of hermetic bubble - a decision of huge consequence, with direct ramifications for the prime minister? It seems insane 5) In February, when humble address was tabled including the request for all information about Mandelson's vetting, did nobody think to check that Mandelson had indeed passed his vetting? 6) Why were documents about Mandelson's security vetting withheld from the first tranche of the Mandelson files? They were specifically requested in the humble address and yet they are absent. The Guardian reports that there is a debate in government about whether they will be published? The broader question for the prime minister is whether **not knowing** that Mandelson had failed his vetting was enough of an excuse for giving categoric public assurances that he had cleared vetting in public

So it sounds like The Guardian's extraordinary story that Lord Mandelson failed his security vetting clearance but was overruled by the foreign office is broadly correct - some kind of statement is in the offing It's not clear what that will say, but the line I've had from a few people is that No 10 was completely unaware - including Starmer. Cabinet Office's PET also said to be unaware. Which seems insane Morgan McSweeney was said to be unaware. Mandelson himself was said to be unaware If so it obviously poses big questions for the foreign office and particularly Olly Robbins, the permanent secretary But most of all it poses questions for Starmer and his Number 10 operation. The prime minister repeatedly told the Commons that 'full due process had been followed'. He said that 'there was security vetting by the security services' He told a press conference *explicitly* that 'security vetting... which is an intensive exercise... ***gave him [Mandelson] clearance for the role***'

@RachelReevesMP 🤣

These growth figures show the Government has the right plan to build a stronger more resilient economy. But the war in Iran will come at a cost. That is why we are taking the right, fair and necessary action to protect families and businesses.

@Peston This is ludicrous, it is impossible that the PM should keep his job! What a situation to expect us to believe he was unaware of security vetting on such an important appointment, and if he wasn’t that’s reason itself to go, incompetence.

Downing Street says neither the PM or the then foreign secretary David Lammy knew that Peter Mandelson failed security vetting to be US ambassador till a few days ago. Sources say they are incandescent that they were not told. The clear implication is that the permanent under secretary at the foreign office Olly Robbins over-ruled the vetting recommendation and never told ministers. If that is right, and no official is denying that, it is impossible to see how he keeps his job

@PippaCrerar What a cop out! Just flabbergasted that our PM was not briefed, completely unbelievable.

BREAKING: Downing Street says that neither Keir Starmer nor David Lammy knew that Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting - and lays blame with Foreign Office official for overruling the decision.