Starmer, Mandelson and the rotten core of British politics
There is something rotten in the state of Britain. That’s the theme of my Inside The Lords this month.
Currently, there is a mad dash to shove through as many laws as possible before parliament is prorogued. Seeing the amount of horse trading and backroom deals involved – all resulting in worse laws being passed – would be enough to disillusion even the most earnest legislator. If only the public knew, I keep reflecting (while trying to reveal what I can).
But this corruption of law-making pales into insignificance compared to the never-ending scandal created by the Prime Minister’s appointment of Peter Mandelson. It really reveals not just the shadiness of the SW1 machine, but at the same time the total emptiness of the politics of Keir Starmer. Even discounting what Starmer knew and when, one really thinks he brought this whole thing on himself; the arch technocrat undone by the most technocratic of scandals.
What an unedifying and dispiriting backdrop to the local elections. This important democratic exercise – which, to remind ourselves, the government tried to cancel a large part of – puts the power to shape politics in the hands of voters. Sir Keir’s sanctimonious managerialism – lashing out and blaming anyone but himself for the mess – seems to represent the antithesis of this kind of democratically accountable power. Indeed, Starmer’s evasiveness calls into question the very purpose of Government: the responsibility to steer and shape society, look out for its security, and ensure its public services are well-provisioned.
It is easy to become preoccupied with internal regime change. Calls for Keir Starmer to resign, demands for no-confidence votes and so on, were reinforced by the incompetence and cowardice on display in that excruciating two-hour Starmer-grilling in the Commons. The more we hear about the internal workings of Number 10, the worse it gets. There was the mind-boggling revelation that someone in Number 10 thought any comms guy (let alone a dodgy Comms guy like Matthew Doyle, recently suspended from Labour over links to ANOTHER paedophile) could be shoehorned into a senior diplomatic post. And let us not forget the utterly stupid decision to summarily sack Olly Robbins (rather ironic coming from a political party that has hectored employers about the importance of employment rights). The examples all point to a mammoth lack of judgement by Starmer.
Apart from anything else, this has turned a leading member of ‘The Blob’, into a martyred, hard-done-by victim. It has also lifted a lid on the intricacies of procedure: watching the forensic questioning of Sir Olly by (to her credit) Emily Thornberry MP, one might believe that all we need is to become better informed about the minutiae of vetting procedures.
But let us not get drawn into the technocratic weeds. In the first place, it risks painting the civil service (who we know are all-too-often a brake on democratic decision-making) as the victims of a political psychodrama.
But more fundamentally, a ‘Starmer-is-the-problem’ narrative misses the point of a deeper crisis of the state. How telling that ministers are so indignantly furious at the leak to The Guardian – the only reason the public now know that the Prince of Darkness failed a security vetting procedure – that they’ve set up an urgent Inquiry.
These are the same Ministers who endlessly and disgracefully prevaricated before setting up the rape grooming gangs inquiry in relation to one of the greatest state cover-ups of sexual abuse in modern history. The same Ministers who glibly tell us ‘Lessons will be learned’ in response to the shocking confirmation by the Southport Inquiry that the massacre of those three little girls by Axel Rudakabana was “PREVENTABLE” but state agencies ignored the evil hiding in plain sight.
And if you want a vivid, horrifying example of the state’s contempt and indifference to citizens’ safety, follow the Nottingham Inquiry into Valdo Calocane’s brutal murder of 19-year-old students Barnaby Webber and Grace O’Malley-Kumar, and caretaker Ian Coates. Also preventable. And as Labour peer Lord George Robertson framed it, calling out his own Government over their failure to rearm the UK at speed in the face of growing threats (while welfare spending rises exponentially), we have a political elite dominated by“corrosive complacency” about the state of the state. Something must be done.
Such examples – and there are so many more – remind us that while the state’s legitimacy can only be conferred by the people – the demos – it often appears the contemporary state is set explicitly against ordinary people, who are seen as a problem to be managed, a source of danger, as something for the state to be protected from. That’s one reason that I will be attending Ideas Matter’s Academy this year, aptly titled HOLLOW LEVIATHAN: THE STATE AGAINST THE DEMOS (August 22-23). Tickets and more here: Hollow Leviathan: the state against the demos - The Academy 2026 - Ideas Matter
And, as ever, some of my recent speeches below:
On the social media ban for young people
On the Southport Inquiry
On GB News discussing our zombie parliament: