Mandelson failed security vetting. Starmer says he didn’t know

As a socialist I am not a fan of Labour under Starmer but neither am I in the camp of people here who have been baying for Starmer’s blood since 5 July 2024.

I am trying to understand what may have happened and take an objective view.

Reading various opinions from people who seem to understand the process, this from Calum Miller Lib Dem Foreign Affairs spokesperson is the most level-headed and unbiased one I have read

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…

Developed Vetting (DV) is close to the highest level of security clearance. You need it to read material classified as Top Secret. For regular civil servants, it can take up to six months.

An investigator - usually a retired police or intelligence officer - looks into all aspects of your life: your lifetime addresses and overseas travel, your financial affairs, your relationships.

This matters because if you are vulnerable to blackmail, bribery or extremism, you could give or sell secrets that put lives at risk. It is a high, serious bar. I have known cases where people failed and were never told why. I have never known one be overruled.

Scenario 1: someone in No10 let it be known that Mandelson HAD TO be appointed. When he failed his DV, someone senior in the FCDO decided that was not acceptable and insisted it was revised, without telling No10.

Scenario 2: Mandelson failed DV. No10 was informed, did not tell the PM, and someone senior in the FCDO insisted it be revised.

Scenario 3: Mandelson failed DV. No10 was informed, told the PM, and Starmer insisted it be revised.

None of these are good scenarios for Starmer. Either there is a culture of fear between No10 and FCDO that overrides national security concerns (1) or No10 overrides national security concerns without telling Starmer (2) or Starmer has lied (3).

(2) is the one being put forward as an explanation. I suspect McSweeney was involved somehow.

What we do know from the furore over Mandelson just a few weeks ago was that he was appointed because he was thought to be the best person to deal with Trump. Everybody apart from the FT praised the decision.

People are calling for Starmer’s head but this is the worst time to be changing leader while Trump's madness and the war in the Middle East continues.

Just as before we will have another two or three days of media onslaught. What will be achieved by it?

Epstein gets to the screw the UK from the grave. Brexit, the overthrow of Theresa May to be replaced by Johnson, the rise of Farage who is up to his neck in the whole Epstein/Orban/Bannon network. Why are some people so keen for this to keep happening?

Did civil servants lie by omission?

The Labour Party will keep him in to sacrifice post the local elections on 7th May I think.

Nobody wants it till after that date.
Let Starmer carry the can of defeat. Then watch them scrabble for pole position!

Just as before we will have another two or three days of media onslaught. What will be achieved by it?

The departure of a corrupt, incompetent Prime Minister.

ronib

Yvette Cooper?

Fair point and also Angela Rayner, God forbid. I have little time for Sir Keir Starmer but would rather he stayed than either of these 2.

Milliband

I have wondered whether Starmer would quit just before the May elections so that he will be out of the line of fire when the results come in. I bloody well hope so 😡😡

You already know the election results?
There's another thread here about psychics and people who can see the future...

They were so sure at that time that Mandelson would be the perfect Trump whisperer, no one was thinking straight. At the time all the leaders were trying to do anything to placate Trump. It was always going to end on tears!

I don't think it was to placate Trump, rather that wily Mandelson would have the measure of Trump and be able to deal with his erratic behaviour.

Unfortunately, it was not to be.

Why are some peopke so keen for this to happen? Because my morality doesn't include supporting the appointment of a man who gave government information to a paedophile. I understand people have different morality but it just isn't mine. I was absolutely against the appointment of mandelson and said it would end in disaster. For what it is worth I think it will bring about the end for Starner.

We have been here before with Evgeny Lebedev’s peerage.

Mandelson wasn't known as the Prince of Darkness for nothing; it was a well earned title right back in the 1990s.

OldFrill

Milliband

Minibrain?
Please, Noooooooo!

BBC has update on this a few minutes ago.

Allira

I don't think it was to placate Trump, rather that wily Mandelson would have the measure of Trump and be able to deal with his erratic behaviour.

Unfortunately, it was not to be.

Yes, that was obviously the plan.

FWIW, I think there is some doubt on whether Starmer knew: listened to the midnight news on R4.

Starmer didn't know? Surely nobody believes that.

He’ll cling on - the nature of the man. Any other PM would have resigned a long time ago.

FriedGreenTomatoes2

Boris was kicked out for attending a small birthday gathering (which he did not plan) during covid. Starmer has been mired in scandal from his earliest days, but remains in office.
How?

Johnson did not resign because of Partygate or a birthday cake but because of a series of events culminating in him appointing somebody with a history of sexual misconduct Johnson claimed he didn’t know about despite joking about it. His colleagues were so fed up with his constant mess ups several of them resigned and Johnson had no alternative but to resign. The five issues that led to his forced resignation are summarized below.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62070422

The Buck-Passing Olympics are now under way........

Johnson became PM despite attending a private party in Italy (when foreign minister) without his security men and held by a former head of KGB . He was photographed obviously the worse for wear the following morning. It's never been reported what he was doing there. It was clearly a massive breech of security.

The Prime Minister claims he did not know about the vetting of Mandelson. He did not ask?

Lack of attention to detail to detail has brought down far more competent politicians than Starmer.
A moderately clever man regarding everyone else as a fool is another path to disaster.

He’s a lawyer. Of course he pays attention to detail. The problem is his attention to truth.

The right wing press have had it in for Starmer from day one. It’s sad that people have such short memories of the 14 years of Tory misrule. It wasn’t just Johnson who was appallingly bad, don’t forget Truss, who still thinks she did no wrong. In these treacherous times for the world, Starmer is the only choice really to handle the shenanigans created by trump. Can you see Badenoch, or words fail me, Farage on the world stage?