The perfect moment to re-up Stuart McGurk's piece for @prospectmagazine.co.uk about the rise of the man who dominated the Labour party only to become a symbol of Starmer's failing government www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/lab...

The Home Office now describes asylum seekers as "illegal immigrants [living in hotels]" with no reference to the reason that these people are in government-funded accommodation is that this government has taken & will process the asylum claim from them in 98-99% of cases of unauthorised entry.

Hate-filled fake videos about London are everywhere. We've obtained a recording of a TikToker confessing to secretly filming Londoners in their homes for clicks. He says it's not political. He just wants to make money from far-right anger. Read what he says: www.londoncentric.media/p/london-tik...

Breaking — Will Lewis out at the Washington Post. He just sent this email to staff (shared with me by staffer):

In @nytopinion.nytimes.com The latest Epstein files release shows how he won favor and friendships, Molly Jong-Fast writes in a guest essay. “It’s the record of what a global class of very privileged, accomplished and self-important people want to get gifted.”

icymi here’s the story from last Sunday of how FT revealed the money trail from Epstein to Mandelson’s husband and then to the former ambassador himself

NEW: Reform UK’s flagship council, Kent, has been accused of telling a “blatant lie” after its claim of nearly £40m in savings on net zero were found to be based on hypothetical projects for which there was no documentation. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Incredible stuff from @wsj.com www.wsj.com/us-news/igno...

It is terribly sad that the former PM feels the need to say this in the face of low life blowhards. We cannot allow this to even be a question. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

One of the (maybe intended) devastating effects of all the sleaze coming out on the political stage is people disengaging even more thinking what’s the point, they’re all as bad as each other etc. But remember things can get worse and hope is about words & actions not a passive state of delusion.

It’s mid-morning at Hadrian’s Wall and the Romans have already lost again. Not to the Picts this time, or to the weather, or even to the slow grind of history. But to Lee Anderson. www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/723...

😘 👌

So as I struggled with miscarriage after miscarriage before having my 🌈 baby, Reform would seriously think I should pay more tax during that agony. This policy isn’t just a slippery slope to a handmaids tale dystopian future - it’s a deliberate step towards it www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/poli...

Wonderful. Every paragraph contains a gem. 🤣😂

New on FT website: Downing Street has refused to say whether Sir Keir Starmer knew Palantir was a client of Peter Mandelson’s lobbying firm when they both visited the company in Washington last February — ahead of it winning a £240mn UK government contract. www.ft.com/content/5bba...

"Soon it is already mid-afternoon. Following a collaboration-fostering knot exercise that culminates in Kruger losing a shoe, it is time for the trust fall" @mrhenrymorris.substack.com reports from the front lines of a Reform defectors' away day www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/723...

Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon exchanged frequent friendly iMessages—thread:

UPDATE: Asked the White House how it could defend Trump’s racist post of the Obamas as just showing “Democrats as characters from The Lion King" given it has no gorillas. They repeated the defense … and then blamed it on an unnamed staffer who "erroneously made the post." "It has been taken down."

For the love of God Epstein sent woman to British anti-trafficking charity boss www.thetimes.com/us/news-toda...

A screenshot from a video posted on Trump's Truth Social account: truthsocial.com/@realDonaldT...

"You’re a perfectly decent man who means well. But you’re not a politician, and you knew that all along. And that is why you have to take the blame" excellent column by @patrickmaguire.bsky.social www.thetimes.com/comment/colu...

A year to the day since Mandelson told the FT that their questions about Epstein were "an FT obsession and frankly you can all fuck off." I wonder if the paper sent him a card, @pickardje.bsky.social?

The team at @dropsitenews.com made a “JMail” web app for the Epstein docs with better search capabilities than the Justice Department website. Type in “Ehud Barak” and give it a whirl:

NEW: I spent hours combing through the references to #MeToo in the latest tranche of Epstein files. I found Epstein closely tracked the fallout of #MeToo, joked about being in a "pariahs club," and advised men accused of misconduct behind the scenes 19thnews.org/2026/02/jeff...

was wondering how long before china came into it, full house now

new US policy, any person being a non-angel liable to summary execution. thank you for your attention to this matter.

here’s our 2,000 word report from June 2023: www.ft.com/content/0723...

Doesn't seem like the best day for Starmer to reheat "you lefties [on the backbenches/in the Labour membership/in the Labour electorate] just don't get it" Blue Labour type arguments?

Exactly!

Gonna need to see a bit more detail soon from the Met Police about what exactly is being prejudiced by not releasing these docs when there is no active proceedings or charges.

Frog FURIOUS that Scorpion promised not to sting.

Reform have announced a new Welsh leader. You will be shocked to hear that it is a former Conservative...

Weird and almost universal revisionism today. Even at the time, it was pretty clear that Mandelson wasn't appointed *despite* his dodgy links but *because* of them. Trump's Washington is a dirty swamp. Mandelson was deemed a man able to swim in it. This wasn't a secret. Everybody said it out loud.

Deepak Chopra in the Epstein Files writing, "God is a construct, Cute girls are real." In this same exchange, he responds to Epstein, asking, "Did you find me a cute israeli? :)" with "Cute girls are aware when they make noises." www.justice.gov/epstein/file...

INBOX: Washington Post Ukraine Correspondent Lizzie Johnson announces that she has been laid off in the middle of a below-freezing war zone without power, heat, or running water.

Lord Mandelson in disgrace The new Private Eye is out now.

A staggering statement from former Washington Post editor Marty Baron: "This ranks among the darkest days in the history of one of the world's greatest news organizations."

I have never seen anger like this on the Labour benches in private and in public. This is the kind of territory where things can move very fast.

Watching TikTok, YouTube and Reddit bake the Epstein emails like it's 2016. No, Pizzagate isn't real. No, "pizza" in the Epstein emails doesn't mean anything other than the food, and grape soda isn't secret code for rape. They aren't speaking in code in the emails; they don't need to.

Muhamad Majadla (ch12, Israel) reports that Palestinian returnees were "offered flights to third countries as an alternative to going back to Gaza".

Just a quick note to @greenparty.org.uk and @greenpartyhan.bsky.social - I was not consulted on being quoted on your leaflets and I have not endorsed your campaign (or any campaign in this seat). I think this note, like the bar chart next to it, is misleading and out of context.

"The investigation was opened following two complaints in January 2025 and then broadened after additional reports criticized the AI chatbot Grok for its role in disseminating Holocaust denials and sexual deepfakes."

Wednesday is @prospectmagazine.co.uk pod day, and this week the excellent @petergeoghegan.bsky.social joins me and @ellenhalliday.bsky.social to talk about Epstein, Mandelson, and the nexus of power, money and politics that Democracy for Sale covers so well www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/podcasts/pro...

Breaking: The European Commission said on Tuesday it would investigate Mandelson, who was European trade commissioner from 2004-8 before leaving early to return to UK politics. Mandelson draws a pension from his time there and has to adhere to a code of conduct for former staff.

Information Commissioner launches investigation into Grok's use of personal data to produce sexualised images ico.org.uk/about-the-ic...

the problem with this newfound “bursary” argument aired in the Times is this: twhen we first heard about these payments in September a person close to Mandelson said it couldn’t possibly be the case and, er, threatened to sue us

What an exceptional, timely — and dare I say, maybe hopeful? — sketch. youtu.be/-wQhY5CMMl4?...

There's more. On 31 March 2010, Lord Mandelson's principal private secretary sent him a note of a meeting between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and Larry Summers, US Treasury Secretary. Lord Mandelson forwarded it to Jeffrey Epstein five minutes later.

Le Monde has revealed that in the summer of 2025 a French criminal court issued indictments against two French-Israeli Jewish citizens for complicity and incitement of genocide due to their repeated attempts to block humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. It seems to be the first case in Europe.

BREAKING: The Department of Justice left multiple unredacted photos of fully nude women or girls exposed as part of Friday’s dump of more than 3.5 million pages of files related to the investigations and prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell.