My column in this week's @newstatesman1913.bsky.social, on bad data used in bad faith. FOI-ing the stats myself, I didn't find a great deal of difference in sex offending rates: 5 per 10,000 Afghan men, 7 per 10,000 UK men:

Farage's stinking personal ratings are massively overlooked

Wouldn't have got this response under McSweeney

seems almost certain we’ll later find out they were coerced thehill.com/homenews/med...

Seeing lots of commentary along the lines of 'no-one saw the Mandelson scandal coming', which just isn't true. Some of us have been warning about it for years. Here's what I wrote two years ago bylinetimes.com/2024/01/04/k...

It is bleakly funny how the line from some is *still* “we couldn’t have won without Morgan McSweeney and his laserlike focus on what the Public Want”, and one of the inheritances he passes on is…this:

From @siennarodgers.bsky.social and Harriet Symonds - Burnham making regular visits to the campaign trail & featured prominently on some Labour campaign literature - Labour is increasingly confident that it could win the Gorton and Denton by-election

🔴Reform MPs Accused of Pandering to Putin After Skipping Russian Interference Debate Nigel Farage’s party refused to attend the debate, called after more than 100,000 people signed a petition demanding a public inquiry into Russian interference in British politics bylinetimes.com/2026/02/10/r...

This is the funniest headline I seen in a long time. And bravo to whoever underlined the desperation with the juxtaposed link.

🔴Colonel Keir Starmer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn The Prime Minister’s allies believe he has survived the attempted coup against him, but few outside Downing Street expect him to last for much longer, reports @adambienkov.bsky.social bylinetimes.com/2026/02/10/c...

The louder they cheer, the sooner they're gone. Why Starmer's future in Downing Street still looks short bylinetimes.com/2026/02/10/c...

This is absolutely insane. The sort of Kafka-esque nightmare you would find in a Philip K Dick book set far in the dystopian future. A window on America tumbling into autocracy. www.irishtimes.com/world/us/202...

How extraordinarily fortunate for Wes Streeting that the only text messages he sent Peter Mandelson just happened to be exactly the sort of things other Labour MPs want to hear from a potential leadership candidate

MPs cheering Keir Starmer at the PLP meeting "like the troops at Little Bighorn," remarks one exasperated Labour MP leaving the room

Round of applause and cheers for Keir Starmer as he arrives to address Labour MPs at the PLP meeting Almost as loud as the response Theresa May and Boris Johnson got from Tory MPs before they were ousted

Ironic that a man barely ever in his workplace should make such a call.

Feels from talking to Labour MPs today that Starmer is probably safe for today. It was only in Wes Streeting's interest for Starmer to be forced out now and Sarwar's attack doesn't seem to have started the snowballing his allies hoped for.

"The source confirmed there have been conversations between Sarwar and allies of Health Secretary Wes Streeting... in the run-up to the decision to call for Starmer to quit" www.politicshome.com/news/article...

a reminder that Tim Allan, who quit Starmer's Downing St today, previously spun for....not only Kazakhstan and Qatar but also Vladimir Putin’s government www.ft.com/content/a0a8...

As painfully lukewarm political endorsements go, "he doesn't need to resign" has to be up there

Anas Sarwar says he has a "certain level of loyalty" to Keir Starmer, shortly after calling a press conference to demand he resigns

"Peter Mandelson is not someone or something I want to be associated with" says Anas Sarwar. I bet!

"I spoke to the Prime Minister earlier today, and I think it's safe to say that he and I disagreed," says Anas Sarwar

"The distraction needs to end, and the leadership in Downing Street has to change," says Anas Sarwar. "We cannot allow the failures at the heart of Downing Street to mean the failures continue here in Scotland"

Much the same as with Karen Pierce and the US ambo appointment, Starmer actually had someone who could have been director of comms, Steph Driver, who gave years of hard work and professionalism in opposition but then got a succession of people promoted over her for no apparent reason

Keir Starmer's spokesman won't say why his Comms Director Tim Allan resigned, when Starmer first knew he was resigning, or whether he asked him to step down. Also won't say whether evidence has been found suggesting an ongoing relationship between Allan and Mandelson

Keir Starmer does not plan to resign today, says his spokesman. He's "concentrating on the job at hand," he says

Something magnificent about Kemi Badenoch's self-confidence, and her claim that the Mandelson affair is entirely down to her asking questions at PMQs. Like a toddler who thinks their plastic steering wheel is controlling the car.

It's telling that all of the defences of McSweeney focus on the last general election, rather than anything at all he has been responsible for since

This type of X comms from the Home Office seems a political gift to Reform, and fuel for overt racists, while repelling progressives at the same time

Just beyond parody at this point

Just beyond parody at this point

That was one of the more astounding things of reading the various “Morgan’s buddies” post-mortems, a total refusal to even acknowledge how the Government’s electoral performance is going while still touting this guy as a brilliant strategist heading off the soft left or whatever

The Times calls Keir Starmer's decision to hire Peter Mandelson an "egregious error" which deserves an "inquiry into the appointment process." Not included is any demand for an inquiry into their own appointment of him, long after his post-conviction relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was exposed

Rate bit of good news here for Labour.

Morgan McSweeney has now resigned as Keir Starmer's Chief of Staff

This is the man whose company Peter Mandelson's lobbying firm represents. Keir Starmer visited its HQ last year, at the request of Mandelson, shortly before it was handed a £240m Government contract

Morgan McSweeney is on the brink of resigning "on his own terms," according to the Sunday Times www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

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...

The untold story that is told constantly and isn’t really true

Why Nigel Farage’s reaction to the Epstein and Mandelson scandal has been deeply hypocritical, and how his own connections to the story are much closer than he now admits www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/nigel-fara...

Why Nigel Farage’s reaction to the Epstein and Mandelson scandal has been deeply hypocritical, and how his own connections to the story are much closer than he now admits www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/nigel-fara...

Obviously, that should be "Daily Telegraph and Spectator author Calvin Robinson"

I was working with @direthoughts.com when he broke the first stories about Labour Together's funding way back in 2021. Now it turns out they were paying private investigators to investigate him for reporting on them and Morgan McSweeney knew about it democracyforsale.substack.com/p/exclusive-...

Nigel Farage tells GB News that Keir Starmer's decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador shows his judgement is "seriously wrong" and he should stand down as Prime Minister. Here's what Farage said when Mandelson was appointed

This is preying on my mind a bit. Jeffrey Epstein was not primarily a British scandal! So far we've removed a Prince from the Royal family, fired our US ambassador who was one of the most important political figures of the last few decades and banned the CEO of Barclays from the financial industry..

It’s funny how at the same time as No 10 is doing a “no, it’s not true that Morgan urged that they could weather it and keep Mandelson”, all the evidence is that Morgan is again going “it is fine, we can weather it”.

Nigel Farage tells GB News that Keir Starmer's decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador shows his judgement is "seriously wrong" and he should stand down as Prime Minister. Here's what Farage said when Mandelson was appointed

You know things are bad when it looks like even Glasman is turning against McSweeney

Keir Starmer attacks the racism of Reform and Matt Goodwin but then adds that "Britain has also been let down by a mindset on the left of politics that is too slow to defend core British values"