Mandelson, document-release ... and Polly Toynbee

So what to make of the latest state of play over Mandy?

I’d say it’s really clear: Team Starmer is utterly determined to tough this out, and they reckon they can do it: their man is no conscience-stricken wimp, likely to flake on them one fine morning.   Grim determination is no guarantee of success, of course: but (a) it is at least a necessary condition of success; and (b) these are scheming, desperate people with a lot of levers available to them.

> the way things developed in Parliament on Wednesday shows that Team S’s going-in point was to resist document disclosure, period.  They were thwarted procedurally by the unholy alliance of Badenoch + Rayner, but we know what is plainly their aim: not to release docs. 

> they are ‘framing’ like crazy to the media, and it still largely gets swallowed whole.  As well as “It’s all about Mandelson’s lies” and “I wanted to release the docs yesterday” (see previous post), we read: 

• “There will be no leadership challenge, because … [Rayner = tax dodger, still under investigation // Burnham = disqualified // Streeting = Mandelson-best-buddy // etc].” 

• “PC Plod has a serious point about not prejudicing their investigation / potential charges being brought.”   

• “So-oo many docs – this is going to take months and months.”   

Etc etc.  Yup, they are going for that oldest, most intellectually dismal, most sordidly shameless  tactic of all: playing for time – and it’s often successful.  Let me give you a recent parallel: a case I have been reading up lately from my own patch (energy).  A big corporate – Drax plc – had a run-in with an employee-whistleblower whom Drax fired, and who brought an employment case, early in March last year.  Halfway through the unusually lengthy Employment Tribunal, they settled: by all accounts it amounted to a capitulation by Drax.  Meejah organisations sought release of the court documents – which, had the case continued, they’d have had access to, it was a public hearing.  Drax has stonewalled for nearly eleven months, only finally releasing the docs under a court order at the end of Jan.  And even now, the docs are (a) not the complete set, and (b) in some cases, heavily redacted (on the usual grounds: “commercial sensitivity / privacy / yadder yadder“).  In which time Drax has managed to secure 4 more years of juicy new subsidy, and a 40% increase in its share price, from which many execs will benefit materially, in cash.

If a corporation can behave like that, how much more easily can HMG, with all the resources of the State and the added killer pretext of “national security” (see below)?  My prediction: we ain’t gonna get anything much before those May elections – and we’ll never get anything they truly don’t want us to see.  

Which brings us to La Toynbee, whose general run of risible Guardian offerings is occasionally but reliably punctuated with something half-worthwhile.  Here’s her latest.  You need to look past the usual fatuous fawning – the idea that Starmer is “a decent PM” (she once idolised Gordon Brown, too – and Tony Blair before him) to get to the blunt & forthright expression of utter disgust at the “send-him-to-the-Tower treachery and treason“.  And here’s a little nugget (my emphasis): 

… he gave a wretched display of it in the Commons with a fatal attempt to hold back some vital documents on Mandelson’s vetting and appointment. Never mind that it was for sincere security reasons – mainly fear of what abuse of the US president the papers might contain – Starmer failed to measure the ferocity of the storm on his own benches

That Trump angle  -  another subtle bit of Team Starmer framing?  Well, maybe: but it’s a neat idea I hadn’t seen aired elsewhere.

My prediction stands: many months of Strategic Starmer Stonewalling to come.  Don’t change your NY predictions for ‘name of PM on 24.12.2026′ just yet awhile.  Meantime – more popcorn!

ND