Tuesday, February 10, 2026
Fighting like cats and dogs
The Independent reports that Keir Starmer is clinging on to power with the support of key cabinet figures – even after being rocked by the departure of a second key aide, and public demands for his resignation by Labour’s own leader in Scotland.
The paper says that the prime minister is supported by colleagues, including former deputy Angela Rayner, when previously loyal Anas Sarwar urged him to step down over the Mandelson scandal, saying he had made “too many mistakes”:
On a day of drama, the PM was also hit by the resignation of Downing Street director of communications Tim Allan, less than 24 hours after chief of staff Morgan McSweeney resigned.
But Sir Keir insisted: “I am going nowhere.”
As the embattled prime minister prepared to address the parliamentary Labour Party to save his premiership, leading pollsters suggested his departure had become “inevitable”.
It all appeared to be unravelling after the controversial aide, Mr McSweeney, stepped down on Sunday over his advice calling for the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the United States despite his ongoing association with convicted paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr Sarwar, whose Scottish Labour Party is trailing both Reform and the SNP ahead of crucial Holyrood elections in May, held a press conference to say Sir Keir should also now step down.
He said he was calling for his “friend” to resign “with a heavy heart”.
“The distraction needs to end, and the leadership in Downing Street has to change,” he told reporters.
“We cannot allow the failures at the heart of Downing Street to mean the failures continue here in Scotland, because the election in May is not without consequence for the lives of Scots."
But almost as soon as he had spoken, health secretary Wes Streeting – once accused by Downing Street officials of plotting against the PM – said: “Give Keir a chance.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves posted: “With Keir as our Prime Minister we are turning the country around.”
Deputy prime minister David Lammy added: “Keir Starmer won a massive mandate 18 months ago, for five years to deliver on Labour’s manifesto that we all stood on.”
As ministers lined up to pledge loyalty, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, another candidate to replace Sir Keir, also appealed for calm.
She said: “I urge all my colleagues to come together, remember our values and put them into practice as a team. The prime minister has my full support in leading us to that end.”
Labour grandee Alan Johnson warned that ditching the PM would “turn Labour and the country into an international laughing stock”.
But amid the febrile atmosphere in Westminster, one Labour MP said: “It’s over. It is just a matter of when, not if.”
Behind the scenes the Parliamentary Labour Party don't appear to be convinced. The paper says that a number of MPs on the Labour left have already described his position as “untenable”, and there were plans to heckle the prime minister at the Parliamentary Labour Party event on Monday evening.
Time to get the popcorn.
Monday, February 09, 2026
They seek him here, they seek him there
They say that Dan Thomas, the former Conservative leader of Barnet council in London, was introduced on February 5 by Nigel Farage as his handpicked leader in Wales but there is speculation has as to whether the claim that he is living in Islwyn is correct:
Thomas resigned at the end of last year after 19 years as a councillor, saying he moved away from Barnet so that he and his wife could raise their young sons in the countryside and live closer to their families in south Wales.
Blackwood-born Thomas told the conference in Newport: “After 27 years I’m back home. Raising my two boys in the south Wales valleys. I’ve come back to where I belong.”
However, a source contacted us to say: “I read the NationCymru article about Dan Thomas, the new Welsh Reform leader. What he omits to tell is that he lives in a £1m house in Bath. The ‘countryside’ is not Wales. I feel this is a calculated misdirection if not blatant lie and one your readers would like to know about.
“He moved there last year from London – his parents live in Blackwood. He doesn’t. They [Thomas and his wife] sold their house in Edgware in London for a huge profit and moved to Bath last year.”
Mr Thomas was the Tory leader of Barnet council until 2022, when the party lost power to overall Labour control for the first time since the borough was established in 1964. He defected to Reform UK in June 2025 and in December 2025 resigned his seat on the council.
At the time his successor as leader of the now opposition Conservative group on the council, Cllr Peter Zinkin, told the London Standard: “He informed us several months ago that this would be his final year serving as a councillor in Barnet, having moved to the West Country to be closer to his family and raise his children there.”
Nation.Cymru contacted Cllr Zinkin, who told us: “Our understanding is that he sold his house in Edgware and moved to the Bath area, where he is working for a large financial institution.
“He has two very young children, the older of the two being three or four years old.”
Blaenau Gwent Labour MS Alun Davies said: “When he was announced as Reform’s leader in Wales, we were told that after spending his adult life in England he had returned to his roots in the Valleys. Now we learn that isn’t true, but that he moved from London to the Bath area. At the beginning of their Senedd election campaign, their narrative has been built on a fraud and a lie.
“As James Evans [the Tory MS who defected to Reform this week] said quite recently, Reform is full of hypocrites who have no principles.
“The last time this shower had seats in the Senedd, when they stood as UKIP, they were led by Neil Hamilton, who lived in a mansion in Wiltshire. This time their leader lives 10 miles nearer to Wales. At this rate they will have a leader who actually lives in Wales by 2050.”
Since then Reform have reiterated their claim that Thomas has moved his family to Wales, claiming he rents out the property in Bath. However, the details are sketchy. Where exactly does he live? Which schools is he sending his children? Is he renting or did he buy? These are oustanding questions.
A later article on Nation Cymru tells us that Thomas does not appear in the electoral register compiled in December 2025 that covers the part of Wales where he has his roots, and despite continuing to claim that he is on the voters’ roll in Wales, Reform has refused to answer the long list of questions which the journalist posed to them about the matter and is seeking to close scrutiny down.
The qualification to stand for the Senedd is very clear: a candidate has to be a registered local government elector in Wales and has to certify on the nomination form that the address they give is their main home. No doubt it will all be sorted out by then.
Sunday, February 08, 2026
McSweeney’s think tank paid PR firm to investigate journalists
They say that according to documents they have seen, the influential Starmerite think tank, once run by Morgan McSweeney and then by Josh Simons, now a minister in Starmer’s government, hired APCO Worldwide to investigate journalists from the Sunday Times, the Guardian and other outlets and to identify their sources:
ACPO was hired in 2023, when Simons ran Labour Together. Sources close to Morgan McSweeney, who joined Starmer’s team in 2020, said that he did not make the decision to hire APCO but did not dispute that he was aware of it.
A political think tank hiring a PR firm to investigate journalists is highly unusual, and the revelations have sparked furious response from a senior figure in Labour Together’s formation.
Former Labour MP Jon Cruddas, who helped found the organisation in 2015, said our findings were “shocking” and “extraordinary”.
“I have heard of black briefings, but never heard of anything like this,” he told us. “This is dark shit.”
The news that Labour Together put private investigators onto journalists will raise fresh questions about the conduct of senior figures around Starmer as the prime minister fights for his political survival.
Starmer today declared ‘full confidence’ in McSweeney, who pushed for Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador despite his known friendship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
November 2023. Panic at Labour Together. The Sunday Times had just published an explosive investigation into the organisation, revealing in detail how McSweeney had failed to declare £730,000 in donations to his think tank between 2017 and 2020. The money paid for polling and campaigning powered Starmer’s rise to the Labour leadership.
The story, bylined by Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke, was filled with serious accusations. At its core, is that McSweeney had intentionally kept Labour Together’s donors secret so the think tank would look like a humble, grassroots initiative when in fact it was a well-funded vehicle to take over the party.
With a general election now pending, questions about Labour Together’s money - and its genesis - could seriously derail an operation that had become a pivotal part of Starmer’s Labour.
So Labour Together turned to APCO Worldwide, a controversial PR firm whose work includes crisis comms. The think tank would pay at least £30,000 to identify the source of stories about its funding.
The work was led by Tom Harper, a former Times journalist who is now APCO’s head of European media relations. APCO, which has previously worked for big tobacco companies, has recently faced protests in the UK over its work for Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems.
Internal reports prepared by APCO’s London office for Labour Together, and seen by Democracy for Sale, name Pogrund, Yorke, The Guardian’s Henry Dyer, Declassified’s John McAvoy and journalists from other outlets as “significant persons of interest” and discuss potential “leverage” over other reporters.
APCO’s briefings suggest - without providing any evidence - that one possible source of the Sunday Times story about Labour Together’s funding was a Russian or Chinese hack of the Electoral Commission. It is understood that the contents of some of the documents were shared with other journalists on Fleet Street, seemingly in an attempt to discredit the initial story.
These revelations, together with the role McSweeney played in persuading Starmer to appoint Mandelson as ambassador to the US must surely make his position in Number 10 untenable.
Saturday, February 07, 2026
From conservatory to indian restaurant
It was constructed along with a clock tower by Spanish opera singer, Adelina Patti who, after the failure of her first marriage, and in search of privacy and good trout-fishing for her lover, married French tenor Ernest Nicolini, bought a Welsh country house overlooking the River Tawe near Penwyllt, on the edge of the Brecon Beacons.
The conservatory and clock tower cost £100,000, which she was able to pay for by doing just one tour of the USA in which she charged £1,000, or £60,000 now, per performance. As Wales-online says, in 1918, at the age of 75, she donated her winter garden conservatory, now known as the Patti Pavilion, to the people of Swansea.
The building was dismantled from its Swansea Valley location and re-erected overlooking the bay in Victoria Park, Swansea, two years later in 1920. The building has been used widely for rock concerts, festivals, cultural events and a variety of other uses. I recall seeing Bob Geldof and Man there amongst many others.
In 1994, it was given a superficial makeover by the BBC's Challenge Anneka. This caused a small controversy as the various local workmen changed the colour of the roof from red to green, an alteration that Cadw took unbrage with even though the original roof was made of glass.
Wikipedia records that the building was damaged by a suspected arson attack in 2006. It underwent a major £3m overhaul in 2009 after it became clear that it was not being utilised to its full potential. The project was funded by Swansea Council. Work began in late 2007 to extend the building by adding a new glass covered wing housing an Indian restaurant; Patti Raj, which has subsequently been rebranded as Adelinas Bar and Indian Kitchen.
The conservatory and clock tower cost £100,000, which she was able to pay for by doing just one tour of the USA in which she charged £1,000, or £60,000 now, per performance. As Wales-online says, in 1918, at the age of 75, she donated her winter garden conservatory, now known as the Patti Pavilion, to the people of Swansea.
The building was dismantled from its Swansea Valley location and re-erected overlooking the bay in Victoria Park, Swansea, two years later in 1920. The building has been used widely for rock concerts, festivals, cultural events and a variety of other uses. I recall seeing Bob Geldof and Man there amongst many others.
In 1994, it was given a superficial makeover by the BBC's Challenge Anneka. This caused a small controversy as the various local workmen changed the colour of the roof from red to green, an alteration that Cadw took unbrage with even though the original roof was made of glass.
Wikipedia records that the building was damaged by a suspected arson attack in 2006. It underwent a major £3m overhaul in 2009 after it became clear that it was not being utilised to its full potential. The project was funded by Swansea Council. Work began in late 2007 to extend the building by adding a new glass covered wing housing an Indian restaurant; Patti Raj, which has subsequently been rebranded as Adelinas Bar and Indian Kitchen.
Friday, February 06, 2026
How long can Starmer last after Mandelson revelations?
The paper says that Starmer's dramatic U-turn followed intense pressure, led by former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, just hours after he admitted that he knew about Lord Mandelson’s continued friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – but appointed him as US ambassador anyway:
Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership has been plunged into turmoil after furious Labour MPs forced him into a humiliating climbdown over the release of full vetting documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as the UK’s ambassador in the US.
The prime minister’s dramatic U-turn followed intense pressure, led by former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, just hours after he admitted that he knew about Lord Mandelson’s continued friendship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein – but appointed him as US ambassador anyway.
Despite the revelation, which led many to question Sir Keir’s integrity and judgement, he insisted he was repeatedly lied to by the disgraced peer, who he said had “betrayed our country” over the alleged leak of sensitive government documents to the disgraced financier.
On Wednesday night, ministers and other senior figures in Labour gave the prime minister an ultimatum that he must sack his controversial chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who pushed for Lord Mandelson’s appointment as ambassador and brought him back into the heart of the government.
One minister told The Independent: “Morgan has to go – and should have gone months ago.”
The prime minister had attempted to restrict the publication of the vetting documents, arguing that some details would need to be redacted on national security grounds. That prompted accusations from Labour MPs that he was engaging in a “cover-up”.
After three hours into a Commons humble address debate on Wednesday, Sir Keir relented after Ms Rayner intervened to make it clear she would be supporting the Tory proposal for the independent Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) to decide which documents could be published.
It is unclear when the documents will be released to the committee and made public, but there is speculation that they could be available as early as Thursday.
Seizing on the U-turn, a Conservative spokesperson said: "Kemi [Badenoch] forced Starmer to admit he'd known Mandelson was still hanging out with Epstein after the child sex conviction, and No 10 went ahead and appointed Mandelson anyway.
“You could feel in the Commons that was the moment Labour MPs stopped backing the prime minister. The government have now had to cave to Kemi's demand for all documents to go to the ISC. Starmer is no longer in control; Kemi is calling the shots.”
The prime minister had earlier claimed that the police investigations into Lord Mandelson and diplomatic relations needed to be protected.
In a desperate bid to draw a line under the scandal at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Sir Keir went on the attack over his former ambassador, who was sacked in September, after further revelations of his relationship with Epstein came to light.
With his hands visibly shaking under the pressure, he told MPs: “Mandelson betrayed our country, our parliament and my party.
"He lied repeatedly to my team when asked about his relationship with Epstein before and during his tenure as ambassador. I regret appointing him. If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near government."
And with his future on the line, it is understood that Sir Keir is planning yet another reset with a major speech on Thursday, to position himself as the champion of “decency and respect”.
Despite the apparent mea culpa, MPs were left unconvinced by the prime minister’s anger and promises over transparency. During a debate over more than six hours, the fury on both sides of the House was fully on display.
At present the ire of Labour MPs seem to be focussed on the PM's Chief of Staff, Morgan Sweeney, whose position is surely untenable, but it could get worse for the Prime Minister. A few days ago the perceived wisdom was that Keir Starmer would be ousted after the May elections, now it is looking likely that he may not even last that long.
Thursday, February 05, 2026
Another blow to the cost of living in Wales
It comes after Senedd members backed Welsh government proposals to increase the MUP.
Welsh ministers said this "landmark policy to help reduce deaths and harm from excess alcohol" brings the country into line with the rate in Scotland.
But the Conservatives said minimum pricing had "only served to hit hard-pressed Welsh consumers that don't have a drink problem in their pockets".
Independent research commissioned by the Welsh government suggests the policy could prevent more than 900 alcohol-related deaths over 20 years and reduce the number of "harmful drinkers" by nearly 5,000.
The policy was introduced in Wales in 2020 and the price increase follows a public consultation.
Public Health Wales figures show between 2019 and 2023 there was a rise of more than 50% in alcohol-related deaths.
Alcohol abuse charities have previously supported raising the minimum unit price for alcohol to 65p but also raised concerns that the most deprived areas could be adversely affected.
For once Darren Millar is right when he says that the minimum price legislation has only served to hit hard-pressed Welsh consumers that don't have a drink problem in their pockets, and resulted in problem drinkers consuming stronger booze and going without food or heating.
There is a lot of speculative research but where is the actual evaluation of this policy that demonstrates that it does what ministers claim for it.
From what I can see, those who already have an alcohol problem will always find a way to get their fix. The people this policy really hits are those on low incomes who like the occasional pint after work. It just adds to the cost of living pressure for people in Wales.
Wednesday, February 04, 2026
Farage pitches welfare of 450,000 children against the future of pubs
The paper says that the Reform UK leader has announced a £3 billion support package for pubs, funded by restoring the two-child benefit cap:
The plans would see VAT reduced to 10% for the hospitality sector, the employer national insurance increase for hospitality businesses scrapped, beer duty cut by 10%, new staggered business rate abolition for pubs and fresh regulation to support landlords.
It is estimated that lifting the two-child limit, which was introduced by the Tories in 2017, will lift 450,000 children out of poverty by 2029. Responding to the announcement, Stephen Timms MP, Labour’s Social Security Minister, said: “Politics is about choices. Nigel Farage’s choice is to join with the Tories and plunge half a million children back into poverty.
There is no doubt that something needs to be done to help businesses and charities by reducing the employer national insurance rate, but to penalise children to achieve that is inhumane. It tells us everything we need to know about Reform.
Tuesday, February 03, 2026
Full investigation needed into Mandelson
It has been revealed that the former cabinet minister was apparently disclosing highly sensitive government information to Epstein over a significant period of time.
The Guardian says that Mandelson was business secretary during Brown’s premiership, when he appears to have leaked an economic briefing to Epstein, who was serving a jail sentence at the time for soliciting prostitution from a minor:
The latest tranche of documents released by authorities in the US show Epstein was sent internal discussions from the top of the UK government in the aftermath of the financial crash.
In the June 2009 email, which had been sent to Jeremy Heywood, the then No 10 chief of staff, and the business minister Shriti Vadera, Butler said: “A number of business leaders who understand financial engineering have asked in different ways why we are borrowing so much and tolerating such high debt charges when we have saleable assets in hand which are not strategic – i.e. there is no good political or economic reason why they are in the public sector.
“I know Jeremy [Heywood] has done some work on this.
“The point which the Tories appear to have missed in focusing the argument on cuts v spending is that asset sales of even £ 20bn would relieve the debt burden, reduce borrowing costs, and provide some funds for new investment.”
Another document released on Friday shows that an analysis of business lending drawn up by Vadera in August 2009 was also sent to Epstein. The sender of the email has been redacted, but Mandelson also appears to have been involved in the discussions.
Mandelson also appeared to tell Epstein he would lobby ministers over a tax on bankers’ bonuses in 2009, and to confirm an imminent bailout package for the euro the day before it was announced in 2010.
Downing Street said Starmer had asked Wormald to conduct “an urgent review” looking at “all available information regarding Mandelson’s contacts with Epstein during his period as a government minister”.
Brown’s special adviser Nick Butler, who drafted the memo, has indicated that he is considering reporting the matter to the police, while his former boss says he has asked the cabinet secretary to investigate the disclosure of confidential and market sensitive information from the then business department during the global financial crisis.
The Prime Minister meanwhile, has suggested that Mandelson should resign from the House of Lords and that the upper chamber should urgently modernise its disciplinary procedures to strip him of his peerage. In many ways this is another cop-out because of all those involved, Starmer has the power to introduce the necessary legislation to achieve this end.
Whatever happens next, there is no escaping the impression that it is all too little too late, and that successive Labour governments must accept responsibility for this mess.
Monday, February 02, 2026
Has Starmer given China too much rope?
The writer suggests that the west is failing in its use of media as a soft power device to resist China’s success in spreading its critical narratives about the West across Africa, the fastest-growing continent where one in four of the world’s population will live by 2050.
He says that this is a story of British and American retreat cleverly exploited by China to win the battle for African eyes and ears, through correspondents in almost every African capital grabbing broadcasting opportunities left behind, of journalists trained to deliver pro-Beijing messages:
One way to explain this is that, in many parts of Africa, there’s growing anti-American and anti-Western sentiment. Part of it is stoked by domestic media. But foreign media also play a role.
Now, just when the BBC World Service must expand to confront this challenge, its presence could shrivel further – because it relies on funding from the UK’s international development budget, which is being cut by billions of pounds.
While the World Service waits to hear its funding fate, the country Starmer is visiting is marching ahead in this information war to reinforce its position as the biggest media player in Africa by some distance.
Its weapons are not only the English language channel of the state-run China Global Television Network (CGTN), the state news agency Xinhua, and the Communist Party-owned newspaper China Daily, but a network of partnerships with local organisations.
Many African countries are transitioning from analogue to digital TV – as we did 20 years ago – and the Chinese have secured many of those tenders. It means its company StarTimes, privately owned, operates the infrastructure through which most African countries get their TV.
CGTN sets aside programmes for “non-professional journalists”, who are given resources to tell their stories. Hey presto, those stories tend to be aligned with Beijing.
While many news organisations are prevented from reporting freely on sensitive topics in China, such as Beijing’s repressive policies in Xinjiang, “news influencers” on YouTube and TikTok are given “free” access to show a picture-perfect image of China, free of anything remotely uncomfortable.
Up to 70 per cent of young people in Kenya and Nigeria get their news from YouTube, now an incredibly important source of information. CGTN is high up among international broadcasters for YouTube users.
The China Index, a civil society project studying China’s growing global grip, including over media, identified 76 countries where outlets deliver Chinese state-funded content – including 14 in Africa.
Policymakers in European capitals may hope disinformation can be debunked through factchecking or media literacy campaigns, but those tactics will not succeed where anti-West narratives are allowed to feed on deep-seated mistrust.
It does not have to be like this. The BBC remains very popular. In a 2024 survey, 60 per cnt of Zambians and over 40 per cent of South Africans said they get their news from the BBC. The corporation is seen as a symbol of media freedom in many parts of the world. But its status will wither unless it broadcasts its values, unless it stays in this fight.
Lesotho is a telling example of the path we are on. The national station switches off for several hours a day and the BBC used to be called to step in. Now it has to compete with China’s CGTN for airtime.
And money talks. When TRT, Turkey’s state channel, opened a Hausa language service for the Nigerian market, most of its staff walked out of the BBC’s office to sign up – because TRT pays better than the BBC.
Many people may not realise that a shrinking aid budget is an own goal weakening Britain’s standing and influence abroad, to the glee of authoritarian rivals. But the prime minister might like to consider the consequences while in China this week.
While Starmer is in China drumming up trade, his government, and those of other western powers like the USA are allowing the Chinese to win influence in key strategic areas of the world.
Sunday, February 01, 2026
The damning WhatsApp chat that led to a Parliamentary by-election
The paper says that fallout from the comments made in a group called “Trigger Me Timbers” last February saw Andrew Gwynne suspended from the Labour Party, after it emerged he wrote that he hoped a 72-year-old female constituent “croaks” before the next general election, after she dared to ask about her bins:
Now, an independent report for Tameside Council by investigator Linda Comstive has concluded that six councillors in the WhatsApp group had shown “complete disregard” for standards in public life, including one judged to have made “several remarks that a reasonable person would find racist”.
The findings will be a blow for Labour and come less than four weeks before the Gorton and Denton by-election expected on 26 February, to replace Mr Gwynne, who stepped down last week.
The contest has torn Labour apart after Sir Keir Starmer blocked Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham from standing as a candidate, prompting claims of a “stitch-up” to prevent the prime minister from facing a leadership challenge if his rival were to return to Westminster.
The investigation into the WhatsApps conversations came after a formal complaint about Mr Gwynne and other Labour figures making “disgusting, racist, sexist, homophobic and vile comments”.
In total, 11 Labour councillors were suspended by the party over the revelations in February last year, but the investigation looked into six of them – Mr Gwynne’s wife, councillor Alison Gwynne, along with councillors Brenda Warrington, George Newton, Claire Reid, Jack Naylor and George Jones.
Among the report’s findings was that Mr Naylor made an antisemitic joke by changing the lyrics of an Elton John song to “And I guess that’s why she hates all the Jews” in one set of exchanges about an unnamed person.
In a statement, Mr Naylor offered a full apology, writing: “There is no justification for my involvement, irrespective of any inexperience – I take full responsibility for my actions; and for any offence caused, regardless of my intent, I am truly sorry.”
Meanwhile, Mr Newton was found to have “persistently abused and denigrated” individuals by using remarks that “a reasonable person would find racist”.
While Mr Newton said he regretted his “childish” language, he told the investigation that the remarks were meant as “private jokes on a private messaging platform”.
The WhatsApp chat also saw Mr Gwynne refer to someone as “too Jewish” while there were derogatory remarks about former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and former Labour MP Dianne Abbott.
A charity worker told Ms Comstive that one elderly Labour supporter, who is neurodivergent, was left “distraught” over being called a “terrible name” in the WhatsApp group. It was claimed that teenagers had since hounded him in the street with the insult.
They said: “People in the community feel that there is no one they can turn to, as there is no local Labour councillor representing them and no Labour MP; they are too scared of having their coffee morning resources taken away or bins not emptied. They have been told if you do not vote for us (ie Labour), you will be dead.”
This is not a good look for the Labour party to say the least, and may well come back to bite them in the Gorton and Denton by-election.
