The past week has shown British politics and the appetites of the British public as mirrored by the media in a shameful light.
Acres and acres on the antics of the rich elite, including a prince of the blood, have flooded the prints and airwaves, with very little on the conditions that enable that elite to prance around ignoring common decency and even less on the policies that might put those conditions right.
The Israeli government and its IDF continue to kill Palestinians in Gaza and steal the lands and interfere with the liberties of residents of the West Bank: Russians, mercenaries and Ukrainians continue to battle in Ukraine; and destructive civil wars continue in Sudan and elsewhere. If they and similar obscenities are mentioned at all they are relegated to the middle pages. They have become “boring.”
Nearer to home an interview with Professor Kate Pickett about her new book “The Good Society” reminds us that spending on prevention services for families declined by 25% in the decade from 2011; half the children born in Liverpool in 2009/10 have been referred to children’s services before the age of 5; England’s local authorities have only 6% for the childcare places needed for children with disabilities; 65% of prisoners released from prison return within six months.
Yet it is not failure to deal with these, and related issues on the state of the roads, the financing of SEND, inadequate flood defences, interest on student "debt" to name but some, for which the Prime Minister is desperately defending his “judgement” before his parliamentary party this evening but this choice of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to the United states.
The whole issue is massively hypocritical. I have not personally kept a record, but rely on that of Jonathon Freedland in Saturday’s Guardian (7th February) that “few protested [at the appointment] at the time. . .[O]n the contrary . . .the Westminster village, including Farage by the way, along with most of the media support[ed] the appointment, declaring it a masterstroke.”
Frankly, the Parliamentary Labour party, and party members in the field, should shut up and instead of personality battles, concentrate on supporting Sir Keir Starmer and the government in getting on with what Labour governments are expected to do, not least , improve conditions for the less fortunate, not just in our society but in the world.
A fluke of the electoral system has given them a massive majority and golden opportunity. It is madness to throw in away. The right wouldn’t hesitate (indeed they rarely have).
True, not all a Labour government has done or will do will please Liberals, (see last month’s post
https://keynesianliberal.blogspot.com/2026/01/this-labour-government-is-not-liberal.html)
The quality of government would improve if the Labour big beasts had the humility to recognise that they received the support of only a third of those who voted in 2024, which given the turnout amounts to only a quarter of those entitled to vote, but that an invitation to share government with the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Nationalists would have the support of the majority and thus have the courage to bring about the reforms we so desperately need.
Sadly these leopards are not yet ready to change their spots. When will they learn, and introduce PR?
Having said all that, and being only human, I cannot resist the temptation of highlighting just one piece of the salacious gossip that has been floating around for the past week.
Mandelson’s admission that he “couldn’t live by salary alone.”
This man apparently received “compensation” of three months salary for getting the sack. That was £40,000, equivalent to £160 000 a year (plus, presumably, free accommodation in a posh embassy in Washington, on top of any parliamentary, other and Old Age Pension, bus pass and winter fuel allowance.)
The overwhelming majority of those of us paying for this out of our taxes would regard such a salary and perks as riches beyond the realms of avarice.
Thus it is not Sir Keir Starmer’s lack of judgement that has caused the political class to lose touch with the electorate, but the perpetuation of conditions which can make such outrageous claims tenable.
