Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Starmer in fight to reassert control over Labour party after McSweeney exit
Allies hope aide’s departure can quell anger over Mandelson scandal but others say it leaves PM dangerously exposed

"We weren't going to go after the Prime Minister, but were too frightened of Morgan McSweeney", said nobody ever. "Now that the guy we all hated has left, we hate Starmer even more".

Which just about sums things up now.

No doubt Fuckwit Fenton will be crowing about the "Curse of Zelo Street" from his hiding place in Portugal.

I’m trying hard to stand fast against the relentless media narrative that Starmer has to go, and it’s not a question of whether, just when, Keir Starmer will be leaving number ten. I don’t want him to go, because I genuinely think he is the best possible Prime Minister the UK could have right now. I also think him being forced out now would be grotesquely unfair. He has never even met Jeffrey Epstein, was not in parliament when Mandelson was leaking information to Epstein, and did not, and could not, have known of it until it was exposed by the US state department’s latest release of the Epstein files. Had it not been, the appointment of Mandelson as ambassador to the USA would quite possibly still be being regarded as a good one at the time.

That said, it could be that Starmer’s jacket is on a shoogly peg, as we say in Paisley. At the very least, the Labour Party should be looking at some succession planning - widely recognised as good business practice. Keir Starmer now has a target painted on his back. If he isn’t brought down now, then this has perhaps shown that it is possible for him to be defenestrated. Unless he very swiftly acquires some down and dirty political skills - the sort of thing he was perhaps hitherto reliant entirely on McSweeney for - he may not be able to fight the cunts in his own party off indefinitely.

Well said, its not as if German tanks are on the outskirts of Moscow.
Why the heck should Keir resign in a period of panic with the media clucking away like distressed chickens? A government only gets one shot at changing leader and they need to go the country before the honeymoon period ends. Who the hell wants a GE this year?

I swear the Beth Rigby was actually salivating on Sky...

I switched on the radio just now; Robinson and Badenoch.

Turned it off again. Vile, despicable creatures, the pair of them.

Youngian wrote: ↑Sun Feb 08, 2026 10:49 pmWho the hell wants a GE this year?

The media. Chaos justifies their existence.

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Mon Feb 09, 2026 1:18 am I swear the Beth Rigby was actually salivating on Sky...

Sometimes listen to Rigby's podcast as regular contributor Harriet Harman draws on a wealth of experience to put some perspective on the week's events. Sounds like last week she's been hanging out too much with Beth judging by her melodramatic reaponse to the Mandelson debacle. Its taken a showbiz correspondent Marina Hyde to show some perspective; Mandelson is not even the biggest scandal in the Epstein scandal (fucking terrible though Mandelson's schmoozing has been)
And Starmer has never even met the bloke.

As someone said it’s culpable to an average Tuesday in the Johnson years.

Andy McDonald has come up with “Starmer will have to resign if he doesn’t persuade Labour MPs he’s taking responsibility”. What does this actually mean?

I suggest it means “I want him to go and me and my mates will have a good crack at that”.

If Starmer’s position is untenable because he can’t control his party, where does that leave Badenoch? How many has she lost to Reform?
Perhaps we could accept that politics is more febrile generally, and that putting “the next person” in charge doesn’t change it.

Evidently it was never about Morgan McSweeney, probably due to the fact that when you asked his detractors no one actually knew what he was doing.

As I have always said its probably best he does go eventually within distance of the next election, however thats May 2029 at the latest. It's likely you will have another two Tory leaders by then.

Director of Communications, Tim Allen, has resigned too.

This doesn’t look great, but this isn’t like ministers coming and going. Doubtless Tim Allen will be elevated to the equivalent of Geoffrey Howe by the media. See also McSweeney. “You know that guy who we told you should leave government? He’s left government. Starmer Out!”

David Knopfler puts it well, again.

For the avoidance of doubt. Starmer should not resign. His position as PM is predicated entirely on the views of his MPs. They likely understand that a succession of PMs, as we saw with Johnson/Truss/Sunak doesn’t win elections. They also know that a monstrously far-right party that would be Truss/Trump on steroids awaits the nation if they fail to turn things around.
Labour has never had a sympathetic media. Even the Guardian inclines more to liberal positions than Labour ones.
Labour hasn’t been a red flag socialist party in over seventy years. Harold Wilson when PM described socialism as “putting a sense of purpose into our lives… technology, economic growth.” Clearly that would not be the grass roots concept of socialism.

Labour knew what it was under Blair - who had easy economic headwinds and when Blair could capture the applause of most of Europe’s MEPs. Starmer has had almost no economic luck having inherited a HUGE lead anchor of lost tax revenues curtesy of Brexit plus a failed project to win back the lumpen vote from Reform in the post industrial desiccated communities having to manage lost manufacturing to the far east.

Worse, like Theresa May, he somewhat lacks the X factor of being able to be in his element in front of the camera.
His policies have at times looked too timid and at others simply wrong. A claim to a reset would be met by derision. He needs to point to his modest successes then to projects in progress - and then set about being the first PM to reduce wealth inequality without losing inward investment. Steve Jobs started with less when he sold the world on his first 5 colour iMacs. It can be done and better advice feels like a good place to start

Anas Sarwar is expected to call on Starmer to resign.

The Weeping Angel wrote: ↑Mon Feb 09, 2026 1:38 pm Anas Sarwar is expected to call on Starmer to resign.

Press conference by Sarwar announced for 14:30.

The reporting on it has gone from his team refusing to deny that he'll make the call, to the press saying that he's definitely going to.

If he does, he's a clown.

So will Eluned Morgan.

Nobody does foot-shooting like mid-ranking Labour politicians.