The Sunday Ishmael: 19/04/2026

 That Liz Kendall, she's an awful liar. No, really, she's very bad at it indeed. She goes into slow, womansplaining mode, while maintaining rigid face and trying to remember the Party line.

What job has she got now? Oh yes, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology since 2025. Before then she was Work and Pensions. These politicians, geniuses the lot of them. One day an expert on the war between the Boomers' ill  gotten pensions  and everyone else; the next it's new stuff - emails, What's Up, AI and socials. Anyway, there she was on the Laura Kuenssberg Show this morning, doubtless imagining a bit of light chit chat about SHIT, sorry, S.I.T., when Laura lobs her a curve ball. I'm paraphrasing, but this is how it went:

Laura: What's all this about your boss, then?

Liz: How do you mean?

Laura: Lying through his scrotum, much?

Liz: The Prime Minister is a man of great integrity and honesty.

Laura: He knew all about Mandelson didn't he?

Liz: He is a man of great honesty and integrity. If he says he didn't know, he didn't know.

Laura: Everyone knew. Sacked twice for corruption. Feathering his own nest. Trousering the spondoolies. Just like the Andrew that was formerly Prince.

Liz: (concerned face) We must remember the women at the heart of this dreadful tragedy, trafficked by Epstein.

Laura: Trying to knock me off course, are you, Head Girl Lizzie? What bloody women? Mandy's a gay boi. 

No, it is the Russian and Chinese Connection that concerned the Dreadful Vetting (D.V.). And sending details of British economic policy to Epstein so he could make a bob or two.

Liz: The Prime Minister did not know the content of the Dreadful Vetting. He is a man of Great Integrity and Honesty. He should be Pope. Or at least a Saint. He Did Not Know!

Laura: Well, when he did find out, on Monday, why didn't he skip round to the House on his dinky little feet and tell everybody, like he's supposed to? Do the Apology Dance? It is now Sunday, all he has done is have a hissy fit and sack 

Olly the Scapegoat

Olly the Scapegoat, who wasn't even in post when Saint Keir decided that the only way to deal with a deal-maker was to appoint another deal-maker to be Britain's Ambassador to the U.S.of A. And told all his chums and said "Make It So!" He probably thought it was clever. On account of how Trump and Mandelson were best buds.

I do not know the man

Liz: Ministers don't know the content of the Dreadful Vetting. It's a secret. 

Laura: What, not even the Prime Minister? And why couldn't he remember anything about Mandelson's previous bits of bother? Has he got early onset dementia? Asked by the Guardian in February 2025 about his links to China, Mandelson said: “I have more important things to deal with just now than your propaganda, and I am making no comment."

If she wasn't so snooty, you'd feel sorry for Liz Kendall, reduced to pointing, gibbering and stammering. One viewer wrote in: “Putting out Liz Kendall to defend Starmer is like giving a man a paper bag to bail out a sinking boat.”

Time Line

• December 2024: Starmer appointed Peter Mandelson to serve as British ambassador to the United States. 
• September 2025: Starmer dismissed Mandelson over his association with Jeffrey Epstein. 
• February 2026:  during Prime Minister's Questions, Starmer said that Mandelson had "lied repeatedly" during vetting about his long-term relationship with Epstein. Starmer said he regretted the appointment and announced that, with the King's agreement, Mandelson had been removed from the Privy Council for bringing it into disrepute.
•  2 February 2026:  Reform UK and the Scottish National Party reported Mandelson to the Metropolitan Police, calling on them to investigate the leaking of confidential Downing Street files, and whether he may have committed misconduct in public office, pertaining to his time in Cabinet. 
• 3 February 2026: the Cabinet Office referred material to the police which contained market sensitive information surrounding the 2008 financial crisis and official activities thereafter to stabilise the economy. 
• 3 February 2026: Mandelson stepped down as a peer from the House of Lords, and the Metropolitan Police began a criminal investigation. 
• 5 February 2026: At a press conference in East Sussex Starmer  said: '[D.V.] was an intensive exercise that gave him clearance for the role, and you have to go through that before you take up the post.'
• 6 February 2026:  Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, CEO of Global Counsel, the advisory firm established by Mandelson, resigned due to recent revelations about the firm's links with Epstein. 
• 6 February 2026: Mandelson's shares in Global Counsel were bought by Rebecca Park for £250,000 as a down payment. Under the deal with Park, Mandelson would receive £4.5 million if Park sold the shares. It is reported Mandelson kept the £250,000 paid by Park. 
• 8 February 2026:  Starmer's Chief of Staff, Morgan McSweeney "resigns". 
• 9 February 2026: Starmer's  Director of Communications Tim Allan "resigns".
• 9 February 2026:  Hours after Allan announced his resignation, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar called on Starmer to quit as Prime Minister. He was reviled by Cabinet Ministers, putting Scotland's Labour out on a limb.
• 18 February 2026:  the European Commission asked the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) to look into Mandelson's time as European Commissioner.
• 19 February 2026: Global Counsel confirmed it was going into administration after clients severed relationships over Epstein. It was also reported that Mandelson had lobbied the US government in March 2010, to water down proposed restrictions on US bank trading activities, on behalf of Epstein and Jes Staley
• 23 February 2026: Mandelson was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office by leaking confidential emails to Epstein while he was Business Secretary. He was questioned in custody and later released on bail pending further investigation. He was further arrested and his passport confiscated after Scotland Yard received information that he had been planning to breach his bail by flying to the British Virgin Islands.
• 6 March 2026 : Mandelson had his bail conditions lifted and his passport returned, remaining under investigation.
• 10 March 2026: Mandelson was formally removed from the Privy Council. 
• In April 2026, it was reported that Mandelson had failed security vetting for the role of ambassador. The Foreign Office had overruled the recommendation of the vetting agency and allowed Mandelson to take up the post. Starmer faced calls to resign over allegations he misled Parliament when he said "full due process" was followed during the appointment.
• 14 April 2026: The date it is alleged that Starmer learned that Mandelson failed his vetting. Starmer sits on the information. 
• 16 April 2026: The story breaks that Mandelson failed his vetting because he was a security risk due to his Russian and Chinese connections but was passed and allowed to take up the ambassadorial post.
• 16 April 2026: A Downing Street spokesman confirms the story but insists the PM only found out about the vetting issue on Tuesday, 14th. 
• 16 April 2026: No10 issues a statement blaming 'officials in the FCDO' stating that the PM had also been kept in the dark until earlier in the week.
• 16 April 2026: Late in the evening the FCDO permanent secretary Sir Oliver Robbins was sacked over the scandal, amid claims he was being made a fall-guy for the PM. Mrs Badenoch said it was 'preposterous' to claim Starmer did not know Lord Mandelson had failed security vetting, adding: 'If the Prime Minister doesn't know what's happening in his own office, he shouldn't be in charge of our country. He should go.'
• 17 April 2026: Darren Jones, senior Cabinet Office minister, told BBC Breakfast Starmer was not aware that Mandelson was granted Developed Vetting against the advice of UK Security Vetting until Tuesday night.
• 19 April 2026: Liz Kendall fails to convince the Sunday Politics shows that Starmer is a man of great integrity and honesty. The stammering gave her away.
• 21 April 2026: Olly Robbins scheduled to give evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee on the vetting of Mandelson. 

Should be exciting.

Talking of the SNP - oh yes, we were, they were the ones that reported Mandy to the Met on the 2nd February. The Scottish elections are scheduled for the 7th May and the SNP have been attempting to bribe the Scottish electorate into voting for them again. This is despite the allegations of sexual misbehaviour, corruption and criminal embezzlement that have seen off, successively, Alex Salmon, Nicola Sturgeon and Peter Murrell, all former grandees of the SNP. 

The SNP have been in power for 19 years, longer than Victor Orban held power in Hungary - he only got 16 years. Anyway, there's something very wrong with the Scottish psyche, because they seem to have forgiven or forgotten the very public arrests of Sturgeon and Murrell and the police impounding of the notorious camper van,

allegedly purchased with the proceeds of embezzlement of SNP funds. Forgotten or forgiven, because the SNP popularity is sitting at a projection of securing 67 seats, an overall majority in the May election. John Swinney, First Minister and Leader of the SNP, who wasn't arrested back in 2023, has decided on a policy of outright bribery. His manifesto pledges include a minimum wage for artists and a bung of £10,000 for each and every first time home buyer. Where's the money coming from? England, of course. Don't be silly. And a pledge to use an overall majority as leverage with Westminster to achieve another Independence Referendum. I'd say good luck and goodbye to these clowns, apart from the fact I live in Scotland and my pension is administered by the Local Authority. So I'll do my little bit to thwart their knavish plans by voting Reform. 

Shame the leader of the SNP, Baron Malcolm Offord, talks like an arse, but you can't have everything.

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