“It’s just great when it falls into your lap like that – but remember it was us that forced it out of them. And you read it and think it’s from us, or spin, it’s all theirs and is utterly damning and best of all proves everything you’ve been saying is right”
My WhatsApp was busy on Monday as senior Tories absorbed the tranche – or was it tsunami – of messages, emails and communications relating to Peter Mandelson and the utter catastrophe of sending him to Washington as our ambassador.
I note our current choice, someone I have seen working, close up, is quite sensibly just getting on with the job. Proving that despite initial enthusiasm in some quarters for ‘the Prince of darkness’ as a risky but ‘clever choice’, there were other people equally qualified for the job.
But the truth is the depth of folly in this appointment is going stale with the public. Everybody knows it was a disaster, Starmer is indelibly marked by it. So, the funny thing from the fall out of Monday’s data dump is the most politically powerful revelation did not relate to Mandelson at all.
True, it was his message prompted it, but the content was not to do with Trump, America, Epstein or vetting but with the Labour party.
Pat McFadden, and John Healey are two in the cabinet with whom I may disagree but respect as politicians. However, Pat has had to look on as the Conservatives were handed just the ammunition needed to nail their assertion that this government has ceased to be the Labour party but become the ‘Welfare Party’.
Patrick Maguire of the Times, a man who has long been accused of ‘having it in for Keir Starmer’ but turns out to be right every time he writes, compared the revelation to Liam Byrne’s parting shot letter from the treasury in 2010 that went from private joke to public damnation of the last Labour Government.
“I’m afraid there is no money”
Badenoch’s Tories are clear, and have been for some time, that whatever the policy was before – and Mel Stride when in McFadden’s new role as Work and Pensions secretary had laid out cuts to welfare before the 2024 election – the welfare bill, all of it, has to come down and furthermore everything should be on the table for discussion.
The prism being: what current state handout is in fact a subsidy that has been sold as a necessity? If the Tories need to take a hit for being part of fostering this in the past, so be it, but ‘under new management’ that’s no longer an option.
The ammunition was created on 23rd May 2025
Mandelson – “Does he [McSweeny] even realise ? The PLP j [sic] is in a mutinous state I gather”
McFadden – “Yes. Every meeting I have is “who can we tax to pay for more benefits for others” They’re asking thew wrong questions
I’ve related the whole dialogue since we don’t know who the “They’re” refers to. Number 10 or Labour back benchers but it really doesn’t matter.
The fact is the Labour backbenches, the Labour movement, and anything to the left of them all, thinks greater welfare spending is not just the solution to Britain’s woes, but a moral mission, and worse, completely sustainable and affordable: ‘tax that which we have always viewed with suspicion, the private sector, business, banks’ – what one strongly suspects they refer to amongst themselves as ‘the rich bastards’.
Well as it happens the rich pay a huge amount of tax, but then these days everybody does.
Again the tax burden went up under the Tories post Covid and Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine and Tories have to own that. Labour’s hiked them higher, but the solution is to go all out for things that boost growth, create jobs, and clear restrictions.
Jeremy Hunt, for all that critics on the right say about him, has offered in a new book, a pretty decent prospectus of what that means, and inevitably one might reasonably ask as we should of Suella Braverman’s critiques, why didn’t you do it when you could?
Sadly it is the same answer Kemi gives: ‘I wasn’t in charge’.
It’s not that effective a counter to be honest but I know, more than most, that it has the value of being true.
Now she is in charge and with the exception of the triple lock – and I don’t understand her teams’ or some readers of ConHome’s reticence on that, beyond votes – everything has to be looked at.
If any solution to making Britain more solvent, less debt laden, and more fit for creating serious economic growth does not include tackling our debt, health and social care spending, public sector and state pensions and embracing a vision of how you manage an AI revolution, then discard it. It isn’t worth considering, as it won’t be a solution.
Purely for example, Polanski can rail against Israel, the North Sea and fossil fuels and applaud organisations like the Fire Brigades Union for saying they’ll ignore guidance on trans issues but it’s just chaff if he has no economic plan bar his unicorns and wish dreams about the mythical magic money tree.
I understand why Chris Philp has proposed the introduction of “ration cards” to prevent thousands of criminals from spending their benefits on alcohol and gambling, if it is a part of measures to look at all spending on welfare.
It’s not about taking everything away. It is about looking at everything and asking – given the ballooning bill – is it ok to carry on funding? I suspect in many instances the case in favour is fundamentally flawed, even if one we might feel sympathetic towards.
It all comes down to a foundational issue for the public. What is fair?
Pat McFadden’s WhatsApp is a banner headline, that I suspect we’ll see on election leaflets and posters in future, for something voters think isn’t remotely fair.