Harriet Harman accused of cronyism following ‘accidental’ tweet fiasco

Following Labour’s disastrous 2026 local elections, Keir Starmer attempted to once again reboot his government.

Farcically, the latest ‘refresh’ saw him bringing back Gordon Brown (the last Labour politician to lose an election as a sitting PM) and Harriet Harman (the woman whose stint as deputy Labour leader proved so unpopular that it rallied support for the then-unknown Jeremy Corbyn).

To say this plan ‘went wrong’ would imply it was going right at some point, which clearly wasn’t the case. Saying that, the plan has now gone wrong, with Harman seemingly caught offering out peerages:

In other words, Labour has embroiled itself in yet another cronyism scandal.

Cometh the honour

As we reported, Starmer brought Harman back to be the ‘Adviser on Women and Girls’. He did this despite her historic links to a notorious paedophile network:

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I’m delighted to appoint @HarrietHarman as my Adviser on Women and Girls.

Harriet is a strong advocate for women and girls and I know she will deliver greater opportunity for women in public life.

I’m committed to tackling structural misogyny that is a barrier for too many… pic.twitter.com/iQeDS0XQrI

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) May 9, 2026

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This wasn’t that surprising, of course, because many politicians in Starmer’s inner circle have been exposed for their ties to paedophiles – most notably Peter Mandelson.

Back to Harman’s tweet, it looks very much like she was offering to get ex-Labour councillor Arooj Shah on the list to become a lord. Presumably, she thought she was sending a private message. Instead, she publicly tweeted at Shah, resulting in a new crisis for Starmer.

The real question is this: if Harman wasn’t offering to elevate Shah – and if she didn’t make the tweet public by accident – then what was she doing?

Novara‘s Aaron Bastani commented on Harman’s apparent mistake:

Harman inviting a former council leader to become an unelected legislator for life as if it was a Jay Rayner reviewed small plates trattoria in Bermondsey.

The Lords has to go! What a farce.

One reason (among many) that the Labour establishment despised Corbyn from day one of his leadership.

This stuff was no longer happening.

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The Tories tried to capitalise on it too, receiving some pushback in the process:

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David Cameron created 245 peers

Theresa May created 43 life peerages

Boris Johnson appointed a total of 87 life peers

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Liz Truss created three peerages in her resignation honours list

Rishi Sunak created a total of 46 peerages during his tenure

They never change!

— Bernard McEldowney (@BernardMcEldown) May 11, 2026

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Starmer ran on a platform of being competent and not-corrupt, and instead he’s getting dunked on by Tories for being both.

Cometh the woman

Harman recently attracted backlash for her criticism of Zack Polanski, which amounted to him… being a man:

In the video above, Harman says snottily:

And there’s been a lot of focus on Zack Polanski as their new supposedly dynamic, charismatic leader. Now, for me, the Greens have always seemed like a very sort of collaborative, women’s-focused, team-ly kind of party. And Zack Polanski is not in that vibe at all. He’s in the kind of big-I-am, you know, male leader vibe.

She added that Polanski is a combination of:

Jeremy Corbyn and Nigel Farage, and neither appeals to me.

As the Canary reported, the things that did appeal to Harman in her political career included:

• The invasion of Iraq
• Opposing fairer taxation
• ID Cards
• Mass surveillance
• Reducing tax avoidance

And this is who Starmer brought back to turn a new corner!

Embarrassing

At this point, things are just embarrassing for Starmer. This is why the number of MPs calling for him to resign keeps growing:

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UPDATE: The number of Labour MPs calling for Keir Starmer to resign has now risen to 54

Catherine McKinnell and Alan Gemmell have both made statements in the last few minutes

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— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) May 11, 2026

We’ll be sure to update you with what the Starmer camp thinks about this as soon as Harriet Harman accidentally about tweets it.

Featured image via Harriet Harman

By Willem Moore

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