Anti-corruption is widely treated as an unambiguous public good. Investigations, prosecutions, commissions, and transparency initiatives are assumed to weaken entrenched power by exposing wrongdoing. Yet in practice, anti-corruption often functions in the opposite direction. Rather than dismantling corrupt systems, it fragments and neutralises public scrutiny. Corruption is continuously exposed in pieces but never confronted as a structure.

The defining feature of modern anti-corruption is not silence but saturation. The public is presented with a constant flow of scandals, inquiries, indictments, and document releases. This produces an atmosphere of apparent vigilance. But it also overwhelms any attempt to form a coherent picture of how power actually operates. Corruption becomes ubiquitous in discourse while remaining largely intact.

Anti-corruption: fragmentation instead of accountability

Anti-corruption operates through fragmentation. Individual cases are isolated from one another. Responsibility is narrowed to specific actors. Timelines are truncated. Structural continuity is excluded from the frame. Each scandal is treated as a self-contained deviation rather than part of a durable system of power.

This approach has predictable effects. It prevents cumulative understanding. It makes it difficult to identify persistent networks, institutional protection mechanisms, or long-term patterns of accumulation. The public is invited to react repeatedly, but never to connect.

The legal form of anti-corruption reinforces this logic. Prosecutorial standards require narrow evidentiary thresholds. Journalistic coverage mirrors these constraints. What cannot be proven in court or documented in a single file is treated as speculative, even when the broader pattern is clear. As a result, systemic corruption in practice is rendered episodic in representation.

The Epstein case and managed disclosure

The ongoing fallout from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal illustrates how anti-corruption can generate exposure without consequence. Since Epstein’s death, a steady stream of court documents has been released, heavily redacted and carefully staged. Names appear without context. Associations are hinted at but rarely examined. The public receives information, but not an explanation.

Epstein’s wealth, protection, and extraordinary access were not accidental.

For decades, he operated at the intersection of elite financial, political, and intelligence-adjacent environments. These conditions could not have existed without some degree of institutional tolerance. Yet anti-corruption mechanisms have focused almost entirely on individual criminality rather than systemic facilitation. They have also undoubtedly ignored the very-real human cost of Epstein’s depravity – the countless victims and survivors of his horrors.

Yet, the role of financial institutions, intelligence agencies, and our own political class remains marginal to the official narrative. Instead, the case is repeatedly reopened through partial disclosures that generate periodic outrage without a comprehensive resolution for either the victims and survivors or the public.

This is not a failure of transparency. It is a controlled version of it. Redaction, selective release, and procedural delay ensure that attention is constantly renewed while structural accountability is indefinitely postponed, never to actually fruition. The scandal remains alive, but its implications remain contained in perpetuity.

Post-communist transitions and elite continuity

The same logic is visible in post-communist Eastern Europe, where anti-corruption discourse was embedded into the language of democratic transition. Romania provides a particularly clear example.

After 1989, Romania formally abandoned one-party rule but did not dismantle the elite structures that sustained it. Political authority, bureaucratic expertise, and security networks were preserved and reconfigured. Under the leadership of Ion Iliescu, the state adopted democratic forms while maintaining deep continuity in personnel and power.

Privatisation in the 1990s did not disperse economic power. It concentrated it, with state assets transferred through opaque processes to politically connected actors, many of whom had direct ties to the former regime. This was not corruption occurring within a democratic transition. It was corruption in the constitution of the transition itself.

Anti-corruption initiatives emerged after these processes had already been consolidated. Investigations focused on marginal figures or later abuses, not on the foundational redistribution of property. The most consequential decisions were rendered historical, legalised, and therefore untouchable.

By the time anti-corruption became institutionalised, the core structure of elite power had already been stabilised, and the same equally corrupt figures were making theatre, publicly denouncing practices they themselves relied upon and profited from, and staging prosecutions that carefully avoided the architects of the system. Anti-corruption became a self-purification ritual performed by elites who had already secured their positions and insulated themselves from scrutiny. Corruption was acknowledged in abstraction, while its material foundations were rendered permanent and untouchable.

Moralisation and depoliticisation

A central feature of anti-corruption discourse is moralisation. Corruption is framed as a personal failure: greed, immorality, and a lack of ethics. This framing is politically useful. It allows condemnation without a broader critique of the system, which cultivates corruption, under which it operates and thrives.

Once corruption is moralised, it is depoliticised. Questions of class power, ownership, foreign influence, and intelligence involvement are displaced by narratives of individual wrongdoing. The solution becomes better oversight, stronger laws, or cleaner politicians, rather than heralding a social and political transformation capable of dismantling the networks and interests that corruption serves.

Anti-corruption enforcement is inherently selective. Not all corruption is prosecuted. Not all actors are equally vulnerable. Decisions about whom to investigate, when, and how are political decisions, even when framed as technical or legal ones.

Selective enforcement serves an important function. It demonstrates activity while preserving stability. By prosecuting certain figures, the system signals seriousness. By protecting others, it preserves continuity. The appearance of accountability is maintained without threatening core interests.

This is particularly evident in cases involving intelligence services, large financial institutions, or strategic political actors. These domains are consistently under-investigated, despite repeated indications of involvement in corruption scandals. Anti-corruption stops where power becomes too concentrated.

Corruption as a structural condition

The assumption underlying most anti-corruption discourse is that corruption is a deviation from an otherwise functional system. In reality, corruption is often a structural condition of state formation, economic transition, and imperial power.

Where states are built through rapid privatisation, geopolitical pressure, or security-driven governance, corruption is not incidental. It is the mechanism through which authority is converted into ownership and influence into wealth.

Anti-corruption initiatives that ignore this reality cannot succeed. At best, they manage public perception. At worst, they legitimise the very systems they claim to oppose.

The function of noise within anti-corruption

Anti-corruption campaigns generate a constant churn of investigations, indictments, headlines, commissions, and moralistic discourse. This creates the appearance of transparency while overwhelming the public with fragmented scandals.

The result is paradoxical: corruption is everywhere talked about, but nowhere fully mapped; reframed as periodical episodes of outrage targeting “bad apples”, obscuring the structural depth of corruption rather than confronting it.

As a result, anti-corruption is merely a tool for the stabilisation of the system, absorbing dissent, managing outrage and converting structural problems into a sequence of oversimplified scandals that liberal democracies can contain via formal and legalistic measures.

These gestural anti-corruption measures actually reinforce the system of corruption by allowing people to experience the moral outrage and catharsis of seeing the system supposedly hold people accountable, channelling public anger into formal, bureaucratic or judicial channels and thus rendering it impotent.

But most importantly, state-mandated anti-corruption measures fail to bring justice for any of us – not least in the case of Epstein the victims and survivors of his systemic web of abuse.

Featured image via the Canary

Lord Maurice Glasman is the party bigwig behind the Blue Labour movement. To be honest, we’re not much of a fan of his. Credit where it’s due, though; he’s delivered what may be the greatest MSM takedown of New Labour yet:

Lord Maurice Glasman just gave the wildest political interview I’ve seen in a long time on Sky News.

“The govt and the party has to repent and reject New Labour as an alien body that took over the Labour Party. And this is where it leads: perversion of peadophilia” pic.twitter.com/7RwXXnr67n

— Nels Abbey (@nelsabbey) February 8, 2026

Please be aware that the above should read “perversion and paedophilia”, although it’s bad however you hear it.

It’s over

At this point, it seems that New Labour is finished as a viable political entity within the larger party. We say that because:

As if this wasn’t bad enough, party rivals have now branded Blairism as the political wing of international paedophilia.

There is no coming back from this.

Blue Labour

In 2020, Steve Topple described Blue Labour as follows:

a concept founded by Maurice Glasman based on socially conservative values of ‘family, faith and flag’ but more socialist economic policies. It is rooted in the values that Glasman perceived existed in the party pre-WWII.

On 6 February, Blue Labour put out the following statement:

This week exposed the moral and intellectual rot at the heart of our party. Glib arrogance, vicious court gossip and a culture of conformity. A willingness to look the other way for factional reasons, blind to how it looks to the outside world.

And for what? In the careerist scramble for a brief moment in the limelight all imagination and curiosity are crushed, and so we are left empty of ideas and empty of soul.

How far we have fallen as a party. This must be the end of New Labour.

At the same time, let’s be real; Blue Labour aren’t a viable alternative.

As activist Alan Gibbons highlighted, Glasman described Morgan McSweeney as “one of ours”. McSweeney is the worst of the worst, so if he’s one of theirs, that doesn’t say much about them.

Featured image via Sky

Jawad Siam is an activist and a resident of Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem next to the old city. As we sit drinking coffee, he points to a plot of land adjacent to his home.

No justice within the Israeli ‘legal’ system

He tells the Canary:

Settlers took this in June 2017. My father, grandmother and grandfather all lived here in this house. According to my family tree, my family came here at least 400 years ago. We tried to do something. We went to court, but it’s an Israeli court and an Israeli judge. It’s not possible to win any cases today. I had to pay approximately 800,000 Israeli Shekels (£200,000). The Israelis do this with many families in East Jerusalem, not only in Silwan. They claim this land belonged to them in biblical times, 3000 years ago. They create stories, saying that for 100 years Jews have been living in the area, and things like that.

Since ‘Israel’ occupied East Jerusalem, in 1967, Jewish organisations have aimed to establish a Jewish presence in the neighbourhood. In an attempt to get Palestinians to leave their homes, Siam explains that settlers offer Silwan residents large sums of money to sell up. But although people do not have much money, they still do not sell their homes. Siam says he was offered $3m, and his neighbours were offered more, but they refused.

He says:

Any person in Silwan, in a minute, can be a millionaire and leave. But the people are stubborn. An old man here was offered $8m but he wouldn’t sell.

Illegal Jewish settlers call Silwan “Ir David”- the City of David

These settlers are all armed. They are supported by the occupation’s government and belong to the Ir David Foundation-  known as Elad.

Elad operates in East Jerusalem, and calls Silwan “Ir David’ , meaning City of David in Hebrew. As well as trying to acquire Palestinian homes, Elad also runs the City of David Archaeological Park.

This major tourist attraction has been built by the occupation in the middle of a residential area in Silwan. It aims to promote the Jewish link to the area, while intentionally erasing Palestinian history, culture, and identity, and the community fabric of Silwan. Many Palestinian homes are being demolished for this park, and international tourism is allowing this to happen.

According to Siam, most houses taken by settlers in Silwan are left empty. Their real project is not about bringing settlers into the neighbourhood, but ethnically cleansing the area of its Palestinian population. He says the occupation dreams of having Jerusalem empty of Palestinians, and are doing their best to connect East and West Jerusalem, while only showing and talking about Jewish heritage.

As well as offering to pay vast sums of money for Palestinian homes, there are also other mechanisms in place, to ensure the population’s displacement from Silwan and other East Jerusalem neighbourhoods. Palestinians have their land confiscated and are also evicted from their homes.

Many mechanisms to ‘legally’ displace Palestinians

In 1881 Yemeni Jews came to Palestine. Siam says they were promised they could live in West Jerusalem, but when they arrived they were not welcome. Instead, the people of Silwan, in the Batn al- Hawa area of the neighbourhood, welcomed them.

When the Jews left in 1928, they left the people of Silwan a letter, thanking them for their hospitality. But thanks to an Israeli occupation law, passed in 1970, any property that belonged to Jews before 1948 can now be claimed by settlers. 34 families, around 130 people, are now expecting imminent eviction after the Supreme Court’s  recent decision on a decades long legal case, to dismiss an appeal by residents against their forcible displacement.

The Absentee Property Law, enacted by the occupation in 1950,  is also used to transfer Palestinian homes to settlers. The occupation’s discriminatory planning policies are also used to drive Palestinians from Silwan. They are denied building permits, and so live with the constant threat of having their homes demolished.

Sari Kronish is an architect and urban planner. She is also Director of the East Jerusalem department of Bimkom, an organisation which works at the intersection of urban planning and human rights.

Planning system used for political gains, to ensure a Palestinian minority and the Judaisation of Jerusalem

She says as a result of ongoing neglect by the Israeli regime, since 1967, there is a drastic need for improvement in East Jerusalem neighbourhoods. The planning system is being used as a tool for political ends, to ensure Jerusalem is a Jewish city, the Jewish capital.

The urban planning policy is being used in a way that discriminates to achieve the political ends- to restrict when it comes to Palestinian communities, and provide when it comes to Jewish Israeli communities.

Kronish tells the Canary:

Planning should be free of that, but here there is a demographic driver to the planning policy. That’s what creates the discrimination. And the legal structures and laws in place that have been set up by Israel are allowing for this to happen. It’s completely in contradiction to international law, but in terms of Israeli law there are legal cover ups to everything that’s going on. Nothing is in favour of the Palestinians.

But Siam does not believe the occupation has been successful in its project so far. There are still around 60,000 Palestinians in historic Silwan, and there are a total of 1500 settlers.

He says:

We were supposed to be the minority by now, and Jews the majority. They have everything- the army, the power, and the weapons. Although we’ve tried our best, we haven’t been able to stop them. So the way for us to do this is to stay here. They thought they can easily force Palestinians to leave their land, if not using power, by using money. But this hasn’t happened.

Siam, like most Palestinians, sees the double standards of the West. Hamas is labelled a terrorist movement, But Ben Gvir, and the right-wing in Israel are not.  who kill and imprison innocent Palestinians on a daily basis. But while he does not believe in Western governments, be still trusts in the various Western movements that could bring about change.

Siam: “It’s a Western project here”

It’s a Western project here, and we know what kind of democracy Western countries want. We saw it when they talked about the Palestinian free election,  which they said was democratic, and was watched  by the whole world. But when the results came out, they said it wasn’t the democracy they wanted to see, because Hamas had won.

Palestinians have paid a high price in order to open eyes. It’s not only about the Palestinian cause. A lot of injustice is hidden by the Western governments, inside their countries. We saw it in places such as the UK, with Palestine Action. You cannot express what you want to say. And all the time they’re talking about human rights. But what about the eight million Palestinian refugees all over the world?

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Siam helps run Silwan’s Wadi Hilweh Information Centre, which informs about the problems faced by the residents. It also documents the occupation’s human rights violations in the surrounding area. But this centre now has demolition orders, which are expected to be carried out any day now.

Most Palestinians demolish their own buildings to save a demolition fee, which can total the equivalent of £25,000. But Siam has refused.

Another way the occupation makes life as difficult as possible for Palestinians in East Jerusalem is through education. Siam argues the school system for Palestinians here is the worst, not only inside Palestine but also in the Palestinian refugee camps in Syria and Lebanon.

This is because Palestinian education in Jerusalem is completely controlled by the Israeli occupation. Palestinians are not allowed to teach their own history or literature to children at school. If schools do not teach the Israeli system, they are closed down.

The Israeli occupation uses education as a tool of oppression in Silwan

Siam says:

Palestinians are the most educated society in the Arabic world. Before the education system was destroyed, Gaza’s school system was much better than here. But Israel does its best to stop Palestinians going to school, and tries to make Palestinians uneducated in East Jerusalem. This is one of the tools they use to turn Palestinians into simple workers, for example, working for them in the Israeli factories.

The occupation has now shut down all UNRWA facilities in the occupied Palestinian territory, and Silwan’s UNRWA school closed in June 2025. Most children in Silwan do not have a long term place in a school. Parents struggle to provide education , and around 40% of children have to leave the village to attend school.

Despite the relentless pressure, Siam and those in his community remains defiant. They continue their lives in Silwan, heavily surveillance, threatened with dispossession by settlers, and demolition orders by the occupation. Children go to overcrowded classrooms, not knowing if it will be standing the following day.

Existence is resistance in Palestine, and Silwan is no exception.

Featured image and additional images via the Canary

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The recent Epstein Files revealed a lot of disturbing new information. This included fresh revelations about the close relationship between Jeffrey Epstein and Palantir boss Peter Thiel. Combined with other factors, this has got many people questioning why our current Labour government has given Palantir so many contracts. It’s especially alarming, because Plantir is deeply enmeshed with the US and Israeli spy networks.

It’s not just the government who have given Palantir an easy ride, either, as journalist Carole Cadwalladr pointed out:

Pls read whole piece. Neither Mandelson or Mosley were asked about Mandelson’s role in fixing Starmer’s visit to Palantir & subsequent £240m deal. It finally made headlines on Weds when a q was asked in Parliament.

But honestly, BBC also has qs to answer https://t.co/SgtsuwNDMd pic.twitter.com/GDX9apoYkk

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) February 8, 2026

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Palantir and Mandelson

Louis Mosley is the head of Palantir in the UK & Europe. He’s also the grandson of the notorious British fascist, Oswald Mosely.

Louis Mosley spoke favourably of “the return of Donald Trump” in February 2025. In the same speech, he spoke of the need for “free speech”. Mosley also said:

In the US, we are seeing innovation and reform that will change lives in that country for the better.

There’s no reason we cannot have the same in Britain – and elsewhere across Europe.

Since Mosley said this, the Trump administration has launched a crackdown on free speech and civil liberties which are unprecedented in American history. ICE are instrumental to Trump’s plan, with Palantir serving as a key partner to the enforcement agency.

As Cadwalladr rightly points out, the BBC had no business treating Mosely as if he’s just some pundit. He and his company have skin in the game. And if British politics goes the way they want it to, these people stand to make billions.

On 4 February, Ed Sykes wrote for the Canary:

Palantir has latched onto the US imperial project and is now a prominent part of it. By extension, this means entering junior partners in the UK and Israel too. And apparent intelligence assets like Epstein helped to ensure companies like Palantir become part of this system of racist brutality and dominance.

The other factor to consider is the link between Peter Mandelson (another Epstein associate) and Palantir:

Mandelson’s links with US tech firm Palantir must be fully exposed, campaigners warn.

Palantir is owned by Peter Thiel who wants democracy abolished, and whose money and influence propelled Vance into the White House. Thiel was in close contact with Epstein after the latter’s… pic.twitter.com/ESMsZPZe5i

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— Nick Reeves #RejoinEU #NAFO #FBPE (@nickreeves9876) February 4, 2026

With Palantir and Mandelson both back in the news, it’s worth revisiting this — the Epstein/Mandelson/Thiel connection, and how Mandelson’s lobbying company introduced Starmer to the Palantir team https://t.co/Zxcgmb7dKr pic.twitter.com/YDpuLiQZxP

— Peter Jukes (@peterjukes) January 30, 2026

The seedy connections between Labour and Palantir go much deeper too:

In 2022, Woodcock was hired by Palantir.

Epstein met Palantir head Peter Thiel through former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. Then, last April, Peter Mandelson arranged for Starmer to visit their HQ in Washington.

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Now, the firm are sponsoring Labour Party conference events. pic.twitter.com/Wn5A2c3lzq

— Jody McIntyre (@jodymcintyre_) February 3, 2026

Thiel and Epstein

As noted, the latest Epstein Files have exposed how close Palantir founder Peter Thiel was with the dead paedophile:

BREAKING: Jeffrey Epstein & Palantir’s Peter Thiel were discussing a Plan that would destabilize Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and Egypt.

“The more of a mess, with just lots of bad guys on different sides, the less we will do.” pic.twitter.com/ZCoMjV2CGP

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— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) February 1, 2026

Do we really want someone who wishes to destabilise the world to be in charge of our NHS data? We don’t know if Thiel knows this, but we did the whole ‘destabilise the Middle East’ thing already, and it led to death, mayhem, and blowback.

Epstein and Thiel also discussed destabilising Europe, which is a little closer to home:

Peter Thiel claimed he had a distant, impersonal business relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.

But documents show Epstein was a limited partner in his fund – and was treated as more than that.

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The well over $100 million he made from Thiel’s business was his single largest asset. pic.twitter.com/gnFxVSmAua

— ClearingTheFog (@clearing_fog) February 7, 2026

There’s also this:

And Peter Thiel is the one who made @JDVance a senator and installed him as Trump’s Vice President, just FYI. https://t.co/Aj2GS7wPEa

— Andrew—#IAmTheResistance (@AmoneyResists) February 2, 2026

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And Thiel isn’t the only billionaire who was in bed with the degenerate Epstein:

BREAKING: New Image that Epstein sent himself confirms that in 2015, Epstein went to dinner with Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk and Peter Thiel.

Why the hell was he invited to dinner with these three men, being that he basically plead guilty to being a p-do in 2008?

Why wasn’t he… pic.twitter.com/Iq19aD23PN

— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) February 7, 2026

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Get them out

Zack Polanski is among those calling for the government to cut ties with Palantir:

Mandelson’s malign influence runs right through the heart of this Govt.

Not least in the govt’s NHS data deal with Palantir – a spy-tech firm co-founded by a man who thinks the NHS should be ‘ripped up.’

I’ve written to @wesstreeting urging him to ditch this dangerous deal. https://t.co/O3ODX7D5W4 pic.twitter.com/r8DppettCC

— Zack Polanski (@ZackPolanski) February 5, 2026

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As is Labour’s Ian Byrne:

The entire issuing of Government contracts to Palentir in light of their links to Mandelson & Epstein should be reviewed.
I raised the suitability of Palantir as an NHS provider to the Tory Govt in 2023 after constituents in West Derby contacted me with serious concerns. pic.twitter.com/vXCjb46v1c

— lan Byrne MP (@IanByrneMP) February 6, 2026

At this point, it’s unclear what the argument is for maintaining a relationship with Palantir.

Featured image via Gage Skidmore (Flickr) / Alexander Svensson (Wikimedia)

Morgan McSweeney – the long-term enemy of the Canary – has resigned from government in disgrace. And to quote Canary head of content Maryam Jameela who just messaged me in Signal:

bye bye dickhead

The man behind The Fraud Morgan McSweeney – off

As journalist Paul Holden covered in The Fraud, the Labour Together schemer Morgan McSweeney was the man who spent the last decade manoeuvring to:

• Bring down Jeremy Corbyn.
• Position the Labour right as the leaders of the Labour Party.
• Return to government.

McSweeney managed all three, but he hit step 3 more quickly than anticipated. This is why Labour ended up in power with the political vacuum that is Keir Starmer. It’s also why they achieved a majority government with fuck all plan as to what to do next.

Regardless of the finer details, this Labour government is McSweeney’s vision brought to life. This means he’s lived to see how much the public despise his worldview, with voters leaving the party in droves:

Contrary to popular belief, Labour is not struggling in the polls because they’re losing votes to Reform. Even if they recovered all the votes lost to Reform they’d still be on just 21%, down double digits since GE2024.

Instead, the bulk of votes lost have been to the LEFT.

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— Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️‍⚧️ (@LeftieStats) January 26, 2026

As noted, Morgan McSweeney is a longtime enemy of the Canary. He is the man who said the Labour right need to:

Kill the Canary – before the Canary kills us

While we can’t say we dealt McSweeney the killer blow, we can say this: we’re the last bird standing, cunt.

Enjoy your public disgrace.

And speaking of disgrace, the reason this is all happening is because of McSweeney’s mentor – Peter Mandelson. As we’ve reported, Mandelson wasn’t just paling around with the convicted paedophile; he was also slipping him state secrets while in government.

McSweeney was instrumental in returning Mandelson to power, and it’s destroyed them.

Maybe they should have killed Mandelson before he killed their careers?

Starmer next?

There is a problem, of course, and it’s this.

Now that Morgan McSweeney has gone, it could be a while before Starmer steps down.

That isn’t because the PM has anything left to offer; it’s because now that McSweeney’s gone, there’s no one in Number 10 to tell Starmer what to do.

Featured image via Morgan McSweeney

This week, Labour politicians found themselves tasked with defending the Peter Mandelson Affair. As we’ve been pointing out for some time, Keir Starmer knew Mandelson was a wrong ‘un when he made him the ambassador to the US, but journalists turned a blind eye. Now, the famously slow British media have woken up, and questions are being asked.

One particular question provoked a less-than-reassuring response from DWP boss Pat McFadden:

If your husband/wife asks if you’ve had an affair and you hadn’t, you’d say no, right? You wouldn’t say “I don’t believe so” pic.twitter.com/RDUutdKwr9

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 8, 2026

The Pat McFadden connection

Before we get to McFadden’s worrying response, we should explain the context.

As noted, everyone knew that Mandelson maintained a relationship with Epstein after the paedophile was convicted. What we didn’t know until the latest Epstein Files was that Mandelson was forwarding his paedo mate British secrets. He also worked with JP Morgan to bully the UK government into giving the bank a more favourable deal:

Mandelson was seemingly involved in insider trading, while helping Epstein, and by extension Jamie Dimon, intimidate his colleague, Alistair Darling, over a tax on bankers bonuses.

We’ve genuinely never seen anything like this in British politics before (on this scale).… https://t.co/nyDCgycEtj

— Aaron Bastani (@AaronBastani) February 2, 2026

Absolutely treasonous behaviour.

And there’s a McFadden connection too. As Jody McIntyre wrote for the Canary on 6 February:

We now know that as Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson passed classified government information to likely Israeli intelligence asset Jeffrey Epstein, even messaging the notorious paedophile on the day former Prime Minister Gordon Brown “finally got him to go.” But Mandelson had two deputies at the time, assisting him in his work: David Lammy and Pat McFadden.

Additionally:

In 2008, he was made Mandelson’s right-hand man. Indeed, in a fawning article printed by the Guardian in September 2023, Mandelson waxes lyrical on his former assistant, saying: “Pat has seen it all. He is a walking encyclopedia of political and policy knowledge, and experience in government.” But had McFadden “seen” Mandelson’s communications with Epstein?

During the 2024 general election campaign, McSweeney and McFadden’s desks were “right in the middle of the room” at Labour HQ. His wife, Marianna McFadden, was already McSweeney’s no. 2. Mandelson said that McFadden and McSweeney would complement each other, opining that “Pat is cautious…[whereas] Morgan is a hard-driven street fighter.” High praise all round from the Epstein-informant.

For more on Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and how he used dodgy tactics to maneuver Starmer into power, read The Fraud by Paul Holden.

If you’re not a Mandelson, just say no

In the clip at the top, the BBC‘s Laura Kuenssberg asks DWP boss Pat McFadden the following:

Did you ever forward emails about government business outside of government – to a private email or to someone else?

McFadden responds:

I don’t believe so.

Sorry, come again?

You don’t “believe” so?

As in you can’t just say ‘no‘?

Fucking hell.

If you didn’t watch the video, his face is ashen when he says this — his voice barely more than a whisper.

McFadden also said he could see why Starmer made the decision to appoint Mandelson — basically because he thought he’d get along with Trump. What goes unsaid, as always, is that Trump and Mandelson were both close friends with Epstein at one time or another:

Pat McFadden defending the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador.

He has to, of course, because if he doesn’t he’s hanging the PM out to dry, and its clear the Labour right aren’t ready to discard Starmer just yet. pic.twitter.com/L7ER9qeEpV

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 8, 2026

They know it’s over

A tetchy McFadden also began to lose his temper when Kuenssberg pressed him:

McFadden is right, the media is just as culpable when it comes to Mandelson & that includes Kuenssberg (e.g. he was on #bbclaurak twice in 2024 & LK didn’t ask him about Epstein either time)

This is a warning by McFadden, of course. Press me too much & I’ll cover you in sh*t too pic.twitter.com/Nxk33SXWN2

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— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) February 8, 2026

It’s almost as if he knows the jig is up, and he can’t contain his resentment.

Oh, and shout out to Saul Staniforth who clipped the above. You can (and should) follow him on X.

Featured image via BBC

Morgan McSweeney has resigned from his position as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff (Alamy)

3 min read36 min

His resignation comes after a growing consensus within the Parliamentary Labour Party this week that Starmer should remove McSweeney as his chief of staff, with many MPs blaming him for Mandelson’s appointment.

On Sunday, former Cabinet Secretary under the previous Labour administration Lord Blunkett said that McSweeney should not remain in the role.

McSweeney’s resignation follows the loss of two other aides last year – his director of political strategy Paul Ovenden and his communications head Steph Driver.

The Prime Minister said on Wednesday that he still had confidence in McSweeney, who is seen as having played a pivotal role in Labour’s win in 2024, claiming he was “an essential part” of the team.

Starmer also made the admission at PMQs on Wednesday that he knew about the ongoing friendship between Peter Mandelson and paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein when the former was appointed as US ambassador. Mandelson was sacked from his position as US ambassador in September after more details about the nature of his relationship with Epstein emerged.

Speaking on Wednesday, Starmer accused Mandelson of betraying the country and lying to Downing Street about his relationship with Epstein, after newly-published documents this week suggested Mandelson had shared confidential information with the paedophile while business secretary under the last Labour administration.

In a letter on Sunday, McSweeney said: “After careful reflection, I have decided to resign from the government.

“The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself.”

McSweeney said he had advised the Prime Minister to make that appointment and took “full responsibility for that advice”.

“In public life responsibility must be owned when it matters most, not just when it is most convenient. In the circumstances, the only honourable course is to step aside.”

He continued: “This has not been an easy decision. Much has been written and said about me over the years but my motivations have always been simple: I have worked every day to elect and support a government that puts the lives of ordinary people first and leads us to a better future for our great country. Only a Labour government will do that. I leave with pride in all we have achieved mixed with regret at the circumstances of my departure. But I have always believed there are moments when you must accept your responsibility and step aside for the bigger cause.

“As I leave I have two further reflections:

“Firstly, and most importantly, we must remember the women and girls whose lives were ruined by Jeffrey Epstein and whose voices went unheard for far too long.

“Secondly, while I did not oversee the due diligence and vetting process, I believe that process must now be fundamentally overhauled. This cannot simply be a gesture but a safeguard for the future.

“I remain fully supportive of the Prime Minister. He is working every day to rebuild trust, restore standards and serve the country. I will continue to back that mission in whatever way I can. It has been the honour of my life to serve.”

Morgan McSweeney has resigned as Keir Starmer’s chief of staff as the Peter Mandelson scandal engulfs the government.

The key No.10 aide said he was carrying the can for advising the prime minister to make the disgraced former peer the UK’s ambassador to Washington.

He was sacked after just seven months over his links to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein, and now faces a criminal investigation into allegations he passed government information to the financier when he was business secretary.

In a statement, McSweeney said: “The decision to appoint Peter Mandelson was wrong. He has damaged our party, our country and trust in politics itself.

“When asked, I advised the prime minister to make that appointment and I take full responsibility for that advice.

“In public life responsibility must be owned when it matters most, not just when it is most convenient. In the circumstances, the only honourable course is to step aside.”