Newslinks for Sunday 8th February 2026

Mandelson 1) Lammy claims he warned against appointment

“David Lammy turned on the Prime Minister as allies revealed he had warned against appointing Lord Mandelson as the ambassador to the US. In a blow to Sir Keir Starmer, friends of the Deputy Prime Minister confirmed on Saturday night that he had not been in favour of bringing the “Prince of Darkness” back into government over his links to Jeffrey Epstein. Mr Lammy is the first Cabinet minister to break openly with the embattled Prime Minister, whose future hangs in the balance over the Mandelson scandal.” – Sunday Telegraph

• ‘Starmer’s position untenable’, says Richard Burgon MP – BBC
• Police finish search of Peter Mandelson’s addresses – Sunday Times
• Three things that could bring Starmer down and what might save him – BBC
• Prime Minister “agonising over his future, see-sawing between anger and self-reproach” – Sunday Telegraph
• Starmer’s losing sleep – Caroline Wheeler, Sunday Times

Comment

• From the Russians to the Americans, and from our own spies to the Civil Service, everyone knew the truth about Mandelson – everyone, that is, except Keir Starmer – Dan Hodges, Mail on Sunday
• Shorn of its moral purity, what is Starmer’s Labour now for? – Leader, Sunday Times
• Starmer must go. But there may be worse to come – Leader, Sunday Telegraph
• How Mandelson and a bunch of revolutionaries created the sordid world in which we live – Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday
• For once, Keir Starmer thought outside the box. It may finish him – Matthew Syed, Sunday Times
• Starmer’s gullibility over Mandelson vetting scandal gets worse by the day – Leader, The Sun on Sunday
• I saw first-hand how Epstein and Ghislaine got their claws into the world’s most powerful men – Barbara Amiel, Mail on Sunday
• Starmer has only his own judgment to blame – Jason Cowley, Sunday Times
• Controlling the story is what Mandelson is about – and now he has lost it – Janet Daley, Sunday Telegraph
• The Peter Mandelson scandal has turned ‘No drama Starmer’ into a lurid soap opera – Andrew Rawnsley, Observer
• A soft-left coup won’t save Labour. It’s not what people voted for – Josh Glancy, Sunday Times
• I have known Peter Mandelson for 40 years, He has always had two sides and one of them is dark like Voldemort – David Blunkett, The Sun on Sunday
• One thing we know: Epstein was no Mossad agent – Jake Wallis Simons, Sunday Telegraph

Mandelson 2) Payoff worth tens of thousands for being sacked as ambassador

“Lord Mandelson received a taxpayer-funded payoff worth tens of thousands of pounds despite being sacked as ambassador to the US over his links to the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein. Mandelson, 72, secured an exit payment equivalent to three months’ salary from the Foreign Office after he was forced out in September last year, just seven months into the role. His salary has not yet been published by the government but the post of ambassador to the US typically commands the highest in the diplomatic service — pay band SCS4, between £155,000 and £220,000 per annum. It would imply that Mandelson received an exit payment of between £38,750 and £55,000 before tax and other deductions.” – Sunday Times

• Foreign Office to “review” payment – BBC

Mandelson 3) Brown defends Starmer as “man of integrity”

“Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has told the BBC the situation facing Sir Keir Starmer was “serious” and suggested he may have been “too slow to do the right things” concerning Lord Mandelson. The prime minister is under mounting pressure from Labour MPs over his decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as the UK’s US ambassador in 2024 – despite Mandelson’s relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein being a matter of public record at the time. Brown said the appointment had been a “mistake”, saying he had also made a mistake by bringing Lord Mandelson into his own cabinet in 2008. But he told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme he backed Sir Keir as a “man of integrity” who had been “betrayed” by Lord Mandelson, adding the prime minister was the right man to “clean up the system.” – BBC

• Ditch Starmer for a caretaker leader, Labour MPs say… as insiders claim PM’s closest aide McSweeney is on brink of quitting – Mail on Sunday
• “Starmer has to stay. You wouldn’t sack a football manager after 35 minutes” – Sadiq Khan interview, Observer

Mandelson 4) Ed Miliband “plots return”

“Ed Miliband has told pals he wants to run again to be Prime Minister – and will model his leadership on New York’s new leftwing Mayor. The Net Zero minister will stand if Sir Keir Starmer is ousted from No10 over the Peter Mandelson scandal, insiders said. Mr Miliband thinks Angela Rayner will not be able to stand while the probe into her tax affairs still looms over her – clearing the way for him to be the leftwing candidate. He wants to run as leader who can “bring down the cost of living” – despite the failure of his pledge to cut energy bills by £300.” – The Sun on Sunday

Lord Alli is named in the Epstein Files

“Emails show Lord Alli appeared on a list of guests due to attend a dinner hosted by Epstein at New York’s Monkey Bar restaurant in February 2010. Both men were also listed as guests at a large society dinner in August 2010 – although it’s not known whether Lord Alli attended either dinner. Lord Alli’s name also appears alongside that of Peter Mandelson in an email Epstein wrote to himself entitled ‘contacts’. In another email from May 2012, Epstein mentions to a friend that Mandelson and Lord Alli were staying at Shelter Island in the Hamptons, the exclusive summer playground for America’s elite.” – Mail on Sunday

Reeves under pressure not to give Spring Statement

“Rachel Reeves is under pressure to duck out of delivering the Spring Statement to avoid unsettling the financial markets, The Telegraph understands. Officials in her own department have discussed the possibility of lining up a junior minister to stand in for the Chancellor, according to discussions which are under way in the Treasury. Mandarins are keen to stress that the statement, set to take place on March 3, will be a “non-event”. Some in Whitehall believe excluding the Chancellor from making the statement would emphasise its “low-key” nature, but such a move would probably raise questions about Ms Reeves’s future amid speculation of a Cabinet reshuffle.” –  Sunday Telegraph

“Where are the wets? ” asks Badenoch

“Badenoch is adamant that those who remain on her benches are bona fide Right-wingers. “Where are these ‘wets’?” she asks, rhetorically. I quietly mention Ruth Davidson and Andy Street, two respected Tory figures who just launched Prosper, a new movement to attract moderate voters, of which there are apparently seven million. “I don’t think they’ve fully thought it through,” she replies. As for a Reform pact, it remains out of the question – not so much because Farage maintains his ambition to destroy the Conservatives, but because Badenoch believes it’ll embolden the Left to form some alliance of their own.” – Interview with Kemi Badenoch, Sunday Telegraph

Academics challenge Phillipson over threat to free speech

“Bridget Phillipson has been accused by more than 300 academics of undermining free speech after mothballing plans to tackle “cancel culture” on university campuses. The education secretary pledged at the start of last year to establish a legally enshrined complaints system to protect academics from attempts to censor or cancel them by students or university authorities. However, the Department for Education has failed to set out any timetable to bring in the protections, with sources suggesting it is unlikely to be included in next year’s parliamentary session. In a letter to Phillipson, 370 academics including three Nobel laureates and senior figures of civil society accused the education secretary of kicking the scheme “into the long grass” with “real consequences for academics at the sharp end”. ” – Sunday Times

EU demands Britain accepts “onerous terms” to join £130billion defence fund

“British firms will be forced to source key technology and parts from Europe if Sir Keir Starmer signs up to a £130 billion EU defence fund, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. The clause – slipped into the small print at a backroom meeting in Brussels last week – was immediately condemned as the latest trick to impose EU rules on a post-Brexit Britain. And one defence expert said the conditions would be ‘utterly deadly for our national security’ – amid fears it would block the UK from accessing cutting-edge American defence technology. Eurocrats have also slapped a £2 billion fee on the UK joining the Security Action For Europe scheme, or Safe – a figure the Government has so far baulked at. The fund provides low-interest loans to companies in Europe needing ‘urgent and large-scale’ boosts to military capability such as ammunition, drones and missiles.” – Mail on Sunday

Knives out for Green by-election candidate … from her own side

“Green Party campaigners have serious concerns about their candidate, strategy and “propaganda” leaflets in the Gorton and Denton by-election, leaked WhatsApp messages have revealed. Messages between members of the party’s team last week show staff are worried about “dodgy” data in campaign leaflets, as well as about their candidate, Hannah Spencer. The activists also questioned the Green strategy of claiming it was the only party that could beat Reform UK, while offering “no actual policies” to voters.” – Sunday Telegraph

Other political news

• Home Office ‘tried to silence adviser who raised concerns about Islamism’ – Sunday Telegraph
• Blair “bereft” at death of former constituency agent John Burton – BBC
• Ex-education secretary urges cut in ‘horrendous’ student loan interest – Sunday Times
• Japanese brave snow to vote in snap election – BBC
• How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters – The Guardian
• Australia’s opposition coalition reunites after row over hate-speech laws – BBC
• Former Scottish health secretary Jeane Freeman dies aged 72 after cancer battle – The Sun on Sunday
• Water bosses in England exploiting bonus loophole face crackdown – The Guardian
• Lib Dem peer suspended again over harassment allegations – BBC
• ‘Wholesale’ reform of Lords planned after blocking of assisted dying bill – Observer
• Nation faces ‘electrical deserts’ as electricians age and too few are trained – Sunday Express

Ashcroft: Is the ‘insecure, manipulative diva’ Angela Rayner really Prime Minister material?

“Polling I have done suggests she’s a more divisive figure than Starmer. Last December people were more than twice as likely to say she would make a worse PM than Sir Keir as to say she would be better. But while Conservative and Reform UK voters were of that view, Labour supporters were more likely than not to think she would be an improvement. In my focus groups, voters often say they find her background and her blunt approach a refreshing change. But not everyone is convinced. While she seems unlikely to win new converts to Labour’s cause, a Rayner premiership could galvanise voters on both sides. I don’t know whether Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage would rather face Starmer or Rayner in the Commons chamber, but I do know that successful prime ministers have a certain je ne sais quoi, absent in Rayner. And for all her strengths, I can’t help wondering whether her lack of experience and impetuous nature would do more harm than good.” – Lord Ashcroft, Mail on Sunday

Lawson: Reform UK is a big state party

“It’s no accident that such a high proportion of the senior Conservatives who have defected to Reform are former acolytes of Boris Johnson (for example Nadhim Zahawi, Jake Berry and Nadine Dorries). Johnson was a big-state Conservative, whose attitude to the public debt was blithely insouciant. It was Danny Kruger, a more austere figure, who, speaking from the Conservative benches in July, said: “I do quite like the Reform party and I agree with its members on lots of things, but there is a problem: they would spend money like drunken sailors.” Two months later Kruger defected to the drunken sailor party.” – Dominic Lawson, Sunday Times

• This might have been the week when Farage won the next election – James Frayne, Sunday Telegraph

News in brief

• What does ‘social value’ have to do with rebuilding Parliament? – Maxwell Marlow, CapX
• The Mandelson scandal is far grubbier than the Profumo affair – Julie Burchill, The Spectator
• What constitutional powers are available to a Prime Minister on the verge of losing office? – Jacob Rees-Mogg, Substack
• Starmer, man of sleaze – Tom Jones, The Critic
• It’s time to defund the British Council – Charlotte Gill, Daily Sceptic