You could see the discomfort and anger on their faces in the Common at PM Questions this week. None of them wanted to be here. They are angry their Leader let Mandelson back into top decision making and astonished that he did not realise the Ambassador job opened them all up to dangerous revelations and enquiries. Those of us who remember the Mandelson of old advised not to hire him. The known continuing Epstein connection made it particularly inflammatory. Why didn’t Starmer understand the last thing President Trump wanted was someone in meetings in the Oval Office with direct links to the paedophile.
Some of them hated Mandelson for being a Blairite, too right wing for them. They resented the continuing Blairite tendency in a party they wished to take further left. They disliked suggestions Mandelson had wider influence with Starmer over strengthening the less left wing personnel and tendencies in government. Others more relaxed about the Blairite trend now with hindsight cannot understand why the PM took the risk.
There is nothing more wearing for backbench MPs than to be asked to defend a government which regularly makes bad decisions, demands loyalty to them and then U turns. It makes any MP that is loyal look weak and stupid when they have to change their views all of a sudden. Labour MP s have had a lot of this from this weak leadership. Pips, Pensioner fuel benefit, Business rates on pubs, the farms tax and many others have seen partial reversals.
The problem the MPs have is changing a bad PM could make things worse if they choose a worse one. The left do not think Starmer left enough despite his over spending, over taxing, over borrowing, his faillure to control migration and his enthusiasm for international law.They may not understand a lurch further left could make things worse. Markets might take their revenge if finances are stretched more. Voters could desert in bigger numbers.
Burnham is not available, banned by Starmer from a by election. Rayner still hasnt sorted out her tax affairs. Why sack a man for his bad calls on people to go for someone who had to resign over a tax scandal? Miliband is popular in the party but backing even more of his extreme net zero policy would close more industry, drive energy dearer and alienate more motorists and homeowners. Streeting is thought to be too right wing though everything is relative and he moves left with the prize in his eyes.
So far Labour MP s have bottled it. They cannot agree on a replacement so have not broken cover to trigger an election. Looking at the candidates they would not help steady the ship or rekindle growth. The truth is they all knew Mandelson and worked with him. Many praised his appointment.
February 7, 2026
Good morning.
Better the devil you know than the one you do not.
For me the PM is doing a fantastic job. For as long as I have been posting here I have always wanted the end to the LibLabCON triopoly. Each works with the other and does not offer the electorate what they want or what has been promised. They have debased their brand and traded in political beliefs for comfort of position.
The pantomime is coming to an end. We have seen beyond the curtain and, no matter the hardship the end result will be worth it – total fragmentation of politics.
As I have said here before. When every MP and political party have to sweat blood and tears for every last vote, then and and only then we will have democracy. The days of voting for a particular rosette are coming to an end, and people like Major, Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson and Starmer have had their part to play.
February 7, 2026
We need more than that for any real democracy.
A. We know that politicians rarely even try to do as they promise before elections.
B. Far too much power rests with the blob, quangos, lawyers, international bodies, civil servants, offcom, the climate change committee, laws like net zero…
C. FPTP voting also often prevent people voting for whom they want without wasting their vote. Generally you have only one, two or occasionally three candidates with any real chance. Any other vote is not worth wasting your shoe leather and the pencil graphite on.
February 7, 2026
Direct democracy is the only real democracy. You need to steer the boat no just choose a probably dishonest driver (their own interests at heart) every five years.
Rayner racing away in the betting odds 42% chance now! So bond rates will rise even more.
To be fair to Rayner she clearly just made a perfectly understandable error with her stamp duty. She can prob. even get the tax back once her son who benefits under the Trust reaches 18 I understand. But the last thing the country needs is even more left wing and union policies – but if she ditches net zero she will be better than Starmer and Reeves just this alone!
February 7, 2026
@Lifelogic – perversely I put her in the Corbyn camp, so left wing it hurts – but you get the feeling they are what they are. 2TK another with the Blair legal type background devious to a fault, manipulation, manipulation and don’t expose the ‘plan’
February 7, 2026
excellent above two posts. How refreshing to see and hope for a political meltdown arriving at the most basic values leading to proper governance instead of lies and corruption at every turn.
February 7, 2026
A vote is an expression of your opinion. It is never wasted.
If more people took this view rather than thinking about voting for a winner then more people would turn out and we would be presented with better candidates asit would be worthwhile having the debate.
Spoiling the paper remains a valuable tool and again if more people did it rather than staying away we would have better politics.
February 7, 2026
@Narrow Shoulders. I didagree about spoilt ballots. When I was in (local) politics, politicians loved that: no negative impact on their vote and every spoilt vote was counted as participation in democracy (turnout), boosting their credentials.
February 7, 2026
I agree.
February 7, 2026
@Narrow Shoulders – a ‘none of the above’ would be an advancement, 2 year terms for everyone wishing to be empowered and paid to act for the people. An election is not just about seeking change it is a referendum on direction. In a Company the Board of Directors are confirmed each year. UK.plc has as its Directors elected MP’s so should it be any different?
February 7, 2026
What about a less than 50% turnout not returning a mamber?
February 7, 2026
@Mark B. That is a wonderful vision, I hope it is coming.
For me our kind host’s comment “It makes any MP that is loyal look weak and stupid when…” gets to the root of the problem. Most MPs claim to represent their electors but in practice represent their Party. They know that electors overwhelmingly vote for the rosette in a FPTP LibLabCon revolving door system , not the person. A break up of the 3-Party system goes some way towards giving voters a more nuanced choice of rosette, and maybe even (God forbid!) a chance for a few independents.
February 7, 2026
@Wanderer – the contradiction at the root of a corrupt Parliament. If you move your opinion and loyalty when you are their to represent your electorate, that can happen when the direction changes from when you are elected,
that is still you holding firm with your electorate.
If you represent a Party, get selected by a Party as candidate for your loyalty to a Gang Boss, take the Party’s shilling for your campaign, then as they say ‘cross the floor’ there should be an election – you are not what you say you are, you are not what you told your electorate you were.
The answer of course is that all candidates should be selected by those they wish to represent, all campaign funding should come from those they wish to represent.
The LibLabCon coalition is anti-UK and the People.
February 7, 2026
Amen to that. I think we need to go further if we are to ever repair the damage, and ensure no one steps into public office again for their own profit, career advancement or to push their misguided philanthropy for others at our expense. Most of those in the Labour party should be working for overseas charities not overseeing our lives, as that seems to be where their allegiances lie.
Yvette Cooper blathering on about girls in Chad!! Horrible events as they are such as her don’t even want to get to the bottom of the horrific acts that have been perpetrated on our own vulnerable girls.
Not until politicians, civil servants or anyone who misuses their position of power and influence while on the state payroll are put in the dock and dealt with, will this cesspit ever be cleared.
There now needs to be a serious deterrent to any wrong doers entering public office.
February 7, 2026
Well said Mark.
“We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
Our wrath come after Russia’s wrath and our wrath be the worst.
It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
God’s scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.”
February 7, 2026
@Mark B – I agree with you that with still more that 3 years to go under our corrupt election procedure that blocks confirmation of direction. How much damage will be done?
February 7, 2026
what the public want is basic honesty and decency from everyone on the public payroll. they want British values to be defined properly, as we all understand them, and not the perverted version fashionable in the blob. they want a meritocracy, more power in the individuals hands and less in the state. the main parties all have a problem, they engineer an inefficient country which cannot compete, they negotiate away our strengths. the lefty takeover of schools and education has taught masses of people now, and created people who believe in failed ways of running things. Labour being a mess is just a symptom of far bigger problems in society.
February 7, 2026
@ian gill. I very much agree with most of that except, do we actually want “British values” to be defined by our government? They will only ascribe their values to us (tolerance = welcoming illegal immigrants) , or a set of apple pie values that they don’t follow (freedom of expression = Online Safety Act).
Perhaps it is better to let politicians offer us policies, and we decide for ourselves whether they are consistent with our values?
February 7, 2026
the state mandated that schools teach “British values” without much substance to what they are. so inevitability schools and the state and politicians have abused that to try and convince us that many values the majority do not support are in there.
real British values are worth fighting for, not the nonsense version.
if they allowed free speech they would know this.
February 7, 2026
@iain gill & @Wanderer – roughly agree, Parliament, Politicians are there to create frameworks to nurture the best in all of us. They can’t at any stage be a ‘moral compass’, as everyone is different, brings different things to the table but collective forges a way forward. You cant understand or discuss views and opinions of a personal view elsewhere get to suppress it
February 7, 2026
The fact that ‘British’ has to be defined in any way shows how lost a nation and its people are. Whether it be the latest buzz word of ‘values’ to join such as ‘diversity’ to beat the drum that all must dance along to, it’s all part of the dismantling and rebuilding of the nation.
Who used to have to be told, lectured, convinced or bullied into defining what it is to be ‘British’ It was a natural accepted state, passed down through generations. It’s not a tag I use as it means nothing now, with all its variations. I’m English, my birth right and people can scoff, tut as much as they like. I will not be told by a politician or civil servant what my identity is, who I share it with and what history it carries that I must atone for.
Nor will I be told where and when that can and can’t be in evidence.
Which is exactly what has happened to being British, and so like little school children it seems much of the populace try terribly hard to please their masters and are trying to morph into something alien to fit in with the ‘values’
These ‘values’ that ask that you turn a blind eye to young vulnerable girls here being ‘groomed’ for the sake of ‘diversity’ but demand something done if it’s girls elsewhere. If that’s what having the right values to be British is now, I don’t even want to fit in.
February 7, 2026
@iain gill
Exactly. The problem with the working class is that some idiot arranged for them to be taught to read, so they know their rights. Instead of being sent up chimneys or down mines or dark satanic mills, where they could work 14 hour days for a token they could spend in the company shop
February 7, 2026
You are a treasure. Pure gold.
I don’t know what class you think you are, but I think you are classless. Like Major Balls, no class at all.
February 7, 2026
The working class that first fought for state education for all thought very differently to the current Labour party.
I was reading a speech by Keir Hardie, and much of what he said is very relevant to todays politics, and stuff I would support, but nothing at all like the modern Labour party.
He liked freelancers for instance, he disliked people who abused their own position, so many things that are relevant to today.
In any case the state has mostly destroyed the old working classes, by socially engineering a country that does not do much but sell financial services and rock music to the rest of the world. The rest of the economy is state sector or importing goods or exporting jobs. I doubt KH would have approved.
February 7, 2026
My observation is that the public may want those things you mentioned, but what counts at election is sweet lies. The sweeter the lies, the more people vote for them.
Labour advocated “change” last time. That must mean the loose change you have left in your pocket when they have taxed away everything else you have. They said they would tax the rich to level out wealth. Meanwhile the wealthy leave, whilst dividends paid abroad to wealthy people and corporations are tax free and UK individuals are taxed.
February 7, 2026
The opposition is supposed to hold the winning party to its manifesto.
The Lords does not oppose measures emanating from a manifesto.
So there is a point.
Of course no civilized country can survive industrial institutionalised fraud and deliberate perversion of the Rule of Law.
February 7, 2026
What should they do? Well they should question why they were so dim as to joint such an evil politics of envy, net zero, anti-growth, tax to death party and elect a leader who will fully U turn on almost every issue.
A good Sceptic videos podcast – The Electrification Delusion – Kathryn Porter exposing the dangerous May and Miliband insanities!
February 7, 2026
It’s a set of people with all the same ‘values’. Political, ideological bedfellows with a few differences here and there give or take.
The only issue most on the back bench have is that we’re not being taxed enough, mass immigration isn’t being hurried along enough, the Union mobs aren’t having enough control and some of the proles still dare to talk back.
Other than that the Mandelson question for them is purely that it has come to light and is an inconvenience to their plans.
It’s not a moral inconvenience or shame, they know what their party has done and presided over, so all pretence at shock or anything else is just that, a pretence.
February 7, 2026
Some MPs proclaim they put country before party. If that were true they should vote for the dissolution of parliament and a general election. The government is both rudderless, unable to steer a course, and lacking any coherent sense of direction or destination. But Labour turkeys are unlikely to vote for Xmas. So the sooner the bond market wakes up to this grim reality and stops buying UK government debt the better. That appears the only way the issue will be forced.
February 7, 2026
Then how would we vote?
We have the same dilemma as the Labour backbench.
We can’t find anyone half reasonable to elect.
February 7, 2026
And then there is Starmers blocking of local elections. Even what is left for May 12th could be the final straw in his anti british period of crusading destructive socialism. A party of diminishing electoral support, in place due to a minority of the electorate , thanks to abstension and disgust with the tory party, is no basis for government. It will serve to keep to keep the commontariat busy but little else.
February 7, 2026
When we look at the runners and riders available to replace Starmer, the field of candidates available in the Labour Party is lacking real candidates.
All of the top names in cabinet that would under normal advancement of career politicians that have been elevated to high office due to merit and capability to serve are lacking. The Labour fixation of DEI/Woke policies has given us a Chancellor who is unconvincing with little understanding of economics or even rules surrounding supply and demand. We have a Home Secretary newly promoted that looks capable but is still unproven or tested, The Foreign Secretary is now too long in the tooth too steeped in old Labour dogma and with no decision making capability in evidence. Her ongoing support for the Chagos give away is telling. That leaves us with the second tier Cabinet members which now includes the Defence Secretary a post that was once a key ministry. Now 99% of the public could not even name the holder of that office. Healey is invisible and not worth considering. The Health Secretary leads the highest spending department but again lacks experience and brings questions of his own position regarding Mandelson. This brings us to Miliband head of deindustrialisation. He has the experience all be is destructive and he is not tarnished with scandal or association with Mandelson. His only real adversary for the role of Labour leader and PM is Angela Rayner. She is probably capable of holding the office but her hard left attitudes plus her own questionable financial habits are an ongoing embarrassment to Parliament.
If I was a betting man, I would be putting a £tenner on Miliband and sending a prayer up to higher authority for divine protection from the damage he will bring to our already decimated industrial base.
February 7, 2026
Perhaps Keir Starmer innocently intended to appoint someone named Mandleson, but Mandelson inveigled his way into le role, thinking nobody would notice.
February 7, 2026
The Mandleson, McSweeny and Starmer group had the selection of new Labour mps in their control. McSweeny’s wife is one of them. They will probably decide to keep Starmer and take their well paid job for as long as possible while looking for a cosy job in the Blob.
February 7, 2026
Apparently there is evidence that McSweeney specifically informed Starmer of the ongoing nature of Mandelson’s deep friendship with Epstein before the ambassadorial appointment.
February 7, 2026
What should a Labour Mp do?
Firstly Knock on as many of their constituents doors as possible, and get real feedback from the Public, take that message on board, and ignore the Party machine and Party members.
Survey Polls are not accurate because people do not tell the full truth, given the questions are often nuanced.
Mp’s need to get out in the streets, pubs, shops, and see what is happening first hand.
Knocking on doors once every five years is not enough to give you any sort of real feedback on what the Pubic are feeling or thinking at all.
February 7, 2026
What should a Labour Mp do?
Firstly Knock on as many of their constituents doors as possible, and get real feedback from the Public, take that message on board, and ignore the Party machine and Party members.
Survey Polls are not accurate because people do not tell the full truth, given the questions are often nuanced.
Mp’s need to get out in the streets, pubs, shops, and see what is happening first hand.
Knocking on doors once every five years is not enough to give you any sort of real feedback on what the Pubic are feeling or thinking at all.
Can remember you often doing the rounds in Town and asking local businesses how they were doing, just like the management consultant who goes to the shop floor first, to find out the real problems, and get the real solutions, before going back to the board with there recomendations.
February 7, 2026
These Labour MPs are more interested in preaching their beliefs than listening to what the public think.
February 7, 2026
Watching Liam Halligan last night and he’s convinced that it’s only a matter of time before the markets lose patience with this government. Starmer & Reeves seem to have a thread of credibility at the moment, by which we are hanging. Any new (further left leaning) administration is probably going to break that fragile confidence and then things will turn nasty. Liam thinks sometime in 2027.
Return to your seats, fasten your safety belt and prepare for a very bumpy flight (and check where the nearest exit is)
February 7, 2026
The markets seem quite prepared to indulge the government in high interest rate bonds. The government is quite prepared to ruin the next generation.
February 7, 2026
How much longer can Starmer cling on. Busted Flush barely describes him.
February 7, 2026
Until, May this year. He has his list of things to do, such as giving away the Chagos. But once that is done and he is no longer needed he will either resign or, made to resign.
February 7, 2026
Expecting a group of (mainly) extreme left-wing Labour MPs, most of whom are unemployable outside the public sector and are probably in the highest paid job they will ever have, to make an honourable and dispassionate decision about whether Two-Tier should be replaced and if so, by whom, is the triumph of hope over experience.
Self-interest will be the driving force operating here; not the good of the country or the ordinary taxpayers who fund their virtue-signalling obsessions.
etc ed
February 7, 2026
Sadly Agree, as that is how it looks to many of us out here, Mandelson being the extreme example of self interest.
The free-be gifts, invitations to events, expense claims, rent claims, generous pensions, and then employment with huge lobbying salaries afterwards, all smack of self interest, and the bu..er you I am alright Jack syndrome.
Nothing worse than a Champagne Socialist, who lives at everyone else’s expense.
February 7, 2026
But these Labour MPs and quite a few from other parties are in a once only job. yes, a CV entry that might impress the quick scan, but getting booted out is only however long this Parliament Commons survives.
February 7, 2026
Yes, the labour party have a big problem. Clearly they now want to drop the liability that Starmer has become, but they are so devoid of real talent they are left effectively stammering with indecision.
If that means progress on a host of bad bills will be delayed then that will be a good thing.
I don’t personally follow or have an interest in labour MPs so I’d be hard pressed to nominate one that could do the job, but perhaps now is the time for a dedicated backbencher with business experience to step forward – that would surely have a ring of change about it, but is there such a labour MP?
February 7, 2026
No mention of Shabana Mahmood?
Who would save Labour and make life very difficult for both Reform and Conservatives.
Also very politically correct, two female political leaders standing against one another, neither of them white.
February 7, 2026
The real story. Closer ties to the EU. More money sent to fund the EU, without democratic oversite The EU defining UK Food Standards inside the UK, without democratic oversite. UK fish given away and a fishing industry destroyed. NetZero cost has run out of control and the means to pay for them cancelled, offshored, removed. Elections and democracy cancelled. Free speech cancelled. UK territory vital to our safety and security given away. Energy cost though the roof. All cost, cost, cost on the UK Taxpayer. All punishment dumped on the UK Electorate. These are not bad choices these are all part of the 2TK ‘Plan’
So is hyping a bad choice, that focuses on the despicable acts of a handful of egotistical numpties that doesn’t affect anyone, the people of the UK directly and doesn’t cost the UK Taxpayer. Is what the ‘spin doctors’ call ‘a dead cat on the table’? In reality it is something about nothing to deflect people asking questions about the real damage, the real cost to the real people of the UK being done by an out-of-control leadership.
February 7, 2026
When you look at the despicable, devious moves being taken by 2TK it could be said that reason to send Mandleson to Washington was a deliberate part in keeping with the ‘Plan’. Wind-up Trump and the USA so as to create a divide, force the UK back under the EU Yoke.
We all have a view of Keir Starmer’s abilities, but perspective a Senior Barrister former Director of Public Prosecutions and head of the Crown Prosecution Service. That’s without discussing his affiliations with some anti-UK Societies. He cant be considered thick, inexperienced or that he hasn’t thought things through. He is trying to change a culture, society towards the diktats of the Marxist WEF World he as he says admires
February 7, 2026
Yes. He was certainly serving his Masters.
February 7, 2026
They are in a massive bind. The same bind that Conservative backbenches faced repeatedly. The House lacks talent. That’s the core issue.
The cause is the dominance of the party machines in selecting candidates for their compliance value, malleable, people who will not cause any problems. Constituencies have to choose from this list of losers.
Now we have nothing but losers in the House.
Even a general election as demanded by some, will NOT solve the problem unless we are free to select top quality candidates freely, and now I’m not sure if the infrastructure across the country is in place to do that, in any of the parties.
We are going to have to have all able people from across the House come together to deal with the real problems disregarding party politics, and giving the lead. This is a national disaster and extraordinary measures are required.
PS I’m sick of all the wringing of hands about the exploitation by Epstein when nobody is bothering to report the HORRIFIC evidence taken in the hearings last week by Lowe and Co from our own young girls and boys exploited under our noses in a most horrific manner.
February 7, 2026
It’s ironic that the same dilemma which prevailed in the country in 2024 now exists in the Labour Party-viz. do we throw out a bad PM and cohort to get an even worse one just for the sake of it?
Eventually the bottom of the barrel is scraped dry and the barrel then has to be discarded to start again.
The rise of Reform promised that, although them taking in some of the main players in the past government
starts to deface that opportunity. The key people there have to be the outsiders… some key ex-government people as advisors but NOT decision makers. The system needs discarding and rebuilding from scratch, not just tinkering with here and there. Literally question every £ the state pays for anything. Look at taxes people have paid before any benefits back to them. Public sector pensions straight back to defined contribution, benefits and state pensions including health only for those who already paid in or offspring under 18 who paid in, net zero subsidies abolished entirely. Direct democracy on any changes not glaringly referred to in manifestos. Public accountability for decisions including important appointments as they are made through the course of a Parliament. An entirely new approach.
Reply So why isn’t Reform doing all this in the Councils it runs? A lot of the Councillors are new people who promised to cut spending and taxes and are now doing the opposite. Who is Reform’s Parliamentary spokesman on cutting spending?
February 7, 2026
Paedophilia is an horrific perversion visited on babies, toddlers, and children. The word is being devalued by being used in this current context, as is the word child. Ephebophilia is what we are seeing evidence of, which is perpetrated on post pubescent teenagers, both under age and of age.
Jeremy Corbyn made a good and dignified speech in the House. They could do a lot worse than to revert to him. At least he has a seat.
February 7, 2026
The media are at fault using words to exaggerate their stories and politicans to increase their, so called, gravitas ….we need clarity, we need a singe age of consent, the same single age of maturity, the same single age of voting and for crimes, and a single age for adulthood ….I don’t care what the age is, so long as its all the same
February 7, 2026
And he will scupper all approaches to the EU.
February 7, 2026
They all forget that they serve the people and country
February 7, 2026
As others have said, Labour MPs should get out knocking on doors and face the fury of the voters at this shambolic and anti-UK Government.
But for democracy to work properly in the UK, we need a recall system for MPs. Voters in each constituency should be able to hold a recall vote at least once a year, so MPs cannot ignore voters during their five-year term.
This Labour Government came to power under false pretences, so maybe we should also require party manifestos to be legal documents which governments are required by law to implement. Any major deviation from the manifesto should require a referendum. But we have seen from Brexit and climate change/ net zero, how our MPs ignore the will of the people. So perhaps an independent body should be required by law to lay out all the facts for each referendum. In this day and age no government should have a five-year blank cheque.
February 7, 2026
We know what Labour MPs should do given that they only received overall 20% of the available vote and their current polling but, as they say, turkeys do not vote for Christmas. However, they’re not worried at all by the polling as they, together with a majority of MPs, civil servants and judiciary are on a mission to de-civilize the country with Net Zero to destroy the economy and national security and mass legal and illegal immigration to ultimately destroy our culture, homogeneity, inherent altruism, nationhood, social stability and democracy. We don’t even know now what is really going on since the judiciary are now colluding with our ruling elites to apply super injunctions to cover their deeds and misdeeds. An early GE would only be called if, as last time, the government wanted to give way to another group who wished to ramp up Net Zero, were quite happy with mass immigration and wasteful spending to justify high taxation and promised to cancel the only possible way to curb illegal immigration and to replace it with their designed-to-be utterly useless “smash-the-gangs” policy.
February 7, 2026
It is getting funnier by the hour, we have long past the crying bit
‘Brown: Starmer in serious position over Mandelson scandal. Sir Keir Starmer must ‘clean up’ or Labour ‘will pay the price’, says former PM’
‘Sir Keir was “a leader who in denial looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights” while there were “deluded leadership contenders fighting like rats in a sack”, Mr McDonnell said.’
‘Rayner coup will trigger election, Starmer allies warn rebels’
Nothing serious will happen, as they Labour are out of options, and turkeys as they say don’t vote for Christmas. Even if they get trashed in the few election coming up in May, they will stick with it. It is probable that ‘Morgan McSweeney’ could be scapegoated as 2TK likes to hide behind others.
We need to prepare ourselves for another 3 years in purgatory
February 7, 2026
Unfortunately both Labour and the Tories have purged so many quality candidates and frightened off as many more – it’s the way we do things here – if Starmer goes we might not get anyone better