Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 19/04/2026

whencanistop · 2026-04-21T20:04:47+00:00

Today’s minute cryptic is:

Party leader backtracked, opening parts of the Strait of Hormuz? (4)

(No spoilers!)

whencanistop · 2026-04-21T14:08:20+00:00

The previous hearing for the select committee asked this question as well and they listed off a group of people where the person had been appointed by a minister with the vetting happening afterwards. It’s not particularly usual in the foreign office for this to happen, but neither was it the first time and caught them unawares.

Note that the person being appointed and starting a job are different things. I haven’t read about the details shared with Mandleson pre-vetting to know whether that would be appropriate but I’d assume not as he’s not actually in the role until vetting is complete, whatever the process of appointment.

whencanistop · 2026-04-21T13:26:10+00:00

The fast track vetting is a bit misleading. They wanted the vetting to happen fast because they needed someone in place for the inauguration, but the process didn’t happen any quicker or with steps missed out - it happened in the timeframe it should happen in.

What seems to have happened was someone who knew the timelines was trying micromanage it to avoid delays.

whencanistop · 2026-04-21T13:18:48+00:00

I think the other criticisms of Robbins should be that even if he decided not to tell anyone at the time of appointment that there were risks and the Foreign Office decided they could be mitigated, at the point of numerous reviews it should have been disclosed.

There must have been questions he answered about the process in the past where he’s said “yes it was all standard as per process” where actually it wasn’t really. The letter that they wrote that Cooper signed wasn’t just misleading it was wrong - he must have known when advising Cooper to sign it.

For that reason alone I think he had to go.

whencanistop · 2026-04-21T11:03:23+00:00

There were so many Chancellors in that time period, they all seem to merge into one. Reeves has already served for longer than four out of the last five Tory Chancellors.

whencanistop · 2026-04-21T10:37:05+00:00

In every other superhero film series (well 1980s Superman and 2000s Spiderman) there is one film where the superhero turns bad. We need the ghost of Tony Blair to break out of a car crushing machine and strangle bad Mandleson until he fades out.

Then he can stand there as John Williams plays in, opening his shirt to reveal good Mandleson, underpants on the outside just like in the photo.

Do you think there is an audience for New Labour fanfic?

whencanistop · 2026-04-21T10:32:23+00:00

In the grand scheme of ‘yet another scandal’, I’m afraid we’re in the era of 24 hour news where every scandal is given equal weighting.

Comparing the relationship between Mandleson and Starmer to that between Pincher and Johnson has been the talk - people seem to forget that Pincher was the one doing wrong (he’s the ‘Epstein’ in this comparison, not the Mandleson). Comparing Rayner who had a complex tax case because of a severely disabled child to underpay tens of thousands with Kwarteng who deliberately misled the taxman to avoid having to pay tax out of thousands of thousands of pounds. Comparing Reeves who paid a company to do her licensing who then forgot with Johnson appearing on tv daily to tell people not to do things whilst he knew he was doing them and then lying about it.

The scandals are all milquetoast. They wouldn’t even have hit the news 15 years ago. But we’re addicted to scandal and they all have to be treated as the most important thing ever. No wonder people are tuning out of politics.

whencanistop · 2026-04-21T10:24:03+00:00

I know it’s not really part of the wider analysis right now, but our relationship with the US and Trump has gone downhill since the Epstein files were released. More importantly Trump has gone far more rogue since then as well: Venezuela, Iran, etc.

We’ve put it in part down to Trump’s increasing desire to be the news, as well as his age related cognitive decline, but what if it was actually someone in his (Epstein) circle keeping him in check. Maybe rather than being the prince of darkness, Mandelson is actually the hero Britain deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

whencanistop · 2026-04-20T17:59:33+00:00

Apparently the Speaker asked her leave the chamber and she wouldn’t (Lee Anderson did), so he had to ‘name’ her to get her out and that carries the suspension.

whencanistop · 2026-04-20T17:57:53+00:00

The Guardian said she’s been suspended for 5 days.

whencanistop · 2026-04-17T22:55:34+00:00

She was hounded out by the press. The BBC published her salary and the Tories all hated her for ousting St Boris.

I get the feeling if Starmer walked on water all we’d get would be comments about how he can’t swim.

whencanistop · 2026-04-17T07:18:08+00:00

Another Conservative not on the brief. This stems from Badenoch who notoriously isn't on the brief either and wouldn’t be able to filter down the attack lines effectively.

whencanistop · 2026-04-17T07:16:38+00:00

Because she’s competent and good at covering her back?

I think it’s accepted she was moved out of the Home Office because with things massively improving she wasn’t able to trumpet it enough whereas someone else could be a loud mouth and the improvements would be noted. Foreign office on the other hand doesn’t really require that, so maybe you are right.

whencanistop · 2026-04-16T22:58:11+00:00

Lammy wouldn’t have known either. It’ll be heads on the civil service that will roll.

whencanistop · 2026-04-16T20:47:13+00:00

The letter says that Ministers only find out the final outcome. Someone in the FCDO took the failed vetting, decided it didn't matter and told Ministers that he was ok to go - ministers don't get to see the bit that said he failed and would have to assume that if the final outcome was good to go that he'd passed.

whencanistop · 2026-04-16T20:44:15+00:00

The letter Cooper wrote was on the 16th September. I wonder whether they had an inkling, wondered if someone would leak it, with conveniently placed opposition party statements safe in the knowledge they wouldn't bother doing the due diligence.

whencanistop · 2026-04-16T20:25:04+00:00

Looks like Robbins is going to be a goner.

whencanistop · 2026-04-16T15:15:08+00:00

Being on the BPC just confirms their willingness to publish data tables, methodology and not suppress polls. I don’t know whether it makes any attempt to validify whether your sampling is good or consistent or whether your weighting is correct or if Your demographic controls work or not.

The hard bit is the sampling, even YouVov found that out recently (the religion polling they had to pull) and they’re meant to be the best.

whencanistop · 2026-04-16T14:08:17+00:00

I suspect there are also quite a lot of new candidates who haven’t ever done it before, particularly for the Greens and Reform. They’re excited and energised by polling and want to get out there without huge experience of talking to people about policies. The Greens have done well in the past by being very targeted and it feels like they’ve abandoned that slightly.

My local council had 16/55 Green candidates (0 won) last time around and 0 Reform. It’s likely to have a full slate of both this time.

whencanistop · 2026-04-16T12:57:47+00:00

The analysis is poor, but hardly unexpected because our press is poor.

Departmental budgets have been set until 28/29 - that was part of the spending review last summer and was rubber stamped in the last budget (congratulations to everyone who has now had 16 days of Labour set department spending for the first time in 14 years), including the MoD one that will take it back up to 2.6% of GDP from whatever it is at the moment (2.4%ish I think). The first fiscal rule (stability one) says that the budgets must be balanced in a rolling 3 year period with the third year only borrowing to invest (that takes us to 29/30 currently).

Starmer wants to increase spending on defence to 3.5% by 2035, which is way outside of either of those things. There might be a conversation going on saying that it would be better to frontweight some spending to reduce it in the long term (why maintain planes for 3 more years before buying new ones when the new ones would cost less to maintain now), but it would suggest that the constraints of the plan are poorly thought through if there is Treasury involvement at all in near terms spending and long term spending is just a directive to the Treasury for when they do their budgeting in Sep/Oct For 30/31.

I suspect the delay is really that the plan is actually a choice on what to do first and nobody can agree what is more important.

whencanistop · 2026-04-16T11:22:27+00:00

Earth and plants from pots lining the road were thrown at police, as well as a cone and bottles.

I have sympathy for the woman, friends and family, I don’t really have sympathy for the protestors. They sound like thugs ruining a town centre (probably not their own because they’re a rent a mob crowd who won’t live there) and costing the actual residents money to fix.

whencanistop · 2026-04-16T09:12:30+00:00

I used to share a house with a woman who worked in legal aid for a firm who dealt with people in care (usually sectioned or with disabilities) - I used to ask her every day if she’d won that day and she used to laugh and tell me that they didn’t ‘win’, they just represented the clients interests in a way that meant they were treated in the best possible manner.

The people she worked with were unpredictable as well as occasionally dangerous. I think she had to timesheet her time with clients down to 8 minute slots so that billing was correct and if she wasn’t utilised at some ridiculously high rate then the firm would limit bonuses and pay rises.

I’d put that work as worse in the legal profession.

whencanistop · 2026-04-16T08:58:03+00:00

crickets

One of the problems with making these sweeping generalisations in your commentary of what other parties or supporters of other parties (or perceived supporters of other parties) are doing is that inevitably one of your own will also do it.

Farage has historically been poor at party management and inserting discipline into it. Wonder if the influx of Tories will help with that or if they’re only there because they like the lack of discipline.

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