| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland 13:34 - Feb 9 with 10228 views | GlasgowBlue |
About to call for Starmer to resign. He'll be gone with days imo [Post edited 12 Feb 10:57]
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| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 16:18 - Feb 23 with 298 views | DJR |
| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 21:41 - Feb 20 by Swansea_Blue |
I’m surprised this hasn’t blown up into a much bigger thing. It potentially implicates Starmer and others in his inner circle as well as this bloke. Maybe there’s just so much crap flying around relentlessly that one more dollop of brown stuff hitting the fan gets lost. This should be huge and job ending for some of them (very probably for Simons).
Peter Geoghegan of Democracy for Sales has been doing some good reports on this for a couple of weeks or so now. I think he might have been one of the original people to break the story (I could have remembered that incorrectly though). |
Apart from you and me, no-one else on here seems interested in this but this is the latest development.
https://www.theguardian.com/po
It looks like Starmer is prepared to throw Simons under a bus, and is thus hoping it will all go away.
But this goes to the heart of the Labour Together/McSweeney/Starmer project given the £730,000 of undeclared donations, the key role Labour Together played in the project and the fact that some very prominent Labour ministers came out into the open about their involvement in Labour Together in the same year that the snooping was going on. Indeed, this for a short time appeared on the Labour Together website.
"Labour Together was built by a group of MPs - Shabana Mahmood, Steve Reed, Bridget Philipson, Wes Streeting, Lucy Powell, Rachel Reeves, Jim McMahon, Jon Cruddas and Lisa Nandy - who wanted to see Labour back in power.
In Labour’s wilderness years, Labour Together fought to make the party electable again. In 2020, with Morgan McSweeney as Director, it united the party behind Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign. In the years since, Keir Starmer has reformed the party, placed the country’s interests at its heart, and put Labour on the path to power."
Finally, on when things were discovered, this (from something I came across) neatly sums things up.
"So this is how investigative journalism works in the UK.
· September 30 2025: Peter Oborne and Richard Sanders write a detailed article in The National Newspaper revealing that Labour Together, the think tank behind Starmer’s rise to power that used to be run by his former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, hired private investigators to dig dirt on the backgrounds of journalists critical of the Starmer government. Key targets were Paul Holden, whose book 'The Fraud' was particularly embarrassing for Starmer’s administration and Andrew Feinstein of Shadow World Investigations (and an activist who stood against Starmer in the 2024 election).
· February 5 2026: Peter Geoghegan and Khadija Sharife publish an exclusive on the Democracy for Sale blog building on Oborne and Sanders’ work. They report that Labour Together paid a US public affairs firm, APCO Worldwide, at least £30,000 to investigate journalists including not only Holden & Feinstein but also Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke from the Sunday Times, Henry Dyer of the Guardian and John McEvoy of Declassified UK. It names the author of the APCO reports as Tom Harper, a former Times journalist.
· February 15 2026: lead article in the Sunday Times – “Labour activists paid for smear campaign against journalists” – repeats the allegations but focuses mainly on the (admittedly outrageous and intrusive) slurs against the Sunday Times journalists. However, it fails to mention the National story and makes one fleeting reference to the Democracy for Sale post right at the end of the story.
The Sunday Times story, and not the ones in either The National Newspaper or Democracy for Sale, is then splashed across BBC bulletins and articles (its online coverage actually states that this was “first reported by the Sunday Times”) because, presumably, something only becomes a real story across the mainstream media when one of their own is attacked and when one of their own publishes the story.
The independent journalists who broke the story are utterly ignored."
[Post edited 23 Feb 16:22]
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| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 16:45 - Feb 23 with 258 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 16:18 - Feb 23 by DJR |
Apart from you and me, no-one else on here seems interested in this but this is the latest development.
https://www.theguardian.com/po
It looks like Starmer is prepared to throw Simons under a bus, and is thus hoping it will all go away.
But this goes to the heart of the Labour Together/McSweeney/Starmer project given the £730,000 of undeclared donations, the key role Labour Together played in the project and the fact that some very prominent Labour ministers came out into the open about their involvement in Labour Together in the same year that the snooping was going on. Indeed, this for a short time appeared on the Labour Together website.
"Labour Together was built by a group of MPs - Shabana Mahmood, Steve Reed, Bridget Philipson, Wes Streeting, Lucy Powell, Rachel Reeves, Jim McMahon, Jon Cruddas and Lisa Nandy - who wanted to see Labour back in power.
In Labour’s wilderness years, Labour Together fought to make the party electable again. In 2020, with Morgan McSweeney as Director, it united the party behind Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign. In the years since, Keir Starmer has reformed the party, placed the country’s interests at its heart, and put Labour on the path to power."
Finally, on when things were discovered, this (from something I came across) neatly sums things up.
"So this is how investigative journalism works in the UK.
· September 30 2025: Peter Oborne and Richard Sanders write a detailed article in The National Newspaper revealing that Labour Together, the think tank behind Starmer’s rise to power that used to be run by his former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, hired private investigators to dig dirt on the backgrounds of journalists critical of the Starmer government. Key targets were Paul Holden, whose book 'The Fraud' was particularly embarrassing for Starmer’s administration and Andrew Feinstein of Shadow World Investigations (and an activist who stood against Starmer in the 2024 election).
· February 5 2026: Peter Geoghegan and Khadija Sharife publish an exclusive on the Democracy for Sale blog building on Oborne and Sanders’ work. They report that Labour Together paid a US public affairs firm, APCO Worldwide, at least £30,000 to investigate journalists including not only Holden & Feinstein but also Gabriel Pogrund and Harry Yorke from the Sunday Times, Henry Dyer of the Guardian and John McEvoy of Declassified UK. It names the author of the APCO reports as Tom Harper, a former Times journalist.
· February 15 2026: lead article in the Sunday Times – “Labour activists paid for smear campaign against journalists” – repeats the allegations but focuses mainly on the (admittedly outrageous and intrusive) slurs against the Sunday Times journalists. However, it fails to mention the National story and makes one fleeting reference to the Democracy for Sale post right at the end of the story.
The Sunday Times story, and not the ones in either The National Newspaper or Democracy for Sale, is then splashed across BBC bulletins and articles (its online coverage actually states that this was “first reported by the Sunday Times”) because, presumably, something only becomes a real story across the mainstream media when one of their own is attacked and when one of their own publishes the story.
The independent journalists who broke the story are utterly ignored."
[Post edited 23 Feb 16:22]
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Yes, I’m still scratching my head about why it’s largely being ignored. It was the Democracy for Sale piece that first made me aware of it, and I hadn’t realised Oborne and colleague had flagged it first in The National. When I saw the BBC version I remember thinking it was a poor representation of what I’d seen on the Democracy for Sale blog.
I imagine sacrificing Simons will make it go away given the lack of attention already. Despite comments from here back in the day about Starmer’s approach, I’m a late learner about quite how grubby this Blue Labour movement is. I’ve family who were active party members and supporters of Corbyn and they constantly complained out Blue Labour as it stated off. I tended to switch off tbh as they sounded a bit too cult-like, but they seem to have had a point. [Post edited 23 Feb 16:52]
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| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 17:30 - Feb 23 with 239 views | DJR |
| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 16:45 - Feb 23 by Swansea_Blue |
Yes, I’m still scratching my head about why it’s largely being ignored. It was the Democracy for Sale piece that first made me aware of it, and I hadn’t realised Oborne and colleague had flagged it first in The National. When I saw the BBC version I remember thinking it was a poor representation of what I’d seen on the Democracy for Sale blog.
I imagine sacrificing Simons will make it go away given the lack of attention already. Despite comments from here back in the day about Starmer’s approach, I’m a late learner about quite how grubby this Blue Labour movement is. I’ve family who were active party members and supporters of Corbyn and they constantly complained out Blue Labour as it stated off. I tended to switch off tbh as they sounded a bit too cult-like, but they seem to have had a point. [Post edited 23 Feb 16:52]
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I was never a "cultist" but have been aware of a lot of what has been going on for quite a few years.
Indeed, I warned about some things on here (such as the factional nature of selections) well before the election but it largely fell on deaf ears.
It was always control freakery gone mad and I always sensed it wouldn't end well. | | | |
| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 17:43 - Feb 23 with 231 views | DJR |
Interesting development. It all stinks and just shows the arrogance of them all.
Josh Simons wrong to tell Labour colleagues that Cabinet Office inquiry concluded he did not break ministerial code, MPs told
In the Commons John McDonnell (Lab) has just raised a point of order about these tweets from Dan Bloom from Politico. Bloom said:
EXCL: Josh Simons has accidentally messaged details of his case to a mass WhatsApp group of 2024-intake Labour MPs today
The message (swiftly deleted) said: “Jonny rang, PM will ask Laurie to look in to it. Aim is to move fast. But PET did find I had not broken the code.”
Translation: The accidental mass message revealed that the chief whip (Jonathan Reynolds) had rung him and confirmed that Laurie Magnus, the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests, will investigate the allegations against Simons relating to his time at Labour Together
A government official said of the above: “This was an accidental post and clearly meant for a more private conversation. It’s right that the independent adviser takes this away now.”
PET is the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team.
In response, Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, said that the PET would not have made a judgment as to whether or not Simon broke the ministerial code. [Post edited 23 Feb 17:47]
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| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 17:51 - Feb 23 with 207 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 17:43 - Feb 23 by DJR |
Interesting development. It all stinks and just shows the arrogance of them all.
Josh Simons wrong to tell Labour colleagues that Cabinet Office inquiry concluded he did not break ministerial code, MPs told
In the Commons John McDonnell (Lab) has just raised a point of order about these tweets from Dan Bloom from Politico. Bloom said:
EXCL: Josh Simons has accidentally messaged details of his case to a mass WhatsApp group of 2024-intake Labour MPs today
The message (swiftly deleted) said: “Jonny rang, PM will ask Laurie to look in to it. Aim is to move fast. But PET did find I had not broken the code.”
Translation: The accidental mass message revealed that the chief whip (Jonathan Reynolds) had rung him and confirmed that Laurie Magnus, the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests, will investigate the allegations against Simons relating to his time at Labour Together
A government official said of the above: “This was an accidental post and clearly meant for a more private conversation. It’s right that the independent adviser takes this away now.”
PET is the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team.
In response, Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, said that the PET would not have made a judgment as to whether or not Simon broke the ministerial code. [Post edited 23 Feb 17:47]
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"Labour Together was built by a group of MPs - Shabana Mahmood, Steve Reed, Bridget Philipson, Wes Streeting, Lucy Powell, Rachel Reeves, Jim McMahon, Jon Cruddas and Lisa Nandy .....'
....all you need to know! |  |
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| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 18:06 - Feb 23 with 195 views | WeWereZombies |
| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 17:43 - Feb 23 by DJR |
Interesting development. It all stinks and just shows the arrogance of them all.
Josh Simons wrong to tell Labour colleagues that Cabinet Office inquiry concluded he did not break ministerial code, MPs told
In the Commons John McDonnell (Lab) has just raised a point of order about these tweets from Dan Bloom from Politico. Bloom said:
EXCL: Josh Simons has accidentally messaged details of his case to a mass WhatsApp group of 2024-intake Labour MPs today
The message (swiftly deleted) said: “Jonny rang, PM will ask Laurie to look in to it. Aim is to move fast. But PET did find I had not broken the code.”
Translation: The accidental mass message revealed that the chief whip (Jonathan Reynolds) had rung him and confirmed that Laurie Magnus, the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests, will investigate the allegations against Simons relating to his time at Labour Together
A government official said of the above: “This was an accidental post and clearly meant for a more private conversation. It’s right that the independent adviser takes this away now.”
PET is the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team.
In response, Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, said that the PET would not have made a judgment as to whether or not Simon broke the ministerial code. [Post edited 23 Feb 17:47]
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But bigger news happening now:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/liv @17:56
'Peter Mandelson was arrested at his home in Camden, north London, at around 16:30 GMT this afternoon
Mandelson was seen being led away by plain clothes police officers and put into the back of an unmarked car
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said a 72-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office and has been taken to a London police station for interview
It says the arrest followed searches at homes in Wiltshire and Camden
Mandelson hasn't publicly commented in recent weeks on the Epstein files, but the BBC understands his position has consistently been that he has not acted in any way criminally and that he was not motivated by financial gain'
So not a bad day to bury other news as it turns out... |  |
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| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 18:47 - Feb 23 with 173 views | DJR |
| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 17:43 - Feb 23 by DJR |
Interesting development. It all stinks and just shows the arrogance of them all.
Josh Simons wrong to tell Labour colleagues that Cabinet Office inquiry concluded he did not break ministerial code, MPs told
In the Commons John McDonnell (Lab) has just raised a point of order about these tweets from Dan Bloom from Politico. Bloom said:
EXCL: Josh Simons has accidentally messaged details of his case to a mass WhatsApp group of 2024-intake Labour MPs today
The message (swiftly deleted) said: “Jonny rang, PM will ask Laurie to look in to it. Aim is to move fast. But PET did find I had not broken the code.”
Translation: The accidental mass message revealed that the chief whip (Jonathan Reynolds) had rung him and confirmed that Laurie Magnus, the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests, will investigate the allegations against Simons relating to his time at Labour Together
A government official said of the above: “This was an accidental post and clearly meant for a more private conversation. It’s right that the independent adviser takes this away now.”
PET is the Cabinet Office’s propriety and ethics team.
In response, Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, said that the PET would not have made a judgment as to whether or not Simon broke the ministerial code. [Post edited 23 Feb 17:47]
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Thinking this through I wonder if the referral to Laurie Magner, and also the PET investigation, are merely designed to make it seem that the matter has been investigated properly. But the remit of both is presumably only in relation things that took place when Simons was a minister, and both have no jurisdiction in relation to things that took place when Simons was not even an MP, so if he is "cleared" it may not be what it seems.
As an aside, the email chain and explanation on the following seems to me to be pretty damning of what Simons got up to.
https://www.theguardian.com/po [Post edited 23 Feb 18:49]
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| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 18:51 - Feb 23 with 161 views | WeWereZombies |
| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 18:47 - Feb 23 by DJR |
Thinking this through I wonder if the referral to Laurie Magner, and also the PET investigation, are merely designed to make it seem that the matter has been investigated properly. But the remit of both is presumably only in relation things that took place when Simons was a minister, and both have no jurisdiction in relation to things that took place when Simons was not even an MP, so if he is "cleared" it may not be what it seems.
As an aside, the email chain and explanation on the following seems to me to be pretty damning of what Simons got up to.
https://www.theguardian.com/po [Post edited 23 Feb 18:49]
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Sorry about this but I cannot resist asserting that Magner is an in cider... | |
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| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 20:17 - Feb 23 with 118 views | DJR |
| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 18:06 - Feb 23 by WeWereZombies |
But bigger news happening now:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/liv @17:56
'Peter Mandelson was arrested at his home in Camden, north London, at around 16:30 GMT this afternoon
Mandelson was seen being led away by plain clothes police officers and put into the back of an unmarked car
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said a 72-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office and has been taken to a London police station for interview
It says the arrest followed searches at homes in Wiltshire and Camden
Mandelson hasn't publicly commented in recent weeks on the Epstein files, but the BBC understands his position has consistently been that he has not acted in any way criminally and that he was not motivated by financial gain'
So not a bad day to bury other news as it turns out... |
One might have thought that but the way Sky are reporting it is that it brings back into sharp focus Starmer's decision to appoint Mandelson. | | | |
| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 08:25 - Feb 24 with 50 views | DJR |
| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland on 18:47 - Feb 23 by DJR |
Thinking this through I wonder if the referral to Laurie Magner, and also the PET investigation, are merely designed to make it seem that the matter has been investigated properly. But the remit of both is presumably only in relation things that took place when Simons was a minister, and both have no jurisdiction in relation to things that took place when Simons was not even an MP, so if he is "cleared" it may not be what it seems.
As an aside, the email chain and explanation on the following seems to me to be pretty damning of what Simons got up to.
https://www.theguardian.com/po [Post edited 23 Feb 18:49]
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A BBC correspondent confirmed that the Magner's investigation (in relation to breaches of the ministerial code) will only involve things Simons did as a minister, so a clean bill of health won't be worth the paper it is written on, although it will be presumably be spun way beyond what it means.
Do they take us for fools? [Post edited 24 Feb 9:49]
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