David Lammy is getting off scott-free…

David Lammy is getting away with murder.

Not literally of course…

I’ve heard enough.

I don’t believe a word of this latest “Mandelson Madness” The prime minister “was told” apparently that Mandelson failed the vetting process last week but was still allowed to take up post…

This is a lie.

I want to be clear on this. This is a lie. The idea that a senior civil servant would overrule a vetting process which is meant to prevent this very scandal is a lie.

The idea that this civil servant would do this 2 weeks into a new job is an even bigger lie. You barely have all your logins correct 2 weeks in.

If you know anything about politics of the past 25 years you know about the colourful character of Peter Mandelson… New Labour’s self-proclaimed “3rd man” the only one not to be prime Minister, and thank God for that. There is nothing, it seems that Mandelson will not do for money. He has the nickname “prince of darkness”

If you asked 100 people who were alive and interested in politics over the past quarter of a century they would tell you not to appoint Mandelson, he has been consistently found that money is his weakness. Let’s forget his comments on China, let’s forget his think tank thing. Money is his Achilles heel, and Trump is the least honest politician of the age. This isn’t asking Mandelson to be ambassador in the Obama era, this is asking him to be US ambassador to a man who is nakedly taking bribes from the Qatari’s and enriching himself and his family beyond measure.

There are 650 MP’s at any given time, and the only one with a public nickname “the prince of darkness” there are very few MP’s who have been sacked twice from ministerial posts and still been allowed a shot at the most senior ambassadorial post in the land. This was an incredibly bad idea from the start.

So the idea that Mandelson failed vetting is nothing new. If 100 people vetted him, he’d fail at least 80% of the time, and I mean the common man. Not a copper. So, the idea that the Prime Minister is surprised that he failed vetting is a lie.

The link between Downing street and the foreign office was… David Lammy.

David Lammy was the Foreign Secretary at the time that Mandelson was vetted.

David Lammy has been around the block for about a quarter of a century politically. So he knew Mandelson. Maybe not personally, but definitely politically. Actually, he did know him personally. He worked for Mandelson in 2009-20010.

David Lammy has been an MP for 25 years.

David Lammy was Minister of State (Department for Business, Innovation and Skills) (Higher Education and Intellectual Property) 9 June 2009 - 6 May 2010

Guess who was Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills?

Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

6 June 2009 - 6 May 2010…

Yep. Peter Benjamin Mandelson.

David Lammy worked under this man for just under a year.

David Lammy was the Foreign Secretary when his former boss was being vetted.

There is no way a senior civil servant didn’t tell him that his former boss failed vetting.

Now if this wasn’t then passed up the chain to the Prime Minister, that is a different story. But the idea that David Lammy did not know is at best calamity and lack of curiosity on his part. At worst it was negligence.

This was a political post. Maybe if the ambassador role had gone to a career diplomat then it might have passed credulity that Lammy wasn’t told. Even then. Big doubts. If a career diplomat had failed vetting they’d just go for another career diplomat.

But Lammy was 100% told. To believe anything else is a lie. I want you to say this with me. I am a long time Lammy fan… Lammy was told.

Lammy was told and he either didn’t tell Starmer. Or he did tell Starmer and Starmer is lying.

I want you to understand the scale of the disaster we are facing if Lammy wasn’t told.

It means that we don’t just have an incompetent Prime Minister. We had an incompetent Foreign Secretary who is now Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Minister. If, God forbid anything happens to Starmer, we are left with Lammy and Lammy has just been shown to be either a party to a lie or incredibly inept.

So both Downing Street and the Foreign Office are both useless.

It also means that if Lammy wasn’t told when it happened Lammy as Deputy Prime Minister didn’t ask or was not asked about his own former department. Because the Prime Minister is wheezing about learning about it last week. Lammy had at least access to that information as Foreign secretary and could have and should have been asked to account for his actions in February.

Lammy knew and if Starmer didn’t ask Lammy a direct question at the time or any time since its incompetence on his part. But even if Starmer didn’t ask Lammy a single question, its Lammy’s responsibility to be upfront and honest with his line manager. We all have jobs, we all know this. This is a lie of omission.

Lammy knew because it was his job to know. If an Ambassador fails vetting that is not a job for the civil service. It’s a political appointment and so if you are a civil servant, the procedure ends there. He failed vetting, the offer is withdrawn and a new candidate is found.

The decision to go around the vetting is an extraordinary one, and therefore a political one.

One last thing, the problem with politics is…Politicians.

Here are 2 different questions.

Did Peter Mandelson go through the vetting process?

The answer to this question is yes.

Did Peter Mandelson pass the vetting process?

The answer to that is no.

Did Starmer ask the wrong question and someone thought to be funny or deliberately or accidently miss out material information?

Because if the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland asks so much as the coffee maker “did Mandelson go through vetting?” and you don’t say “he did, but he failed it” you are lying by omission.

In accounting we call it material misstatement. When leaving out information would cause someone to make a different decision. And in Accounting that fail rate can be as little as 1%-2%. So if you said you sold 100 items but you sold 97 that’s material misstatement.

When someone says “did you go to school?” lets say 98% of people in my school year would say yes. But when that same someone says did you get 5 GCSE’s at A-C? (the incredibly low benchmark of a successful education) that number is 47.2% in my school year according to the BBC.

Those are different things. The process and the outcome are different. Which is why I know David Lammy would have had to be told. Because the process isn’t his jurisdiction to be sure, but those civil servants report to him and he is responsible for their output. The output was that Mandelson failed vetting so the first person to be told would need to be Lammy. Or else this man Olly Robbins would be crazy.

I don’t believe that Robbins should fall on his sword. He isn’t responsible. Lammy is. Olly Robbins would have told someone the risks of the appointment.

But let’s talk about Starmer’s failing.

Starmer, like the rest of God’s creation, was blindsided when evidence of Mandelson’s forwarding incredibly sensitive emails to a banker named Epstein. (the point isn’t that its Epstein, its he was a banker who could have made money out of it. And who else was he sending those emails to? And was he getting kickbacks for it? Or being blackmailed into it?)

Mandelson had already been sacked at this point, so the only thing to do is a full, root and branch into his appointment. It would be at that point. In February, that you’d discover he’d failed vetting. You either went to Parliament before the root and branch was concluded or didn’t read the root and branch or didn’t ask for one.

All are bad options.

But to say you found out last week shows a prime minister unable to set events, only able to respond to them.

Might I remind you that the USA has just plunged us into a global energy crisis? The last thing we need is a Prime Minister unable to make waves of his own. Only able to respond to whatever crackhead things Trump is on.

Lammy needs to answer questions. Because we love to villainise civil servants. They are…in this government, political whipping boys. Whenever a politician does something stupid, the civil servant in charge has to resign. For what? You were likely warned. That is all civil servants can do. Warn. The final decision to go or not go lies with you.

That is why I don’t buy that something that was beyond stupid to begin with is only now being identified as a bad idea.

The only way Mandelson would have become ambassador is if someone jimmied the system. So being surprised that someone jimmied the system is the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a while.

Something went wrong in the process and someone overruled the process to make Mandelson’s past okay.

And the fact that you are only learning of it now is mind bending levels of incompetence.

Grace and Courage.

Annetta Mother Smith.