Off Topic The Politics Thread
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The man formerly known as Prince Andrew arrested, another blow to the Royals. Republicans will be rejoicing...
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Some interesting (possibly) moves in the political betting markets.
The Greens, having been as short as 1/3 for the Gorton by-election, are now out to 8/15. The move is not in favour of Reform, though, it's in favour of Labour, who are now neck-and-neck with Reform in second.
More significant, though, is the betting for most seats at the next GE, where Labour are now favourites over Reform. Hard to see any party securing a majority, but I still reckon that Labour will form the government.
The Greens, having been as short as 1/3 for the Gorton by-election, are now out to 8/15. The move is not in favour of Reform, though, it's in favour of Labour, who are now neck-and-neck with Reform in second.
More significant, though, is the betting for most seats at the next GE, where Labour are now favourites over Reform. Hard to see any party securing a majority, but I still reckon that Labour will form the government.
I have absolutely zero sympathy for the Royal nonce, but I find most of the memes about him deeply unamusing. I also find the widespread display of the picture of him in the back of the police car - something the BBC has shown on numerous occasions - just gratuitously ghoulish.
How ironic that the Epstein affair could possibly see a member of the British royal family go to jail, and probably the fall of a British Prime Minister, whilst the US can't see its way to bringing any of Epstein's clients to justice.
How ironic that the Epstein affair could possibly see a member of the British royal family go to jail, and probably the fall of a British Prime Minister, whilst the US can't see its way to bringing any of Epstein's clients to justice.
Were they ever 1/3? Maybe with one or two bookies but the odds vary a lot. Best prices currently 4/7 G, 7/2 R and 6/1 L. Can’t really see any outcome other than the Greens winning semi-comfortably with a plurality. Would need a big turnout to trouble them.
Hope I’m wrong.
The problem for Reform will be tactical voting, the problem for Labour and Greens is how much tactical voting, they may stymie each other and let Reform in...
I've been following it on Paddy Power, which is where my bet is. Certainly the Greens were 1/3 a week or so ago. Today's prices 8/15 Green, 7/2 Reform (from 5/2) and 9/2 Labour (from 6/1).
Odds for most seat at the GE are Labour 6/4, Reform 13/8, Tories 5/1, Greens 7/1, Restore 12/1, LibDems 25/1
Amazing that Restore, the party for people who think that Reform aren't quite racist enough, are only 12/1.
I think that’s just bookies being overly cautious/hoping for mug bets and the small possibility Reform collapse and they all move over to the other lot. I’m sure Paddy would take as many bets as he could at 12/1 and it’s a market that will have very little liquidity this far out to drive prices either way. The sort of market they all just follow each other until proper money starts coming in.
who was the buffoon who hired andrew
That trade envoy role ended badly in 2011 because of Andrew's associations with Jeffrey Epstein, but by then, as the Epstein files show, he had been labelled "His Buffoon Highness" by UK diplomats unimpressed by his social skills.
That trade envoy role ended badly in 2011 because of Andrew's associations with Jeffrey Epstein, but by then, as the Epstein files show, he had been labelled "His Buffoon Highness" by UK diplomats unimpressed by his social skills.
TRumP dealt a smack in the face with a wet fish by the US Supreme Court over his tariffs. Technically the US has to pay back the billions that it has collected from the tariffs, but the orange turd has already stated that he will hold back for years.
Peter Mandelson, Epstein friend and former UK ambassador to US, arrested
February 24, 2026 • 8:16amCopy Link
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Police in Britain arrest Peter Mandelson in probe into Epstein ties
VIDEO CREDIT: UK POOL VIA SKY
Peter Mandelson, former UK ambassador and friend of Jeffrey Epstein, has been arrested.
London’s Metropolitan Police force said “officers have arrested a 72-year-old man on suspicion of misconduct in public office” at an address in north London.
It did not name Mandelson, in keeping with British police practice, but the suspect in the case has previously been identified as Mandelson.
Police are investigating Mandelson over documents suggesting he passed sensitive government information to Epstein a decade and a half ago. He does not face any allegations of sexual misconduct.
He was escorted out of his London home by plainclothes officers, according to the Times.
Police said they were searching his London home as well as his property in Wiltshire.
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Peter Mandelson appeared in the Epstein files. Photo: US Department of JusticeThe Epstein files released in January contained more explosive revelations about Mandelson's ties to Epstein, whom he once called “my best pal.”
Messages suggest that Mandelson passed on sensitive — and potentially market-moving — government information to Epstein in 2009, when Mandelson was a senior minister in the British government.
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That includes an internal government report discussing ways the UK could raise money after the 2008 global financial crisis, including by selling off government assets. Mandelson also appears to have told Epstein he would lobby other members of the government to reduce a tax on bankers’ bonuses.
Earlier in February police searched two properties linked to Mandelson.
At the time Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Hayley Sewart said that “officers from the Met’s Central Specialist Crime team are in the process of carrying out search warrants at two addresses, one in the Wiltshire area, and another in the Camden area.
“The searches are related to an ongoing investigation into misconduct in public office offences, involving a 72-year-old man.”
His arrest comes four days after Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former Prince Andrew, was arrested on suspicion of a similar offence related to his friendship with Epstein.
Mandelson was fired from his diplomatic post in September after emails were published showing that he maintained a friendship with Epstein after the financier’s 2008 conviction for sex offences involving a minor. When more details emerged in documents released by the US Justice Department last month, police opened a criminal probe.
The Epstein files suggest that Mandelson passed on sensitive — and potentially market-moving — government information to Epstein in 2009, when Mandelson was a member of the then-government.
The decision to appoint Mandelson nearly cost British PM Sir Keir Starmer his job as questions swirled around his judgement in someone who has flirted with controversy during a decades-long political career.
Mandelson’s many roles
Mandelson has been a major, if contentious, figure in the centre-left Labour Party for decades. He is a skilled — critics say ruthless — political operator whose mastery of political intrigue earned him the nickname “Prince of Darkness.”The grandson of former Labour Cabinet minister Herbert Morrison, he was an architect of the party’s return to power in 1997 as centrist, modernizing “New Labour” under Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Mandelson served in senior government posts under Blair between 1997 and 2001, and under Prime Minister Gordon Brown from 2008 to 2010. In between, he was the European Union’s trade commissioner. Brown has been particularly angered by the revelations and has been helping police with their inquiries.
Mandelson twice had to resign from government during the Blair administration over allegations of financial or ethical impropriety, acknowledging mistakes but denying wrongdoing.
He later returned to government and was back on the political front line when Starmer named him ambassador to Washington at the start of US President Donald Trump’s second term. Mandelson’s trade expertise and comfort around the ultra-rich were considered major assets. He helped secure a trade deal in May that spared Britain some of the tariffs Trump has imposed on countries around the world.
The status of the deal is now up in the air after Trump announced a new set of global tariffs in the wake of a US Supreme Court decision quashing his previous import tax order.
I have known Peter Mandelson since his emergence- from the TUC - as another ****lord, Neil Kinnock’s, indispensable handmaiden as Labour’s Director of Communications. So, that is more than 40 years ago.
I watched his rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall from a ringside seat as a Labour official, a Labour MP, an expelled MP and finally a broadcaster in exile in China.
I’d be a liar if I pretended to any feelings but elation as I watched his arrest on charges of misconduct in public office this afternoon. For me he has been guilty of the most consistently malignant conduct in public life that I have ever witnessed and I have been up close and personal with the chamber of horrors that is the British Parliament across five different decades.
It is with contempt however that I turn from him to those now more deserving of my ire. Mandelson is finished, good riddance to a very bad smell. I hope he gets what’s coming to him.
His enablers sycophants promoters apologists are still with us however. Still calling shots in British politics still promoting wars still condemning our people to poverty under-achievement and hopelessness. It is they too now who should pay the price.
Lord Kinnock is now a putrefaction, a half-dead windbag carried into TV studios infrequently to fulminate against all the things he once claimed to support, support everything he once claimed to oppose. He is a figure much reviled indeed ridiculed. But he invented Peter Mandelson. Indeed Mandelson was co-author of the “Project” often attributed to Kinnock, namely the liquidation of the Labour Party as a working-class vehicle, and the destruction of Tony Benn as the last hope of socialist politics in Britain.
But it was Tony Blair who brought Mandelson from the shadow to the front of the stage.
On the very morning of John Smith’s untimely demise as parliament and people reeled in shock at our loss Mandelson was hard at work promoting Blair as his successor and smearing Blair’s supposed friend Gordon Brown. This I personally witnessed. I watched as Mandelson sought to turn my colleague the somewhat traditional Jimmy Wray MP against Brown on the basis that Gordon “hadn’t the full package”.
What do you mean asked Jimmy, he’s got one ball in the Albert Hall?
“No”, said Mandelson himself as camp as Christmas “he doesn’t have a wife Jimmy, and he will NEVER have a wife and if he ever does she will be a beard”.
That’s the man who helped Tony Blair knife his best friend and mentor.
And Blair would go on to spill a river of blood, still running fast,with Mandelson holding his hand every step of the way.
Mandelson was as close to Blair as any conjoined twin could be and is jointly and severally responsible for all the crimes the two committed against our country and the world.
But the journalists who fawned at his feet, beguiled bedazzled imbedded are deserving of the deepest contempt. Those who cheered every “comeback” advocated every promotion attacked every enemy of his he identified. Where are they this evening. Where is Emily Maitlis where is Jon Sopel? Where is Andrew Marr where is Robert Peston?
Perhaps as Petey himself would do, has done in my company, they would answer my questions with the words:
“Peter Who?”
George Galloway
Leader of the Workers Party
Shanghai
China
I watched his rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall from a ringside seat as a Labour official, a Labour MP, an expelled MP and finally a broadcaster in exile in China.
I’d be a liar if I pretended to any feelings but elation as I watched his arrest on charges of misconduct in public office this afternoon. For me he has been guilty of the most consistently malignant conduct in public life that I have ever witnessed and I have been up close and personal with the chamber of horrors that is the British Parliament across five different decades.
It is with contempt however that I turn from him to those now more deserving of my ire. Mandelson is finished, good riddance to a very bad smell. I hope he gets what’s coming to him.
His enablers sycophants promoters apologists are still with us however. Still calling shots in British politics still promoting wars still condemning our people to poverty under-achievement and hopelessness. It is they too now who should pay the price.
Lord Kinnock is now a putrefaction, a half-dead windbag carried into TV studios infrequently to fulminate against all the things he once claimed to support, support everything he once claimed to oppose. He is a figure much reviled indeed ridiculed. But he invented Peter Mandelson. Indeed Mandelson was co-author of the “Project” often attributed to Kinnock, namely the liquidation of the Labour Party as a working-class vehicle, and the destruction of Tony Benn as the last hope of socialist politics in Britain.
But it was Tony Blair who brought Mandelson from the shadow to the front of the stage.
On the very morning of John Smith’s untimely demise as parliament and people reeled in shock at our loss Mandelson was hard at work promoting Blair as his successor and smearing Blair’s supposed friend Gordon Brown. This I personally witnessed. I watched as Mandelson sought to turn my colleague the somewhat traditional Jimmy Wray MP against Brown on the basis that Gordon “hadn’t the full package”.
What do you mean asked Jimmy, he’s got one ball in the Albert Hall?
“No”, said Mandelson himself as camp as Christmas “he doesn’t have a wife Jimmy, and he will NEVER have a wife and if he ever does she will be a beard”.
That’s the man who helped Tony Blair knife his best friend and mentor.
And Blair would go on to spill a river of blood, still running fast,with Mandelson holding his hand every step of the way.
Mandelson was as close to Blair as any conjoined twin could be and is jointly and severally responsible for all the crimes the two committed against our country and the world.
But the journalists who fawned at his feet, beguiled bedazzled imbedded are deserving of the deepest contempt. Those who cheered every “comeback” advocated every promotion attacked every enemy of his he identified. Where are they this evening. Where is Emily Maitlis where is Jon Sopel? Where is Andrew Marr where is Robert Peston?
Perhaps as Petey himself would do, has done in my company, they would answer my questions with the words:
“Peter Who?”
George Galloway
Leader of the Workers Party
Shanghai
China
Good old George, always so eloquent in his evisceration of those deserving it...