UK: 'A DISASTER!' - NIGHTMARE for Starmer as Speaker confirms HUGE vote on sleaze probe into PM
Sir Keir Starmer will face a Commons vote on whether he should be referred to a parliamentary sleaze inquiry over the Mandelson vetting scandal.
Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle announced that he will allow a debate and vote tomorrow on whether to refer the PM to the Privileges Committee.
The Tories and other opposition parties have accused Sir Keir of misleading Parliament over the process which led to the peer’s appointment as plum US ambassador role.
But Labour has accused opposition parties of playing “silly political games” over attempts to launch a formal investigation into whether Sir Keir Starmer lied to MPs over the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson.
It is up to Sir Lindsay to decide whether to allow a vote on whether the matter should be referred to the panel which investigated former premier Boris Johnson over partygate.
The Prime Minister is facing mounting pressure over the revelations about Lord Mandelson’s vetting process and Sir Keir’s handling of it, including his decision to sack Foreign Office chief Sir Olly Robbins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh-k5Sa2aIs
Trial to Begin for Three Men Accused of Targeting Prime Minister’s Properties
Thursday, April 23, 2026
Three men are set to face a jury at the Old Bailey on Monday, 27 April 2026, following a series of coordinated arson attacks targeting properties and a vehicle linked to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
.
The defendants— Roman Lavrynovych
, 21, Petro Pochynok
, 35, and Stanislav Carpiuc
, 27—face charges of conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life, with Lavrynovych
facing additional arson counts. All three have pleaded not guilty and remain in custody at HMP Belmarsh.
The Alleged Attacks
Prosecutors allege that in May 2025, the trio was responsible for three separate incidents: a vehicle fire in Kentish Town, and fires at a former residence and the current private home of the Prime Minister.
Motive?: The official motive remains "unexplained" and "opaque". While investigated by the Met's Counter Terrorism Command due to the high-profile nature of the target, prosecutors have stated the case is currently not being treated as terrorism.
https://hounslowherald.com/trial-to-begin-for-three-men-accused-of-targeting-prime-ministers-properti-p31793-343.htm
MSM not covering, D-Notice in effect?
Ukrainians Petro Pochynok, 35, Roman Lavrynovych, 21 and Ukrainian-born Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, 27
>you memes need some work.
Roman Lavrynovych, 21
Petro Pochynok, 35
Stanislav Carpiuc, 27
Anon's good, thanks.
LIVE: Elon Musk Arrives in Court for Powerful OpenAI Lawsuit Showdown | DWS News
WATCH LIVE as Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is set to appear in federal court in California as a high-stakes legal battle against OpenAI begins. The lawsuit centers on Musk’s claims that OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, has deviated from its original mission by transitioning toward a for-profit model.
The case is drawing global attention as it raises critical questions about the future of artificial intelligence, corporate responsibility, and ethical AI development. Jury selection is underway as both sides prepare for what could become one of the most significant tech trials in recent years.
This courtroom showdown could reshape how AI companies operate and redefine the balance between innovation and accountability in the rapidly evolving tech industry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wqCFdhYYvY
Keir Starmer: ‘I can win the next election’
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
Sometimes in life it’s easier to be honest to a child. In a science class at the Newcastle United Foundation on Thursday, a girl from year 8 has a question for Sir Keir Starmer: “Is it fun being prime minister?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s fun all the time,” Starmer acknowledges, prodding at a toy robot.
The job of prime minister can’t have been much fun at all in recent days, as the interminable Lord Mandelson scandal appears to drag Starmer’s premiership down the plughole. Cabinet ministers plot in private and are lukewarm in public. Rumours swirl that this time it really is imminent. “It’s over,” say the anonymous government sources.
Is it really over, I ask the prime minister, when we sit down for an interview on the train from Newcastle to London. “No.” So, in the time-honoured Labour phrase, he is going on? “Of course. We didn’t wait 14 years to get elected, we didn’t change the Labour Party, we didn’t do all that it entailed to win the election and the mandate for change, not to deliver on it.”
And he plans to fight the next election? “Yes.”
Yet many in his party no longer think this is a viable proposition; the country has made up its mind on Starmer and he can’t win. “I think we can,” he says. “I think it’s going to be a very important general election. It’s likely to be Labour versus Reform. An election where the defining question is, what is it to be British? An election where what I would call patriotic values of tolerance, decency, live and let live, diversity, are under challenge like we’ve never seen before.”
As the chorus of Labour discontent grew louder last week, I spent a couple of days on the road with Starmer. I found a prime minister doggedly compartmentalising and stubbornly determined to continue in the job. He was cordial and focused despite the noise, but did seem frustrated on occasion. Is it all getting to him, I wondered. “You can’t be in politics, you can’t be the prime minister, if you let these things get to you,” he insists.
Starmer was keen to discuss the existential questions facing a world in turmoil. But first we had to address his own existential questions.
How does he explain the collapse of party discipline and faith in his future? “In politics, you get this sort of thing all of the time,” he says. “There is always talk. What you never hear from are all the people who are supportive, loyal and just want to get on with the job. And that is the vast majority of people in the parliamentary Labour Party. They’re pleased to be in power. They’ve waited a long time to be in power. And they just want to get on with their job. They don’t make a lot of noise about it. They don’t talk to journalists about it. It’s really important that is reflected in these debates.”
A cabinet minister told me last week that Starmer enjoys the parts of the job he’s good at and this is true. When he’s on the road, questioning submariners about the nuclear deterrent or hobnobbing with President Macron, the prime minister seems energised and engaged.
But at the centre, the nexus of Whitehall, Westminster and Fleet Street where the hard transactional business of politics is done, it often feels as though his premiership is being eaten alive, piece by stuttering piece.
Starmer acknowledges the Mandelson appointment was a mistake that needs looking at, but he is also deeply frustrated by Westminster’s obsession with it. He views a political-media class that only wants to talk about vetting forms and not about the Strait of Hormuz as fundamentally unserious. “I understand why there are questions,” he says. “I’ve answered I don’t know how many of them. But at the same time, I’ve got a huge amount of work to do on the war on two fronts.”
He does have a point here, but it is a limited one: if you can’t command the centre, then you can’t govern effectively.
moar if you can bear it…
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/keir-starmer-peter-mandelson-resignation-iran-interview-6ltnlpxfj
What's that got to do with repairing a bridge, without shutting it down?
D-Notice
Chek't