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8 May, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Bunker mentality seems to have arrived weirdly early in the @Keir_Starmer tenure. As I understand it @lisanandy and @JonAshworth are bracing themselves to be sacked for allegedly being disloyal to Labour’s leader. If they have been disloyal they certainly never showed such...
when I’ve spoken with them. And if @lisanandy is positioning herself for a tilt at the leadership, again that has been invisible to me. But they do have two characteristics unusual in @Keir_Starmer’s team: they’ve been effective in their jobs. So sacking them would...
arguably be self harming for Starmer and Labour. Maybe this is all post-election trauma gossip that is not rooted in reality. But as I say Nandy and Ashworth believe the gossip is well grounded. And given that @AngelaRayner has been sacked very publicly for an election...
campaign whose flaws were not conspicuously of her making, Ashworth and Nandy have reason to be fearful.

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More from @Peston

Robert Peston Profile picture
8 May
Back to Scotland for a moment. I am told by a minister that the PM’s big plan to keep Scotland in the union is to love bomb it in the 18 months or so before @NicolaSturgeon introduces her referendum bill into the Scottish Parliament in late 2022 or early 2023. That is...
consistent with my assumption...
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argue that parliamentary votes don’t matter, whether at Holyrood or at Westminster. His least risky strategy is probably to work out how to win a referendum, rather than looking at constitutional and legal devices to stop it. The UK will not...
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8 May
It would be a mistake to read too much into these elections, other than it helps to be a figurehead and in power during a crisis like the Covid-19 one. Voters have rewarded every leader who they saw as enduring the stresses of trying to protect them and hear them, from...
@BorisJohnson to @NicolaSturgeon, @fmwales, @AndyBurnhamGM, @andy4wm and @BenHouchen. Which is not to say that there aren’t very powerful shifts of allegiance going on. But the importance of incumbency and not totally screwing up during the crisis means these...
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30 Apr
On 26 May Dominic Cummings will give evidence to MPs grouped on the health and science super committee, chaired by @Jeremy_Hunt and @GregClarkMP. This will be box office politically, because - as I have mentioned - Cummings will prosecute Johnson and his scientific...
advisers for failing to lock down early enough in March 2020 and Johnson (and Sunak) though not the scientists for failing to lock down in early September (not late September). But the Tory controlled committee will not allow him to use them to humiliate the PM in...
other ways (though some might say the charge that the PM put thousands lives at risk by refusing to lock down is humiliating enough). The committee’s members expect Cummings to give them a massive “dump” of papers and data. “We will sift through what...
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Robert Peston Profile picture
28 Apr
I understand that @BorisJohnson's first conversations about having the Downing Street flat funded by donors were as long ago as February 2020. At the time Ben Elliot, joint chairman of the party suggested the PM borrow to pay the costs. The PM then came up with the idea...
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to be formed 'Downing Street Trust'" - which was never formed. The Tory Party had seemingly already paid back the Cabinet Office for the decorating bills it had paid on the PM's behalf. And the PM has now paid back the Tory Party. We don't know when the...
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Robert Peston Profile picture
28 Apr
.@DUPleader will inevitably resign soon, in the face of the coup against her. What happens next will have huge significance in respect of Northern Ireland remaining part of the UK - because Arlene Foster made the judgement (which feels right) that the way to keep the DUP a...
credible political force was to move it to the centre ground, especially on social issues, whereas those who oppose her do so on the grounds of religious fundamentalism. Or to put it another way, the DUP is at a momentous cross roads. Will it choose a new leader that will...
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Robert Peston Profile picture
27 Apr
Downing St has for the third time in five days put out a statement that is irrelevant to the central question, which is how long @BorisJohnson borrowed tens of thousands of pounds to pay for redecorating and refurbishing his Downing St home. This is all increasingly...
weird. I asked Downing St why they bothered to put it out and was told “because we have”. Here is the statement (again). ‘A No 10 spokesperson said: “Any costs of wider refurbishment this year beyond...
those provided for by the annual allowance have been met by the Prime Minister personally. Conservative Party funds are not being used for this.”’ As I said, this ducks the only important questions which are how long the PM borrowed from the Tory party, was it an
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