{"id":410806,"date":"2026-02-06T08:05:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T08:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/410806\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T08:05:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T08:05:16","slug":"top-government-figures-to-be-forced-to-hand-over-messages-with-mandelson-live-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/410806\/","title":{"rendered":"Top government figures to be forced to hand over messages with Mandelson – live updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘He’s toast’ and ‘not inevitable he’ll go’: What Labour MPs are saying on Starmer’s futurepublished at 08:02 GMT<\/p>\n

08:02 GMT<\/p>\n

\"\"Jack Fenwick
Political correspondent<\/p>\n

\"HarrietImage source, House of CommonsImage caption, <\/p>\n

The underlying anger among Labour MPs towards Sir Keir Starmer is still palpable.<\/p>\n

While the handful of backbenchers who have spoken out publicly are frequent critics of the PM, many more have raised concerns privately.<\/p>\n

“He’s toast,” one Labour MP told the BBC. “It’s got an inevitability but not an immediacy about it,” another said. <\/p>\n

“He’s like a wounded wildebeest: fatally wounded but determined to show how strong he is knowing full well the end is nigh,” said a third.<\/p>\n

Others are more supportive, one writing: “I still think most Labour MP anger is directed at Mandelson himself rather than at Keir.”<\/p>\n

Jonathan Hinder, the MP for Pendle and Clitheroe, said the PM’s decision to appoint Lord Mandelson as US ambassador was a “catastrophic error of political and moral judgement”.<\/p>\n

Starmer’s former political director Luke Sullivan said he thought the PM was “fighting for his premiership”.<\/p>\n

He told the BBC’s Newscast<\/a>: “I don’t think you can understate how serious the situation and the peril is that the prime minister finds himself in.”<\/p>\n

Former deputy Labour leader Baroness Harriet Harman said the PM’s defence that Mandelson lied to him makes him look “weak and naive and gullible”.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think it’s inevitable that it will bring him down, but it will bring him down unless he takes the action that it’s really necessary for him to take,” she told Sky News’ Electoral Dysfunction podcast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘He’s toast’ and ‘not inevitable he’ll go’: What Labour MPs are saying on Starmer’s futurepublished at 08:02 GMT…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-410806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}