Mandelson habe sein Land „verraten“, sagt Gordon Brown gegenüber BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg1g83zvlyo
Von DukePPUk
Mandelson habe sein Land „verraten“, sagt Gordon Brown gegenüber BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg1g83zvlyo
Von DukePPUk
14 Kommentare
Beyond the headline, there is some strong stuff from Brown about how common and easy corruption is in the UK. I’m not sure I agree with all his suggestions, but there are some important criticisms there.
> [Brown] said the government needed to introduce an „anti-corruption commission“ with „powers to seize assets“, among a raft of other measures to clear up public life.
> Brown said the government needed to act quickly to bring in the recommendations relating to standards in public life that he laid out in his report „A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy“.
> … „There is a systemic failure to do proper vetting, to go through the proper procedures and to actually have, in my view, what should be public hearings for anybody who is going to be in a senior position representing the British government.“
> … He added there needed to be a crackdown on „the systematic abuse of power by lobbyists“ and said there should be a ban on MP’s second jobs
For some reason I don’t imagine this will get much traction. We have a system that is almost set up to allow for and encourage corruption. People are only complaining about it here because it is Mandelson (politically convenient) and Epstein. Seeing e.g. Badenoch cause a stir about this when she was routinely leaking details of Cabinet meetings to the press for her own political gain is a bit hypocritical. Or there was that time Kwasi Kwarteng ‚leaked‘ his plans for a ‚fiscal statement‘ to a bunch of his ‚former colleagues‘ (a bunch of financiers) who partied with him as the economy was crashing and they were making a huge amount of money from it.
That said, I’m not sure „US-style confirmation hearings for new government ministers“ is the solution – they don’t work particularly well in the US, mostly becoming political theatre and ending up with a party-line vote for anyone controversial.
Also worth noting that Brown is supporting Starmer, for now (although I guess he has to – if Starmer shouldn’t have appointed Mandelson US Ambassador, Brown probably shouldn’t have made him a lord and Business Secretary).
And who sold our gold reserves to his mates at a knock down price, he ripped the country off, old one eye
It beggars belief that there have been no resignations over this yet. Especially starmer.
US-style confirmation hearings are a bad idea, they are rarely about proper scrutiny, and frankly most MPs aren’t qualified to scrutinise candidates properly. They haven’t worked in the European Parliament either for the Commissioners. Ultimately party numbers decide who gets confirmed.
Yeah, Starmer did wrong by bringing him back and whoever made him a lord needs investigating too.
Mandelson did Brown dirty, so I’m expecting more knife sticking from him – and good for him.
Can someone Tl;Dr this entire situation for me, please? I try to avoid political news (because it’s mostly dire), but everywhere I see, I see people blaming starmer for something mandelson has done regarding epstein?
Why is starmer getting flack instead of mandelson? What am I missing here?
If we removed the corruption I’m not sure we would have any parties left. Reform and the tories would be done.
Broon is going hard on this because he is of course implicated.
I’m delighted to hear someone from the summit of the Westminster bubble say this stuff out loud. It s been crystal clear to me that a lot of the outrage in Parliament about Mandelson is confected, and that he kept getting given big jobs not because everyone somehow believed his lies, but because that degree of venality and corruption is normal or at least common place. His lifestyle and career is exactly what many of them aspire to. I’m certain that if you went through the private correspondence of virtually every former Minister who has gone on to make their living ‚advising‘ and ‚lobbying‘ for big business and finance, you’d find that they all have just as much explaining to do as Mandelson and that the types of leaks and collusion that he was involved in are the norm. It would certainly explain why our governments have been so catastrophically inept over the oast 20 years.
Why don’t these politicians say it out straight? Mandelson is a traitor, and he should be treated as such.
So Brown correctly identifies the issue but thinks having some political theatre is the solution?
Brown is right to call out the systemic rot, but the real issue is that our entire political culture treats this kind of influence-peddling as a perk of the job, not a crime. His proposed commission sounds good on paper, but without genuine political will to dismantle the networks of power, it’s just another talking point. We need to stop being shocked by individual scandals and start demanding a system that makes them impossible.
What this government should be doing right now is what the Democrats didn’t do- putting into law the safeguards to stop Reform from being able to easily trash our norms, standards and „constitution“ when they take power.
Not to stop them ruling or legislating. But to stop them from being able to gut the country and rig the system forever in their favour