Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion Siân Berry. Image by Kelly Hill, Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0.
Reacting to Government Ministers’ denial of any knowledge of Peter Mandelson’s failed vetting, Green Party MP Siân Berry said:
“The Prime Minister’s denials simply do not ring true, and the outrageous moral failings of this entire appointment mean he must resign.
“Keir Starmer told us he would be the Prime Minister who restored trust in politics, not the one to leave ministerial ethics in tatters. It grows ever clearer that he has misled Parliament on the question of vetting, and possibly also the King, whose sign-off is required for ambassadorial appointments.
“It is also very clear in Yvette Cooper’s letter to the foreign affairs select committee that she knew the vetting had failed. No more buck passing and scapegoating. If the Prime Minister has any integrity at all, he must go.”
Prime Minister Keir Starmer (right) and Peter Mandelson, February 27, 2025
PRESSURE mounted on Sir Keir Starmer to resign today as backbenchers joined opposition parties saying the PM must have been aware Lord Peter Mandelson had failed vetting before appointing him US ambassador.
The Labour leader said it was “unforgivable” that he was not told that the Foreign Office had overruled the UK Security Vetting team’s recommendation not to clear the so-called “Prince of Darkness” for the post.
“That I wasn’t told that Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting when he was appointed is staggering,” the PM said.
“That I wasn’t told that he had failed security vetting when I was telling Parliament that due process had been followed is unforgivable.
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Sir Keir was already under fire over the decision to give the twice-resigned cabinet minister the job, despite it being known that his dealings with Epstein continued after the financier’s conviction for child sex offences.
Questions over his judgement intensified after the first batch of documents related to the decision, published last month, showed that he was warned before announcing Lord Mandelson’s ambassadorship of a “general reputational risk” over his association with Epstein.
That warning stemmed from the first part of the checks, carried out by the Cabinet Office, which was based on information in the public domain at the time.
Green Party MP for Brighton Pavilion Siân Berry. Image by Kelly Hill, Wikimedia CC BY-SA 4.0.
Reacting to a report in the Guardian that Peter Mandelson was appointed as ambassador to the US despite failing the Government vetting process, Green Party MP Siân Berry said:
“Keir Starmer has lied and lied again over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson and he must resign. Starmer told Parliament ‘due process’ had been followed. This report makes clear that was untrue.
“He has tried to blame the vetting process, when in fact it is reported that a decision was taken to ignore a failed vetting. We need answers on what and when Starmer and David Lammy knew about this decision to overrule the vetting report.
“The precise reasons for Mandelson’s failure to pass this vetting must be made public, even though it was known to everyone that Mandelson was friends with the world’s most notorious paedophile prior to the appointment. It is outrageous that it is being reported that senior government officials are now considering whether to withhold from parliament documents that show Mandelson wasn’t given security clearance.
“No more buck passing, no more mysteriously vanishing mobile phones, the public need the truth.”
White House wages online propaganda campaign with aggressive and tasteless videos seemingly designed for young rightwing American men
Trump with Jeffrey Epstein in 1997; plumes of smoke from US and Israeli strikes on Tehran. Composite: Getty Images, Middle East Images, AFP
White House wages online propaganda campaign with aggressive and tasteless videos seemingly designed for young rightwing American men
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Over the past couple of days, the White House and officials affiliated with the Trump administration have shared on X a series of hype videos that aggressively, and tastelessly, show off deadly combat footage from the strikes on Iran, sometimes in combination with footage from fictional movies and video games.
The videos are short, rapidly edited, and seem designed to appeal to the attention spans and tastes of Gen Z males fond of video-game trash-talk – though it is unclear whether those Gen Z males universally appreciate the Trump administration’s narrowly tailored jingoism.
One video, released on Thursday and captioned “JUSTICE THE AMERICAN WAY”, is less than a minute long but manically mixes footage from iconic action movies such as Braveheart, Gladiator, and Iron Man with apparently real footage of American ordnance striking Iranian military targets. Pulsing, fast-paced electronic dance music plays in the background as Russell Crowe, in Gladiator, says, “Strength and honor,” and a face-painted Mel Gibson, in Braveheart, demands: “What will you do without freedom?”
(It is unclear if the White House obtained permissions for the film and music in these clips, though it seems not.)
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Americans are overwhelmingly skeptical of the strikes on Iran, according to a recent NPR/PBS/Marist survey, with just 36% of the public saying that they approve of Trump’s handling of the war. The White House’s own messaging has been confusing and tautological.
Rather than try to persuade the American people as a whole of the necessity and efficacy of the war, however, the administration seems more worried about pacifying a small sliver of its base – a very online, very male, and often younger segment of the Maga “new right” that is skeptical about foreign interventionism and especially cynical about anything redolent of the Middle East misadventures of the George W Bush years.
So far that audience seems less than impressed. On X, commenters have responded to the White House war propaganda videos by mocking the videos’ ham-fisted and bloodthirsty aesthetics, describing the US as a cat’s-paw of Israel, or disparaging the Trump administration for betraying the MAGA movement’s promise to put “America first”.
Comments referred to Hegseth as “GI Joke” or suggested that the war with Iran be known as “Operation Epstein Distraction”.
Donald Trump warns against following the https://onaquietday.org blog, says that it’s easy atm, she only needs to report war crimes supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion.Orcas discuss rotting brain. Front Orca says “Wish someone would lock him up”.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer (right) and Peter Mandelson, February 27, 2025
