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You’re either in front of Guido, or you are behind…
Labour MP Ian Byrne has been busy promoting his book. Podcast appearances, columns, the full blot…
“Why Populists Are Winning” attacks right-wing funding networks. But it is strangely silent on Byrne’s own donor about whom he would rather not talk. His donor benefactor? Sir Trevor Chinn…
Chinn donated £265,000 to Labour Together, the think tank under fire for hiring private investigators to smear journalists looking into its activities. He has also donated to Ruth Smeeth whilst she was a board member of Hope Not Hate, the Labour-linked organisation accused of spreading misinformation and pushing smear campaigns, and Lisa Nandy who has ministerial responsibility for the media industry and Ofcom internet police. Does Byrne not have a view on activist donors when they prop up leftist causes?
As his eighth attempt to legalise assisted suicide crashes out of Parliament today, Guido has seen fresh polling showing almost two-thirds of voters (63%) think the Bill’s champion in the Lords, Lord Falconer, should apologise and stand down as a peer. That’s for introducing Peter Mandelson into the Lords just months after Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction…
69% say Falconer should publish all communications with Mandelson relating to the assisted suicide Bill, and 67% say Labour should publish any advice Mandelson gave on pursuing legislation via a private members’ bill rather than a manifesto commitment. Imploding…
Falconer’s links to Mandelson are replete: a longstanding family friend, flatmate and key architect of New Labour. He’s had his back since the home loan scandal and remains unembarrassed by their relationship. The Mandelson scandal is still rolling…
Guido hears there are concerns among government officials over what Peter Mandelson was up to while serving in DC. What will the second tranche of Mandelson Files reveal…
In the New Statesman an anonymous FCDO official notes:
“I fear the worst is yet to come – we’ve not even got to releasing what Mandelson was doing (or not) while ambassador.”
Guido has already noted the huge stress inside government as to the second batch of files. Guido hears some of those concerns are centred around Mandelson’s email communications and their recipients in particular. Files from the period covering his actual term are set to be released by the government – which has delayed their publication until after the local elections…
The FCDO is expanding support to US-based aid agencies who have had their grants slashed by Trump’s USAID cuts. British taxpayers are filling in the gaps…
USAID cuts reduced total US aid spending from $68bn in 2024 to $32bn in 2025 and terminated 83% of programmes. Despite a squeeze in the UK’s aid funding, the FCDO is bolstering support for American agencies without competitive processes…
The FCDO announced this week that support of the UK DIGIT programme doing work in Ukraine – led by the DC-based Eurasia Foundation – has been extended for a second year to March 2027. A project that started at £4.6 million has been expanded to £14 million…
The Asia Foundation – operated out of San Francisco – has recently been given a large portfolio of projects in Bangladesh. Mercy Corps out of Portland, Oregon also continues to receive FCDO funding on multiple live programmes worth tens of millions. No interest in building up British soft power then…
The International Rescue Committee, based in New York and led by David Miliband who was paid £983,073 in a year with a £117,701 bonus, is expanding its UK-taxpayer funded teams. It said last year that it was building a “global talent pool of senior professionals to lead and support FCDO-funded programs” in expectation of further grants…
Leaving aside the evident need to help pay Miliband’s salary, the British government’s own overseas assistance policy should be about financing British assistance. Not bailing out US organisations affected by the reduction in US aid spending…
A government source said: “Funnelling cash to the Americans was an old reflex at the Department for International Development to ‘improve’ the special relationship – it is a different world now.” No ‘Love Actually stand up to the Americans moment’ forthcoming from Yvette Cooper…
Red Wall Labour backbencher Jonathan Brash told GB News that Starmer should resign:
“I’m completely fed up about it, and I think it’s got to the point now where I genuinely think that, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned, it’s not a case of if, it’s when.”