A COOK TO CATCH A CROOK
Starmer’s appointment of Mandelson to the court of King Donald seemed like a good idea at the time
In the end, and with a terrible symmetry, all roads lead back to Trump. There can be no other reason why Keir Starmer was so determined to have Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington. He felt sure only someone as Machiavellian and crooked as the so-called Prince of Darkness was up to the task of playing the most unpredictable and dangerously unstable occupant of the Oval Office in 250 years. A crook to catch a crook.
But Starmer was totally and utterly wrong and now he is reaping a very bitter harvest. He may protest all he likes that he was never told Mandelson failed all stages of vetting because it doesn't matter if he knew. Other than proving he has been lying of course. The fact is there can be almost nobody in this country with half a brain who doesn't know the slippery architect of New Labour is a weapons grade wrong'un, Sacked by two prime ministers, in thrall to the mega-rich and potentates ruling over the nastiest parts of the globe. A man devoid of morals.
Starmer knew this, he knew about his cosying up to Epstein, he knew Mandy alerted the paedophile to market-sensitive information while in the Gordon Brown cabinet in 2009/10. He knew because we all did, not just journalists with an unhealthy interest in politics but anyone who was awake and sentient over the last 30 years.
Last September the Independent splashed on the fact that Mandelson had failed vetting and in the process of securing the story had contacted the No10 former press secretary. Yesterday Starmer said he was unaware of this. Last Thursday the Guardian ran a similar story which was followed up by everyone including the BBC, ITV and Sky. And yet he insists he knew nothing until last Friday.
What a shame it has come to this; after the years of the utter chaos of the odious Johnson and the ridiculous Truss we deserved better and we thought we had got it. A decent, straight lawyer who seemed the right person to get the country back on its feet. He was elected on a landslide with a manifesto that had the simple one-word title: Change.
And what did we get? Incompetence, a U-turn every week and a prime minister seemingly stuck in the headlights of each and every oncoming problem. Wholesale sackings of the most senior civil servants in the hope of saving his own skin. Wooden delivery, unimaginative and desperate to disappear to manage every foreign flare-up when there were so many at home going begging.
Mistake after mistake, excuse after excuse, broken promise after broken promise. And yesterday the most repeated phrase in his answers in the Commons was his old friend 'Due Process and Procedure'.
And to think I voted for him.
He should resign now but of course he won't. He will stagger on, at least until after the bloodbath of next month's elections and, after that, who knows?
Another bloody change.
*****
The death of Moya Brennan who, with her sister Enya, provided the ethereal sound of the Irish band Clannad, has prompted their theme song to the TV series Harry's Game to be played many times recently. The music is haunting, the more so because it is sung entirely in Gaelic. This added to the mystique and caused the knee-jerk Thatcher government to ban the song, wrongly believing the lyrics supported the IRA. A day or so later when someone went to the trouble of having it translated, the ban was lifted.
Harry's Game ran over three hour-long episodes on ITV in 1982 and is a brilliant adaptation of Gerald Seymour's novel of the same name. I hadn't seen it since its original airing and I can report that it has worn the years well. It's available on YouTube and is free to watch.
The plot is simple: The Provisionals send a hitman to London to assassinate a cabinet minister and, job done, the British army plants an Ulster-born officer in the republican west of the city to track him down.
Filming in Belfast at the height of the Troubles was impossible so the main scenes were shot in black and white in the bleak terrace streets of Leeds. As one who knows the Belfast of the time, I couldn't see the joins. The place then was grim, almost entirely monotone bar the red, white and blue (and orange of course) of loyalist flags and the green, white and orange of the republic.
Having said that, there was joy to be had. The people were and are great, so is the pub culture and the surrounding beauty of the countryside and coast. But until peace finally came in 1998 you had to be careful where you went and what you said. As the child of a Belfast father and Armagh mother (both Protestant but with a hatred of tribal bigotry), I spent most of my summer holiday there from the age of six until 14 when we moved from Cambridge back to Co Antrim.
Being brought up mostly in England, my accent bore no trace of the lilt of any part of Ireland and many of my fellow pupils at school in Belfast came as boarders from England, Scotland, other provinces of the island and from abroad. But I was acutely aware of the accents of Ireland, particularly those of Belfast which vary not just by class but by allegiance too.
On one visit back in the 1980s I drove to see my beloved ageing great aunts on the Co Down coast in Bangor West. They were old fashioned Unionists who so adored their Catholic neighbours they left bequests to them in their wills.
Travelling back to my sister's home in Carrickfergus in my hired car I thought it a jolly wheeze to explore the badlands of the city. It was an eerily quiet Sunday and I found myself driving up the Crumlin Road into the Ardoyne. Ahead of me was a gang of youths in balaclavas. I made the stupid mistake of turning the car round only to be met by a duplicate group blocking my way.
I still sported a scruffy beard in the '80s so it was time for the accent which dear reader, I've attempted to reproduce phonetically: "Och, aive not been back heyer for a bryav wee wail and aim lorst. A was lockin forr the Ontrim road. Con ye hulp?" *
And they did, giving me directions which I gratefully took. "Thanks a million lads" and, having passed the audition, sped off with the rest of my life still intact.
* “Oh, I've not been back here for a long time and I'm lost. I was looking for the Antrim Road . Can you help?"
*****
AND FINALLY
The legend that is Jimmy Anderson 'retired' (for which read was forced to) from Tests in 2024: the all-time wicket taker as a fast bowler and is now captaining Lancashire. So far this season he has taken 21 wickets in three matches at just 12 a piece. He will be 43 in three months and is bowling at his very best. I hope the England selectors, not overburdened with fast bowling prospects, will invite him back forthwith.
ALAN FRAME
21 April 2026
