Steerpike

The SNP might be heading to another victory – but all is not going swimmingly for the nationalists. The party's former chief executive Peter Murrell – best known as Nicola Sturgeon's estranged husband – is in the firing line over more allegations concerning the party finances. Murrell is facing a charge of embezzling £459,000 from the party over a period of more than 12 years, according to a copy of an indictment seen by the BBC and Scottish Sun. Uh oh... According to the document, Murrell is accused of embezzling the funds between August 2010 and January 2023. He is is alleged to have used the cash to buy items including cars, a motorhome, luxury goods, shoes, cosmetics and jewellery over a twelve-and-a-half year period.

When a PM is in crisis, what do they do? Sack the head of the civil service. Having lost both his Chief of Staff and Director of Communications at the beginning of the week, Keir Starmer resolved to make it a hattrick by dispensing with the services of his short-serving Cabinet Secretary. Poor old Chris Wormald is on the way out – but it does not look like his intended replacement is going to be easy for Starmer either... For Simon McDonald, the former Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office, has now popped up in the news to warn No. 10 about plans to replace Wormald with Antonia Romeo without a new appointment process.

Just stop Doyle! It was another bad Prime Ministers' Questions this week for Keir Starmer today. Once again, one of those mysterious appointments for which the Prime Minister is never responsible came back to haunt him in public. After Peter Mandelson last week, this time it is Matthew Doyle, Starmer's former comms chief who was ennobled last month. Talk about jobs for the boys... Unfortunately just four weeks after his ennoblement, Labour have already been forced to kick him out of their party in the House of Lords, after it emerged Doyle had campaigned for a friend charged with possessing indecent images of children.

This is Keir Starmer's worst week in politics – and it is still only Tuesday. The constant flailings of the embattled Labour PM never cease to shock, amuse and entertain. But having successfully quelled the immediate revolt against his premiership, Starmer has, once again, pulled defeat from the jaws of victory. For tonight the main story is about another of his onetime advisers: this time, Matthew Doyle, whom the PM ennobled/kicked upstairs only last month. The Liz Truss of Labour peers... Doyle has had the Labour whip pulled because of his links to a convicted sex offender.

Will the last person out of No. 10 please turn out the lights? First, it was Morgan McSweeney; then, Tim Allan. Tonight, Chris Wormald, is the latest name being about to depart the heart of government. It was just 14 months ago that Sir Chris was appointed Cabinet Secretary – the most senior official in Whitehall – by Keir Starmer. At the time, the Prime Minister oozed oleaginous praise on him, issuing a gushing press release that described him as a model of 'exceptional civil service leadership.' Someone pass the sick bag... Unfortunately for Sir Chris, those words are just the latest to come back and haunt Sir Keir. For it is now expected that Wormald is to become one of the fall guys for the vetting process that cleared Lord Mandelson to become ambassador to the US.

It's a tough time for the nation's finances – but don't worry, one man is doing ok. Lord Mandelson received a taxpayer-funded payoff worth tens of thousands of pounds – despite being sacked as US ambassador over his links to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The Sunday Times reports today that Mandy secured an exit payment equivalent to three months’ salary from the Foreign Office after he was forced out in September last year, just seven months into the role. Not bad, eh? His salary has not yet been published by the government but the post of ambassador to the US reportedly commands the highest in the diplomatic service. This is pay band SCS4, between £155,000 and £220,000 per annum.

Oh Mandy. You came and you took and kept taking. For it is not just the Labour party wrestling with the fallout from the Peter Mandelson scandal. Global Counsel – the lobbying firm which he co-founded in 2010 with his former aide Benjamin Wegg-Prosser – is battling to cope with the wave of bad PR which has followed Mandelson's humiliation. And now, amid reports of firms looking at cutting ties over Mandelson's stake in GC, its leadership has decided to act. Wegg-Prosser is out as CEO, according to an email by chairman Archie Norman, first seen by Guido Fawkes.

With 91 days to go until the Senedd elections, Reform are polling second – so it's probably about time that they actually unveiled their leader. At a press conference in Newport this morning, Nigel Farage produced not just one rabbit but two. First, there was the long-awaited defection of James Evans after his expulsion from the Tories last month. Then, there was the announcement of Dan Thomas as the actual leader. 'Who?' asked most of the accompanying hacks... Thomas might lack a national profile but he boasts both roots in the Valleys and experience of local government. A former Barnet Council leader from 2019 to 2022, he switched to Reform from the Tories last year, standing down as a councillor for Finchley Church End in December after returning to Wales with his family.

It's Wednesday so that means another ritual humiliation for Keir Starmer at PMQs. As his government limps towards the May elections, the weekly spankings by Kemi Badenoch often seem to blur into one. But this week's session will stand out in the annals for the sheer torrent of criticism directed at Starmer over his decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as the British ambassador to Washington. Oh Mandy... But while Labour MPs fume over another fine mess which Starmer has got them into, Mr S was intrigued by the beleaguered premier's response to a different line of questioning this lunchtime. On Monday, Mark Francois, the Tory shadow defence minister, raised the question of Starmer's work with disgraced lawyer Phil Shiner, struck off for vexatious claims about British troops in Iraq.

It's been a pretty terrible start to the week for the government. Amid mounting revelations from the Epstein files, the police are now probing claims that the former British ambassador Lord Mandelson committed misconduct in public office. Despite Mandy's links to the disgraced sexual predator being already well-known in late 2024, Keir Starmer nevertheless still chose to appoint him as 'Our man in Washington' – a decision he must now bitterly regret... The embattled PM rocked up in the House yesterday to give an update on his trip to China. But before he got a chance to speak, he had the joy of listening to a point of order about his own legal record.

It is one of the staple headlines of British politics: Peter Mandelson has resigned. The 'Prince of Darkness' was sacked as US ambassador last September, but that has not stopped the flurry of stories about the alleged nature of his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. A further three million emails were published this weekend, leading to another avalanche of claims about Mandelson's links to the dead sex offender. Sounds like Mandy could do with his own Mandy... The latest batch of files released by the US Department of Justice included three apparent bank statements detailing three money transfers of $25,000 each from the paedophile financier in 2003 and 2004.

It's a day ending in 'y' – so that means another scandal for Keir Starmer's beleaguered team. This time it concerns a lobbying firm run by an ex-Labour MP. Jim Murphy, the party's onetime Scottish leader, now heads up Arden Communications which has lobbied Sir Keir's administration on behalf of arms manufacturers, oil companies and energy giants. Truly the best of Labour values... Ahead of the election, Arden provided support to more than 30 prospective Labour MPs in the run-up to the 2024 general election. And now, post-election, they are keen to make the most of their relationship with Britain's governing party.

Andy Burnham may not be standing – but at least we know one man who is. With only five weeks to go until the Denton and Gorton by election, the race is now on to find suitable candidates to win the Manchester constituency on 26 February. The Greens are due to unveil their candidate later today, but first it was the turn of Reform, who decided to go for one of their own. Matt Goodwin, the onetime Ukip academic turned Reform activist, was unveiled at a press conference this afternoon by Lee Anderson. Well, who knows the party better, eh? Goodwin’s strategy was made obvious by his presser in which he sought to frame this by election as a ‘referendum on Keir Starmer.

The in-and-out movements of the Bravermans have been quite something to behold. This morning it was the turn of Suella to (finally) join Reform, with Nigel Farage confirming that he had been in on-and-off talks with her for a year. 'I thought she'd already gone', was the reaction from one Tory wag on the wet wing of the party who Mr S spoke to earlier. But Suella's long and steady journey from the Tories to Reform is nothing as exciting as that of her husband Rael. He signed up to Farage's party as early as December 2024 and thereafter spent months excitedly tweeting that every Tory MP deserved to lose their seat. But last summer he spectacularly quit the party 'with immediate effect' after Zia Yusuf fired off a series of tweets about Suella about the Afghan data leak scandal.

Poor old Andy and those sad eyes of his. The Mayor of Greater Manchester has had a pretty rotten day, being blocked by his own party's ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) by some eight votes to one. His sole backer was Lucy Powell, whose candidacy for deputy leader was memorably likened to Lurleen to Burnham's George Wallace: a useful proxy to circumvent constitutional limits. Burnham initially sought to take all this with good grace. 'Tomorrow I return with full focus to my role as Mayor of GM', he declared defiantly on X, 'defending everything we have built in our city-region over many years. I decided to put myself forward to prevent the divisive politics of Reform from damaging that. We are stronger together and let’s stay that way.

The Phoney War is no more. Former Labour minister Andrew Gwynne is on the brink of standing down as an MP, after losing the whip during last year's WhatsApp group scandal. A by-election is therefore on the cards in Gwynne's Manchester seat, potentially paving the way for the ever-ambitious local mayor Andy Burnham to return to the Commons and make a leadership challenge against Keir Starmer. Let's hope the Westminster Tesco gets the extra popcorn in... Gwynne has been hanging around SW1 for almost a year, waiting to reach agreement on his gold-plated MPs' pension. A deal is understood to have been done, paving the way for him to disappear into taxpayer-funded obscurity. In his place could come Burnham – if he is able to get past the Labour NEC first.

Another one bites the dust. After Kemi Badenoch expelled Robert Jenrick from the Conservative party in Westminster, it seems that her Welsh counterpart Darren Millar this week wants to get in on the act too. This morning he released a statement on X, declaring that he expelled James Evans MS from both the Welsh shadow cabinet and the party grouping in the Senedd. Millar wrote: This morning, I took the decision to remove James Evans from the Welsh Conservative Shadow Cabinet and withdraw the Conservative whip. I did so after being informed by James that he was continuing to engage with Reform representatives about the possibility of defecting to the party, in spite of his personal assurances on Friday that he had rejected an approach they initiated last week.