The mainstream media is getting monstered over its Mandelson failures

When Labour returned from the summer recess, Keir Starmer announced that ‘Phase Two’ of his government had begun. As we reported, Phase Two has made the disastrous Phase One look genuinely forensic in comparison.

Everyone’s making fun of Starmer’s ‘Phase Two’ announcement

It’s a big number two all right, but not in the way Starmer anticipated – as his government lurches from one shitshow to another, writes @willem_moore_uk https://t.co/hMAXQmCx06

— Canary (@TheCanaryUK) September 12, 2025

Now, with Starmer’s reputation in tatters, people are asking ‘how did anyone in the mainstream media ever take these clowns seriously?‘

Phase Two blues

The disastrous events of Phase Two include:

• Deputy leader and housing minister Angela Rayner resigning in disgrace after it came out she’d underpaid stamp duty on her house.
• Ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson being forced out of government (again) after the media finally began seriously reporting on his links to dead paedophile Jeffry Epstein.
• Declaring that Israel isn’t committing a genocide despite all the evidence.
• Hosting Israeli president Isaac Herzog and completely failing to hold him to account over the genocide we’re now pretending isn’t happening.
• Downing Street chief of staff and neoliberal ‘Wormtongue’ Morgan McSweeney further consolidating his power at the heart of government.

We hope that history will deem genocide denial to be the worst event in this list.

In the mainstream media, however, the biggest scandal has been Mandelson’s exit. This sordid affair has had additional ramifications for the Starmer operation, because now the media is asking: ‘How incompetent are Starmer and McSweeney that they employed this man who everyone knew was linked to Epstein?‘

The problem is that although everyone knew, it’s only now the media is admitting that. And just as Labour is taking heat for the incompetence of its Downing Street operation, so too are the British media figures who smugly cheered as Starmer and McSweeney hoisted the petard they’re now being hung from.

With the floodgates open, we’re seeing stuff like this on the historic links between McSweeney and Mandelson:

McSweeney’s first proper job in the Labour Party was working in its attack and rebuttal unit in Millbank in the early 2000s.

There, he worked on Mandelson’s “Excalibur” database, which collected information about political opponents of New Labour (including disloyal Labour MPs) that would then be given to journalists. He would apply the lessons he learned during this period during his later takeover of the Labour Party.

We’re also seeing stuff like the following on how Starmer is reacting:

‘You are supposed to protect me from things like this!’ a furious Sir Keir Starmer is said to have bellowed at Morgan McSweeney, the man dubbed The Real Deputy Prime Minister.

‘That’s exactly what I was trying to do!’ Mr McSweeney roared back.

If this is true, it seems like Starmer is just as clueless as the people who get all their news from the mainstream media.

Embarrassing

The Times has reported on Mandelson’s ties to Epstein in recent weeks. The problem is the new leaks have only expanded what we already knew – that Mandelson continued his association with Epstein after the paedophile was convicted. As such, people are calling out the outlet for this sort of thing:

Incredible to see Times journalists piously writing about Starmer’s disastrous appointment of Mandelson when their own paper paid Mandelson to anchor its election coverage last year https://t.co/Bhvav7iqbh

— Nicholas Guyatt (@NicholasGuyatt) September 14, 2025

In a new interview in the Times, Mandelson has actually said he doesn’t believe Epstein was a paedophile.

Novara’s Rivkah Brown called out Marie Le Conte for the following:

Marie launched Changing Politics in 2018. If she thought that McSweeney had no idea what he was doing, why did she write this 5 days after Starmer made him chief of staff? pic.twitter.com/W35O57tPuy

— Rivkah Brown (@rivkahbrown) September 14, 2025

People have highlighted a key reason why the establishment keeps letting Mandelson back into the fold – namely his ceaseless war against the left:

The key to understanding the Mandelson fiasco is that the vast majority of the UK’s media and political class were profoundly grateful to Mandelson for his work across three decades to destroy the left; nothing else mattered to them pic.twitter.com/UnHaU9cA9L

— Nicholas Guyatt (@NicholasGuyatt) September 15, 2025

You’d be forgiven for thinking that mainstream politicians and journalists have an antagonistic relationship, but nothing could be further from the truth:

Did you know Peter Mandelson was best man at Trevor Phillips’ wedding? 🤯 0 disclosure, yet he talks “unbiased analysis” on TV. How does this pass for journalism? 😤 #trevorphillips pic.twitter.com/sWJzp8otxI

— Candice Holmes (@hol40900) September 14, 2025

To be fair to Phillips, this was at his first marriage in 1981, but as noted above, a presenter should probably have to announce this sort of thing, right? Saying that, if they did, Phillips would spend half his show announcing his connections given his long history as a Labour politician.

A similarly conflicted politician is former shadow chancellor Ed Balls, who now serves as a Labour attack dog on ITV:

Nice argument. However I have already portrayed myself as the entirely unbothered Zack Polanski and you as the utterly seething Ed Balls https://t.co/Xh2WG3eaBB

— Dave (@DavFlan) September 4, 2025

Highlighting their desperation, Labour are actually trying to hold the the media accountable for failing to hold Labour accountable:

Peter Kyle spreading the sh*t around: “Peter Mandelson had appeared on Newsnight just this year.. and he was not questioned about Epstein once”

He was on #BBCLaurak a couple of times last year and Kuenssberg never asked him, either. Why didn’t you, @bbclaurak? https://t.co/6c0MvAgUIl pic.twitter.com/E5Erx2lVnF

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) September 14, 2025

We’re not sure what the long-term strategy is here, but it won’t make Labour look any better.

As they say, though – ‘let them fight’.

‘So you’re saying it’s the media’s fault?’
@lewis_goodall and Business Secretary Peter Kyle go head-to-head over the Peter Mandelson scandal. pic.twitter.com/GjUDiRXSQY

— LBC (@LBC) September 14, 2025

In the video above, an uncomfortable-looking Lewis Goodall squirms as he’s asked why he didn’t question Mandelson on all this several months ago. While Labour are the worst people to be asking this question, the question needs to be asked.

No accountability over Mandelson

The following is a good example of how the British media has no long-term memory:

It wasn’t as if there were no telltale signs that Peter Mandelson loved the company of paedophiles, were there @Keir_Starmer? pic.twitter.com/NEP7YAMCcj

— Dame Alun Roberts (@ciabaudo) September 12, 2025

The Daily Mail reported the above in 2015, so it wasn’t some underreported accusation that was floating around the blogosphere. Before this story came out, Mandelson had twice resigned from government in disgrace. If you’d read anything on the man in the mainstream media over the past five years, though, it’s unlikely you would have learned of any of this.

This is how it all works.

They have their scandals, they take their lumps, and they carry on as if nothing happened.

Sometimes they resign, of course, but that’s not the end, because they can return with a clean slate once the heat dies down.

Remember this the next time Mandelson rears his ugly head. They’ll tell you he’s ‘highly experienced‘, but they won’t say what he’s experienced in, and we all know why that is.

Featured image via BBC