Can Keir Starmer overcome the Mandelson scandal? With Baroness Ayesha Hazarika

0:04It's been a trying week for the Prime Minister. Allegations of treachery surrounding Lord Peter Mandelson, a key figure in Labour's recent history, have angered many members of the party. So are his days as Prime Minister numbered? Hi, and welcome back to The Standard Podcast. I'm Tamara Kormornick. If you're new here, hit follow and give us a rating. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. Coming up, can Keir Starmer overcome the Mandelson scandal? Peter Mandelson should face a full investigation and face the full force and consequences of that investigation, whatever that may be. That was Baroness Ayesha Hazarika, our guest for today's episode, who worked with Lord Mandelson for many years during her tenure advising senior Labour politicians.

0:57Clearly, the scandal has set fresh ripples of panic across the Labour Party. To catch you up, the new material released in the Epstein files has reignited scrutiny of Lord Mandelson's conduct during the 2008 financial crisis, including claims that confidential government information may have been shared with journalists, allegations he has denied, and he has subsequently stepped down from the House of Lords. To explore what this all means for the party, our political editor Nick Cecil speaks with Baroness Aisha Hazarika. She reflects on what it was like to work with him, the mood inside Labour as the allegations emerged, and the challenges now facing Keir Starmer's government.

1:42Ayesha, so Keir Starmer appears to be in deep, deep trouble. How bad are things for him? I know that Labour has had quite a few rocky patches since it got into office, But I don't really know if I have felt this level of frustration and anger and sort of bewilderment from the POP and also colleagues in the Lords as well and people across the Labour movement. I think the Labour Party feels very rocked by what's happened in terms of this Peter Mandelson scandal. And yeah, I think everybody feels like the party is in quite a precarious position right now. And what in particular is it about the Lord Mandelson scandal that is so angering Labour MPs and peers?

2:37Well, I think there's a number of strands to this scandal. First of all, I think there is the palpable anger at somebody who clearly enjoyed a close relationship with probably the most notorious paedophile of our generation. a lot of female members of parliament and women across the Labour Party and the Labour movement are just absolutely horrified because the party, particularly the women in the party, have really prided themselves on wanting to fight for women and girls, particularly on sexual violence and violence against women and girls. So there's that first. I think then there is the matter of judgment and how all of this was handled in terms of Downing Street and senior advisors.

3:26I think there is a feeling very well expressed actually by Polly Billington, a Labour MP who spoke in the debate, who said that it does feel like there is a bit of a boys club culture where certain men are lionised because of their political talents, in inverted commas, and all other things are ignored or a blind eye is turned to sort of obvious red flag. So I think that's another aspect of this sort of boys club misogyny element of it. And then I think the final thing is just the level of treachery that Peter Mandelson has shown, which has come to light regarding the global financial crisis, which, to be fair, the prime minister and others wouldn't have known until more recently.

4:11But I think people are absolutely shocked that while the country was going through this huge crisis and was teetering on the precipice of this huge potential banking crash, that while people like Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown were working around the clock to sort of keep the economy stable, Peter Mandelson was giving out state secrets, commercially sensitive information, information that was of sort of national security to potentially feather his nest in the future. I think the combination of all of those things have just made people so, so angry. And the fact that the prime minister's questions was very, very badly handled, in my view and others.

4:55The fact that the prime minister went in looking very, very defensive with an argument saying, oh, don't worry, trust the cabinet secretary to be the judge of what we'll put out in the public domain. And everybody knows that the prime minister is the boss of the cabinet secretary. So the whole thing has just not been handled well at all. It's been disastrously handled. And this comes very quickly after Andy Burnham was banned from standing as Labour candidate in Gorton and Denton. Is it too many things now coming too close together for Keir Starmer to survive? Well the decision to block Andy Burnham also caused a lot of anger and even though I think to be fair to the Prime Minister that was a sort of a lose-lose there was no kind of slam dunk this is the right decision for you to do because if he lets Andy Burnham in he's essentially signing his own death warrant because Andy Burnham has made it really clear that he's coming for the title so if he had let Andy Burnham in I might be sitting doing this interview with you Nick and you'd be going, isn't Keir Starmer an idiot for letting Andy Burnham back in because he's coming for his job?

6:07On the other hand, you know, this by-election, it's definitely put Labour at a disadvantage. I think this coming so close after the Andy Burnham issue has just compounded things. And I think the Peter Mandelson scandal is terrible. And objectively, whether you're a Labour Party supporter or not, I think you should be able to have the objectivity to look at this and say, this is terrible. This has really brought shame on the party and the country and public life, to be honest. But I think on the other things, if Labour was doing better in the polls, everything would not be turning into a leadership crisis for Keir Starmer.

6:46And I think that's the reality. Now, of course, there's lots of rumours swirling around and I'm not going to sugarcoat it for you. People are very, very, very upset. People are very, very nervous because it does feel existential in the Labour Party. People are very worried that things are looking like Nigel Farage has a shot at becoming prime minister, which is wherever you sit in the Labour Party levels of division, nobody wants Nigel Farage in Labour to become the prime minister. But whether there's going to be any sort of leadership challenge, I'm just not entirely sure, because Keir Starmer has made history.

7:25He's done something that very few Labour politicians have ever done. I mean, I worked for Harriet Harman, Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband. They never managed to win an election. Keir Starmer did manage to win an election. He's only the fifth man in British political history to beat the Conservatives as a Labour leader and get into power. So I think there's a real level of, there's a level of unhappiness, but there's also a real sense of fear about kicking off a leadership challenge. And I don't really know if people feel that there is a sort of natural successor waiting in the wings. Yes, Angela Rayner is very popular, but not amongst everybody.

8:06Andy Burnham is popular, but not amongst everybody. But Andy Burnham is not a member of the PLP currently. Where Streeting certainly has a lot of people who admire him more in the right of the party. He's very well regarded with the media, but would the party vote for him? So there isn't a clear, it's not like when Theresa May was having a difficult time, there was Boris Johnson waiting in the wings and everybody knew that Boris Johnson was waiting there. We are not in that position. And there is a lot of things happening on the international stage. And even Keir Starmer's biggest critics within the Labour Party would say he's done a good job on the world stage.

8:45but it does feel like it is a precarious time for him and the party is very unhappy at the moment. And particularly on your point about there's no natural successor, if you're on the right of the party and you want Wes Streeting to be the next Prime Minister and Labour leader, isn't that a danger? You trigger a leadership contest and you end up with Angela Rayner. Correct. And I think that's something that people on the right of the party are absolutely thinking about. And I also think that this Peter Mandelson scandal has probably, fairly or unfairly, also will be difficult for West Streeting because Peter Mandelson and West Streeting were very close through the progress wing of the Labour Party, which is the more Blairite faction of the Labour Party.

9:38So I think everybody is being very cautious at the moment. But I would say the feeling amongst the Labour movement right now, I wouldn't say that people are right now at all chomping at the bit to trigger a leadership contest. I just don't think that's where people are. But people are absolutely furious. They are absolutely furious that the party has got itself into this position. And particularly women in the labour movement are furious as well. is there a way out of this for Keir Starmer you look at NHS waiting lists coming down the economy might pick up in the spring is there is there any thing he can look at ahead on the horizon and say if I can survive for another two three four months things might improve well look I don't think there'll be any movement ahead of the May local elections and I think Keir Starmer has got an opportunity to get out and get campaigning and go around every bit of the country trying to explain to people the good things that Labour have done.

10:50And as you say, there are many good things that are happening. They often don't get the media coverage because, and of course, I'm a journalist and a broadcaster as well. Often when things go badly, that's much more interesting to people to discuss. But there are important things that are happening. A cancer strategy was just announced. There are slow but sure improvements happening to the health service. Immigration is coming down. Interest rates have slowly been coming down. It's hoped that they will continue to go down for the rest of this year. but the party and Keir Starmer has got to do a better job of going out to the country and trying to tell a story about what this Labour government is trying to achieve and there are important things there is a big fixing Britain message there's a positive message about long-term decisions getting made on things like infrastructure building nuclear power stations investing in defence There is a story to tell, but I think the problem at the moment is that nothing the government does feels intentional.

11:56It doesn't feel like it's part of a considered plan. And when they do announce positive things, it feels like it gets buffeted around by a lot of self-inflicted wounds. So I think there is a story to be told and there is everything for Keir Starmer to fight for, but he and his team have got to stop making unenforced errors. They have to build up goodwill with their PLP and that's something that they have been trying to do. I think they've got to stop going to war with the wrong people. Everybody in the party is not the enemy. It is allowed to be part of the Labour Party and have a slightly different view from the Prime Minister and his close advisors.

12:39The Labour Party has always been a broad church, even when Tony Blair, arguably the most right wing of all recent senior figures in the party, even he enjoyed having people in the party who had different views to him, people more on the left of the party. He always enjoyed good, robust debate, but he sold a bigger message to the party, which got people together to campaign together. So I think there is a big job of work to be done. I don't think it's over for Keir Starmer. I think it's incredibly difficult and I think he finds himself in a very dangerous, precarious situation. but he has to go out and fight for his premiership and fight for the country and try and find a way of bringing the party together.

13:26Because the party, as much as it is unhappy, the party does not want to gift Nigel Farage the keys to Downing Street. We'll take a quick break. Coming up, Nick asks Aisha what it was like to work with Peter Mandelson through the years and what she feels is the punishment he deserves if the Met Police discover the allegations to be true.

13:53Welcome back. Let's head straight back to Nick's conversation with Aisha. And over the years, you must have had dealings with Lord Mandelson. What was he like to deal with as a person? I've worked closely with Peter Mandelson from gosh around sort of 2008, 2009. And he definitely had an ability to be very charming when he wanted to, and has got a good strategic brain. But I think his great superpower was kind of making himself indispensable to people who were powerful. And he loved power and he loved proximity to power. And he made himself indispensable to those people. And he was very good at, I think, grooming people who he thought would be influential and who could help him.

14:46and he liked to be a mover and shaker and he liked to be sort of pulling the strings. And I suppose a big question that the Labour Party has to ask itself, not just Keir Starmer to be fair, but three Labour leaders, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and now Keir Starmer, why is it that leaders of the Labour Party, men as it happened to be, because we have never had a female leader of the Labour Party, why is it that these men at the top of the Labour Party have just been so seduced by Peter Mandelson, even after he was sacked and fired from his jobs for doing inappropriate things? Why is it that all of these men brought him back and felt they had to bring him back?

15:31I think that's a big question that the Labour Party has to do some soul searching on. The evidence that he was passing market-sensitive information to Jeffrey Epstein seems to be pretty damning. If he is convicted of a criminal offence, would you like to see him go to jail? Well, we have a criminal justice system and he has to be investigated robustly by the police without fear or favour. You had somebody who was a peer of the realm, who was de facto deputy prime minister, and he was giving away really confidential information to try and further his own career down the track and potentially enrich himself further down the track.

16:17I think people are absolutely disgusted by that. And Peter Mandelson should face a full investigation and face the full force and consequences of that investigation, whatever that may be. And so just to be clear, he's been investigated for misconduct in public office. And you feel that if he is found guilty of that, that he should go to prison? Well, I don't know what the sentencing guidelines are on this. I mean, I would say that he should absolutely face the full force of the law and whatever the punishment is deemed. I'm not an expert on what the punishment should be, Nick, but I'm not happy.

16:57I'm certainly not happy with the situation, but it's not for me to start giving out prison sentences on your podcast. In terms of the scale of the scandal, it's been compared to the Profumo scandal of the 1960s. Do you see any comparisons? Yes, I do, because this was about very, very confidential information. And weirdly, there is an osteopathy link to this as well as there was with the Profumo affair. But yes, I can see why people are making that comparison. But I would say you don't need to compare it to another scandal. It stands alone as an absolutely shameful moment because it shamed the Labour Party, shamed British politics.

17:50I think just, you know, we thought after the Me Too movement that we had shone a light on victims of sexual abuse and misogyny and violence against women and girls. But this scandal just sort of shows actually that culture lives on, that powerful men protect each other at the top and powerful men give each other jobs and they give each other inside information and they're there to help each other. and these are men who are at the apex of a global elite from the royal family to politics to America, the upper echelons of business, academia, the people who shape our lives in every single way are all part of this very, very rotten culture.

18:44And that's The Standard. For all the latest news, head to standard.co.uk. If you'd like to get in touch, email us at podcasts at standard.co.uk. We'll be back here on Monday morning. See you then.