03-08-2025
MPs who want to show the door to Keir's pal Powell: ANDREW PIERCE
When Keir Starmer met Donald Trump for that humiliating press conference in Scotland last week, many political eyes were focused not just on the two leaders but on the curly-haired figure sitting feet from the PM.
Jonathan Powell has become a controversial figure since being appointed Starmer's national security adviser last November.
Traditionally, the role is assigned to a civil servant rather than a political chum. Not so Powell.
This means he evades the accountability of his predecessors, with the Cabinet Office refusing to let him be grilled by Parliament's joint committee on national security.
Just as well. Powell was at the centre of Starmer's U-turn towards recognising Palestine as a state last week – judged a breach of international law by some lawyers. His fingerprints are on the surrender of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which he helped negotiate before his appointment, at a multi-billion-pound cost to taxpayers.
And Powell was also key to Starmer's ' Brexit reset' deal which gave French fishermen more access to our waters.
I'm told many Labour MPs are unhappy with the 68-year-old's performance, contrary to a fawning profile in The Times which referred to him as a 'world-class operator, always in the room'.
One senior MP grumbles: 'It's time Powell left the room.'
I hear ex-PM Tony Blair invites Labour MPs to his think-tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. Why? To warn them against agreeing any more tax rises. Watch out, Sir Keir.
Amid the controversy over Hollywood actress Sydney Sweeney's advert for jeans brand American Eagle, in which she jokes about having good 'genes', arch-traditionalist Jacob Rees-Mogg says that, for the sort of modelling fee she gets, he could be persuaded to ditch his formal trousers.
Friends of the man dubbed the 'Tory MP for the 18th Century' beg to differ. One said: 'When he took off his suit jacket to play cricket with his sons in their Somerset garden last year, he confessed afterwards to feeling 'quite undressed!' '
After Norman Tebbit's funeral last week, a tribute from Spitting Image's Steve Nallon. Tebbit's puppet was a leather jacket-clad hardman and Nallon says: 'We heard that Tebbit always wanted to wear a leather jacket, but as soon as he saw himself on Spitting Image he realised that wasn't going to be possible.' He added 'I'm told [Tebbit] was quite an endearing and pleasant man'. He was.
Jeremy Corbyn has applied for a trademark for his name – Jeremy Bernard Corbyn – for political uses, according to the Intellectual Property Office. He applied on July 7, before he 'launched' his as-yet-unnamed party. Well, I've got a suggestion for the ex-Labour leader, suspended after being investigated over anti-Semitism: Jezbollah.
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has told councils they can sell off allotments to raise funds. The policy will surely be resisted by Jeremy Corbyn. He doesn't stop banging on about his cherished North London plot. Garden forks at the ready, comrades.
Dog eat dog for Lisa Nandy
Last month, the Beeb unveiled CBBC favourite Hacker T Dog – a sarcastic canine puppet – as a Blue Peter presenter. Is the BBC trying to get in Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy's good books?
Nandy, a vocal critic of embattled Director General Tim Davie, has spoken about her love for fellow Wiganite Hacker. One catch. Hacker has a new job in September, but Nandy might not: she's been tipped for the chop in Starmer's reshuffle.
