(September 9, 2026)
British intelligence has been given assurances by its Israeli counterpart that information sharing with the UK will continue as before, Ed Miliband, the foreign secretary, has said.
Archiv: Downing Street No 10
Joint Foreign Ministers‘ Statement on the Two-State Solution
(September 8, 2026)
Statement of the Foreign Ministers of Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK on the Two-State Solution
1. The Government of Israelâs actions in the West Bank are undermining the possibility of a two-State solution. The situation is rapidly deteriorating amid unprecedented levels of settler violence and settlement expansion, including the unacceptable decision to publish tenders for the E1 settlement project. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham, the President of France Emmanuel Macron and Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney have agreed on the need to take action to prevent further damage.
Today, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the UK confirm their intention to introduce national and/or support European restrictions on trade in goods with settlements which are illegal under international law, or that they are actively considering these and other measures, in accordance with their national procedures. In this regard, the UK, France and Canada welcome the important action already taken by Ireland, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium and will bring forward national measures to ban trade in settlement goods.
As U.K., 11 other nations say they‘ll sanction Israeli settlements, U.S. envoy warns of repercussions
(September 8, 2026)
U.K. Foreign Minister Ed Miliband said the British sanctions would target specific companies and individuals who provide services including construction, infrastructure, financing or real estate for settlement expansion, as well as sanctions against individual settlers accused of violence against Palestinians.
„The set of measures I have announced represents a clear message to the government of Israel, to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, and to the world that we will not acquiesce in the destruction of the two-state solution,“ Miliband said.
When Mandelson could bring down Starmer
(March 14, 2026)
As my big piece on Starmer last month revealed, even after Mandelson was appointed, Starmer never quizzed him about how to deal with Trump. All this exposes a Prime Minister with Olympic levels of detachment. It has been known for a while that he has little interest in politics but those who have worked with him have been genuinely surprised at his lack of interest in the detail of governing.
(…)
The book also reveals that the decision to sack Mandelson was taken by McSweeney, not Starmer. On the day the PM defended Mandelson in the Commons, McSweeney was in a secure basement conference room without his phone when two of Starmerâs closest aides â Paul Ovenden and Stuart Ingham â came to find him. Ingham told him: âWe just canât answer these questions.â
McSweeneyâs response â âItâs unsustainableâ â was the moment the decision was effectively made.
Oiling the machine – inside the Number 10 policy unit
(November 20, 2024)
Though it has grown over the past fifty years, the Policy Unit today still comprises fewer than thirty special advisers and junior Whitehall officials. This little platoon tends to be most effective when it acts as both the prime ministerâs âeyes and earsâ, to borrow Wilsonâs phrase, and what Sarah Hogg, John Majorâs policy chief, termed âthe grit and oil in the government machine.â In other words, the Policy Unit works best by offering the prime minister unvarnished intelligence and advice about the direction of departmental policy, while giving Whitehall strategic clarity about what the prime minister wants or doesnât want.
No 10 bid for SECOND paedo-linked Labour ally to get ambassador role
He was later pushed on who had ordered him to look into getting Doyle a position, and who had ordered him not to tell the foreign secretary (which at the time was David Lammy).
Robbins said: âI don‘t know what the origin of the suggestion was, and I don‘t know who exactly was behind it or how serious it was.
âIt was serious enough for the No 10 private office to ring up the head of the diplomatic service and ask for a forward look of available head of mission jobs, and that‘s the point at which I thought that I needed to lay down some markers.â
Olly Robbins: I was asked to find job for Starmer aide and not tell David Lammy
Testifying to MPs at parliamentâs foreign affairs select committee on Tuesday, Olly Robbins said he had several conversations with No 10 about finding a role for Matthew Doyle, who was later suspended as a Labour peer after it emerged he had campaigned for a friend charged with possessing indecent images of children.
Robbins said he had been asked not to mention the idea to David Lammy, who was foreign secretary at the time.
Robbins described the conversations as part of more general pressure from people at the top of the government to place senior political figures in senior diplomatic posts.
Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson: Who are Starmerâs new joint chiefs of staff?
(February 8, 2026)
With Morgan McSweeneyâs enforced departure over the Mandelson scandal, his former deputies Vidhya Alakeson and Jill Cuthbertson have both been promoted to replace him as joints chiefs of staff
Olly Robbins says he faced âconstant pressureâ to get Mandelson in post
Asked who in No 10 had applied pressure, he said it was mainly the prime ministerâs private office, which is staffed by civil servants. But he added: âI think that the private office would only have been [putting on] this pressure themselves if they were under pressure.â
Fired U.K. Official Describes âPressureâ From Starmerâs Office for Envoyâs Appointment
The former top civil servant in Britainâs foreign office, who was fired by Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week, said on Tuesday that Mr. Starmerâs office had a âdismissive attitudeâ about the security vetting of Peter Mandelson, an associate of Jeffrey Epstein who became ambassador to the United States despite concerns raised during the vetting process.
The former civil servant, Olly Robbins, testified in Parliament that he and other officials in charge of deciding whether to grant Mr. Mandelson a high-level security clearance were working in âan atmosphere of pressureâ to ensure that nothing got in the way of Mr. Mandelsonâs appointment.
After the latest Mandelson revelations, Starmer needs to get a good lawyer. Wasnât he supposed to be one?
During the opposition years, his defenders countered that a stolid technocrat was exactly what the country needed. They sold the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service as the polar opposite of Boris Johnson, who was driven from Downing Street in part by Starmerâs own forensic questioning. If only Starmer had lived up to the billing of his detractors, reluctantly conceded by his allies, he wouldnât be in the hole he finds himself this weekend.
Instead, he now has to rely on a defence that is lawyerly in the worst sense of that word. To have knowingly misled parliament is, in political terms, a capital crime. So the PM has to proceed on two tracks, one for âknowinglyâ the other for âmisledâ.
Starmer sacks top Foreign Office official after Mandelson vetting revelations
The BBC understands Sir Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper lost confidence in Sir Olly Robbins and was effectively sacked after a Guardian investigation revealed Mandelson had not been security cleared.
The PM is facing calls to resign amid claims he misled MPs when he told them „full due process“ had been followed.
Senior minister Darren Jones said Sir Keir had not been told of the vetting recommendation until Tuesday this week, had not misled MPs and would not be resigning.
Epstein-Fall, neue hochrangige RĂŒcktritte in England. Starmer unter Druck: âEr sollte zurĂŒcktreten.â
(April 16, 2026)
âEs ist unverzeihlich, dass kein Minister, nicht einmal Downing Street, informiert wurdeâ, kommentierte Premierminister Keir Starmer. Doch Starmer selbst geriet ins Visier der Opposition, die seinen RĂŒcktritt fordert. Der Chef von Downing Street scheint jedoch nicht zurĂŒcktreten zu wollen. âEr wird nicht zurĂŒcktretenâ, versicherte Starmers engster Vertrauter, Darren Jones.
Revealed: Mandelson failed vetting but Foreign Office overruled decision
(Thu 16 Apr 2026 19.16 CEST)
In September, in a letter co-signed with foreign secretary Yvette Cooper, Robbins told MPs that âconducted to the usual standard set for developed vetting.
The Guardian understands that Robbins was told he had to resign after Starmer and Cooper lost confidence in the civil servant.
Mandelsonâs failure to secure vetting approval has not previously been publicly revealed, despite intense scrutiny over his appointment and the release by the government of 147 pages of documents supposed to shed light on the case.
Palestine Action ban ruled unlawful but group remains proscribed for now
The proscription made membership of or support for Palestine Action illegal, and more than 2,000 people have been arrested at demonstrations in the months since it came into force.
Some 694 of the protesters have been charged with allegedly showing support for the group, which can lead to up to six months in jail.
UK Palestine Action ban ruled unlawful, in humiliating blow for ministers
(February 13, 2026)
The home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, was urged to respect the courtâs decision after the three judges said the ban, introduced by her predecessor Yvette Cooper, impinged on the right to protest and should be quashed.
However, the fate of more than 2,500 people, arrested for supporting Palestine Action since proscription, remained uncertain after Mahmood said she would appeal against the ban.
Additionally, the three judges, led by the president of the kingâs bench division, Dame Victoria Sharp, said the banning order would not be quashed until both sides had been allowed to make representations.
Chris Mason: Labour sticks with Starmer for now but this is not over
If Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar‘s desire to dislodge Sir Keir Starmer had had public accomplices, that could have been it.
There was a crucial pivot point on Monday afternoon when things could have gone in one of two ways.
If others had said Sir Keir should go, he might not have got to the end of the day without announcing his departure.
But instead, there was a rallying of support from the cabinet and from various wings of the Labour Party.
Starmer latest: Streeting accused of orchestrating No 10 coup as embattled PM vows to fight on
Wes Streeting has been accused of orchestrating a coup against Sir Keir Starmer after claims emerged he talked to Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar two days before Mr Sarwar called on the prime minister to resign.
Sources said the pair are thought to have discussed the current political situation in the Labour party, with many blaming the health secretary for Mr Sarwarâs intervention, according to the Telegraph.
Streeting shares his Mandelson texts with Sky News
The health secretary said he was sharing the messages with Sky News because of an attempt to „smear“ him over the weekend by suggestions he was „close friends“ with Lord Mandelson.
Mr Streeting has long been seen as on leadership manoeuvres and may otherwise be thought to be a potential beneficiary if Sir Keir were to resign as prime minister.
Starmerâs Communications Chief Quits, Adding to British Leaderâs Woes
The director of communications for Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain resigned on Monday, adding to a sense of crisis for the government and growing questions about Mr. Starmerâs leadership.
The communications director, Tim Allan, a veteran political operative who only joined Mr. Starmerâs government about five months ago, quit less than 24 hours after Morgan McSweeney stepped down as the prime ministerâs chief of staff over ties between Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender, and Britainâs former ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson.
Anas Sarwar calls for Keir Starmer to quit as Prime Minister
The Scottish Labour leader made the intervention in a press conference in Glasgow this afternoon as he attacked the „failures“ in Downing Street in the wake of revelations surrounding Peter Mandelson‘s links to Jeffrey Epstein and fears over damage the scandal may do to his party‘s chances at the Holyrood elections in May.
He told reporters his first priority is to Scotland and that he did not want to âsacrificeâ the country to a third decade of an SNP government.
Inside Scottish Labour as MPs fear Mandelson impact on Holyrood vote
(February 6, 2026)
Now attention is turning to the ramifications of the scandal in Scotland ahead of the Holyrood election in May.
Anas Sarwar could prove another casualty of the spectacular fallout from the collapse of Lord Mandelsonâs reputation.
Lord Mandelsonâs continued friendship with Epstein has been public knowledge since the Financial Times reported in 2023 that the peer stayed at the convicted paedophileâs home in Manhattan in 2009, while he was in prison for child sex offences.
Britainâs Rulers Have Been Partners in the Gaza Genocide
Tory and Labour governments in Britain have provided every conceivable form of support for Israelâs genocidal project in Gaza. Peter Oborne, an independent-minded conservative journalist, has now provided us with a definitive record of their complicity.
Complicit: Britainâs Role in the Destruction of Gaza
Fearless and forensic, this incendiary indictment from one of Britainâs most celebrated political journalists lays bare the full extent of British complicity in the destruction of Gaza.
In a gripping narrative informed by original reporting, Peter Oborne tells how Britainâs Conservative and Labour parties converged to back Israelâs criminal assaultâin the process occupying disturbing common ground with the far right.
Rather than challenge this political cartel, British media colluded in its misrepresentations. The shocking result was that, as British authorities helped Israel set Gaza as well as international law aflame, almost everything the public was told about this momentous conflagration was untrue.
When citizens still turned out in their hundreds of thousands to demand a ceasefire, roiling the nationâs politics as they stayed faithful to the ancient British tradition of popular protest in defence of liberty, the political-media machine bared its fangs. The investigative reporting in this book exposes the methods by which peaceful demonstrations were smeared as âhate marchesâ.
Formerly chief political commentator at the Daily Telegraph and Spectator, Oborne knows the British establishment from within. In this book he names names and provides receipts. His demand is accountabilityâfor atrocities, and their accomplices.
UK PM Keir Starmerâs chief of staff quits over appointment of Peter Mandelson as US ambassador despite Epstein ties
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmerâs chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, resigned on Sunday after taking responsibility for advising the prime minister to appoint Peter Mandelson as the UK ambassador to the United States, despite Mandelsonâs past links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The Epstein storm could topple a world leader â but itâs not Trump
His premiership hung by a thread Thursday after a revolt by MPs in his Labour Party further damaged a 10 Downing Street operation staggering from crisis to crisis.
Starmer tried to clarify his earlier statement in parliament on Wednesday that he knew about the friendship between former Cabinet minister Peter Mandelson and Epstein â but still made him ambassador to Washington.
UK will release files related to Mandelson‘s appointment in more Epstein fallout
The move came after the opposition Conservative Party said it would force a vote in Parliament on Wednesday calling for the release of emails and other messages related to Mandelsonâs appointment in 2024. Critics say he should never have been given the job because his relationship with Epstein â though not its extent â was known at the time.
The government has agreed to release the requested information unless it is âprejudicial to U.K. national security or international relations.â Itâs unclear how much material will be released, or when.
Curveball: How US was duped by Iraqi fantasist looking to topple Saddam
(15 Feb 2011)
Since the fall of Baghdad, Curveball‘s identity had been sought throughout Iraq and Europe. He was finally outed in late 2007 as the main source for Powell‘s speech, but has tried to keep a low profile ever since, refusing â under the orders of the BND â the approaches of the few reporters who had tracked him downto Karlsruhe.
The only other time Curveball has agreed to be interviewed was in late 2007, when he told CNN that he had been set up as a fall guy by the BND and had never breathed a word to them about WMD.
Der Fall „Curveball“: Wie ein BND-Informant den Irak-Krieg auslöste
(28.8.2011)
Diese bis heute verbreitete Darstellung ist unangenehm fĂŒr die Bundesrepublik. Deutschland steht da als ein Land, das ein Doppelspiel betrieben hat: nach auĂen den Pazifisten geben â und hintenherum ĂŒber seinen Geheimdienst einen entscheidenden Grund fĂŒr die militĂ€rische Intervention liefern. Der Bundesnachrichtendienst nahm die VorwĂŒrfe schweigend hin.
Greenland takes pleas to UK parliament
(January 13, 2026)
Greenlandâs energy minister asked British lawmakers for help in the face of âbewilderingâ U.S. aggression.
LONDON â The U.K. government must âdare to have principlesâ and help Greenland repel threats from Donald Trump, a senior minister in Greenlandâs government told lawmakers in London.
UN experts urge UK to protect lives and rights of pro-Palestinian detainees on hunger strike
The experts have also expressed serious concern as to the overbreadth of the definition of terrorism under UK law, the proscription of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000, and the subsequent mass arrests and criminal charges, including terrorism-related offenses, brought against individuals for alleged support for Palestine Action.
âThese hunger strikes must be understood within the broader context of restrictions on pro-Palestinian activism in the UK,â the experts said, noting that the detainees are held in connection with protest-related activity.
They urged the United Kingdom to immediately guarantee appropriate healthcare for all hunger strikers, and engage in meaningful dialogue and action to address not only the claims of the protestors, but also underlying rights violations, and an end to the repression of Palestine activism.
âPreventable deaths in custody are never acceptable. The State bears full responsibility for the lives and wellbeing of those it detains,â the experts said. âUrgent action is required now.â
The experts stand ready to engage constructively with the UK Government and will continue to monitor the situation closely.
*The experts:
– Gina Romero, the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association
– Tlaleng Mofokeng, the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health
– Cecilia M. Bailliet, the Independent Expert on human rights and international solidarity
– George Katrougalos, the Independent expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order
– Ben Saul, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism
– Irene Khan, the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression
– Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967