JD Vance quizzed Lord Mandelson about Reform's surging popularity
During a recent conversation, the US vice-president remarked to the UK's ambassador in Washington: 'So what's going on with Reform? I see that they're doing very well.'
The comment suggest Mr Vance, Donald Trump's right-hand man, is closely watching the fortunes of the party identified by Sir Keir Starmer as the biggest threat to his re-election.
Reform continues to top the opinion polls, jumping from 23 per cent to 28 per cent of the vote this year, while Labour, the party that Lord Mandelson has been a central figure in for decades, has slumped to second on 24 per cent of the vote.
Mr Vance's office did not dispute the accuracy of the comment, which was made in private.
A Reform source said: 'The vice-president is impeccably well informed about British politics.'
Mr Vance has been a loyal advocate for Mr Trump's America First agenda since the president's second term in office began this January.
He is a well-known Anglophile and has an interest in British politics.
He is also friends with George Osborne, the former Tory chancellor who once hosted Mr Vance in London for a meeting with Westminster figures back when the vice-president was an up-and-coming Republican and author.
Mr Vance has at times taken public swipes at the UK, singling out the country for 'backsliding' on free speech and democracy.
The remark came in a speech at the Munich Security Conference in February, which featured harsh US criticism of European nations.
Mr Vance said: 'Perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very dear friends, the United Kingdom, where the backslide away from conscience rights has placed the basic liberties of religious Britons, in particular, in the crosshairs.'
In March, he criticised plans for a European peace-keeping force in Ukraine being spearheaded by Sir Keir by saying US economic interests in the country would be a 'better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn't fought a war in 30 or 40 years'.
Mr Vance later clarified by noting he had not mentioned explicitly the UK or France, which is also leading the planning for the so-called 'Coalition of the Willing', adding both had 'fought bravely alongside the US over the last 20 years, and beyond'.
The Prince of Darkness
Lord Mandelson was one of the leaders of the New Labour modernisation project, which saw the party govern the UK for 13 years under Sir Tony Blair and then Gordon Brown.
Nicknamed the Prince of Darkness for his influence and cunning in those years, Lord Mandelson held Northern Ireland and business briefs in Labour cabinets.
He was called back into front-line politics by Sir Keir late last year when he was appointed to the ambassador position in Washington to help navigate the Trump 2.0 era.
Since his arrival government insiders have played up his success in ingratiating himself with leading figures in the Trump administration.
Mr Farage has had a friendship with Mr Trump stretching back to the 2016 presidential campaign, when he stood by the beleaguered candidate publicly after a leaked recording revealed Mr Trump making misogynistic comments.
After both Mr Trump's 2016 and 2024 presidential election victories Mr Farage floated himself as a possible UK ambassador to Washington given his connections.
He has known Mr Vance longer than Sir Keir has, and has socialised with him and other Trump allies on numerous occasions.
Lord Mandelson jokingly called Mr Farage 'the other ambassador' when they bumped into each other at a US Embassy party last month.
No 10 has identified Reform as a bigger threat than the Conservatives for the next general election, which is due in 2029.
Pat McFadden, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and a close Starmer ally, said Labour's political battle to counter Reform's popularity was the 'fight of our lives'.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Guardian
9 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Who's really to blame for Labour's troubles – Rachel Reeves or the invisible PM?
She is not the first chancellor to cry in public, and may not be the last. But Rachel Reeves is the first whose tears have moved markets. No sooner had the realisation dawned that she was silently weeping – over a personal sorrow she won't be pushed into revealing, she insisted later, not a political one – as she sat beside Keir Starmer at Wednesday's prime minister's questions, than the pound was dropping and the cost of borrowing rising. The bond traders who forced out Liz Truss's hapless chancellor still clearly rate her judgment and want her to stay, even if (perhaps especially if) some Labour MPs don't. Yet it is an extraordinary thing to live with the knowledge that a moment's uncontrolled emotion can drive up the cost of a nation's mortgages, just as a misjudged stroke of the budget pen can destroy lives. The most striking thing about her tears, however, was Starmer's failure to notice. Intent on the Tory benches opposite, the prime minister simply ploughed on, not realising that his closest political ally was dissolving beside him. Though within hours, a clearly mortified Starmer had thrown a metaphorical arm around her, and Reeves herself was back out talking up her beloved fiscal rules as if nothing had happened. But it's the kind of image that sticks: her distress and his oblivion, an unfortunately convenient metaphor for all the times he has seemed oddly detached from his own government. Quite aside from whatever private grief she is now carrying, Reeves has for years been shouldering an exhausting load. From the start, she and Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's chief of staff, did an unusual amount of the heavy lifting on behalf of their oddly apolitical leader – and in government the stakes have only risen. McSweeney, a natural fixer now jammed faintly awkwardly into a strategist's role, was once credited with near-mythical influence over Starmer, but for months is said to have been struggling at times to get the boss's ear. Reeves, meanwhile, has ended up by default running much of the domestic agenda, while Starmer focuses on foreign policy crises and a handful of big issues that passionately exercise him. Since even close aides and ministers complain of never really knowing what he wants, the result is a Treasury-brained government that tends to start with the numbers and work back to what's possible, rather than setting a political goal and figuring out how to reach it. Perhaps that makes sense to the City, but not to Labour MPs frogmarched through a series of politically toxic decisions with no obvious rationale except that the money's got to come from somewhere. To many of them, Starmer appears at best like a kind of political weekend dad: largely absent from everyday life and reluctant to get involved in political battles, but swooping in at the last minute to issue orders. Complaints of Downing Street dysfunction have been a staple under at least the last four prime ministers, but there's a weakness at the core of this No 10 that is putting the rest of government under undue strain, like a runner trying to push on through an injury who ends up pulling every other muscle in the process. On the left, there is growing talk of trying to force a 'reset' in spring, if next year's Scottish and Welsh elections go as badly as they assume: force Reeves out, let radicalism in, fight Reform's emotive rightwing fire with a form of leftwing populism perhaps loosely resembling what the Democrats' Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or the New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani are doing in the US. It's exactly what the markets fear, judging by their reaction to Reeves' temporary wobble. But even Labour MPs who'd never go that far are growing restless for change. Just raise taxes, cries this week's New Statesman magazine, echoing a widespread view that the fiscal straitjacket imposed by Reeves is killing the government. I argued for the same thing in the Guardian back in March, and haven't changed my mind. But the political cost of doing so is arguably higher now than it would have been then, when tax rises could plausibly still have been framed as an emergency response to Donald Trump pulling the plug on Europe's defence and forcing Britain to rearm, rather than as an admission that the government can no longer get its spending plans past its own backbenchers. In their understandable frustration, however, some fail to ask why Reeves holds the iron grip she does; why Treasury thinking isn't more often challenged by No 10. If this government's mistakes often have her fingerprints somewhere on them, then so do many of its successes. Last week, I was at a housing conference, surrounded by people still euphoric at getting everything they asked for in last month's spending review: unprecedented billions poured into genuinely affordable and social housing – with emphasis thankfully for once on the social – with a 10-year settlement from the Treasury, creating the long-term certainty they need to make it happen. Angela Rayner fought like a tiger for it, but Reeves made the money happen, and the result will change lives. Children who would have grown up in grim, frightening temporary accommodation will have safe, permanent homes. Vulnerable people will escape the clutches of unscrupulous landlords and first-time buyers will climb ladders otherwise out of reach. It's everything a Labour government exists to do, but as with so many unseen good things happening – on green energy, say, or transport – the money didn't fall from the sky and won't be there in future if an ageing and chronically unfit population carries on consuming welfare spending or health spending (the next big battleground, judging by the detail of Wes Streeting's 10-year plan) at current rates. To a frustrated Treasury, this week's rebellion was evidence that Labour MPs don't live in the real world, where hard choices must be faced for good things to happen. But, to the rebels, it's evidence that the Treasury doesn't live in their real world, where vulnerable people struggle with deep-rooted health problems only aggravated by being pushed into poverty, and the Greens as much as Reform are threatening to eat them for breakfast over it. There is some truth in both arguments. But that's precisely why it is ultimately a prime minister's job, and nobody else's, to draw all the threads of the government together: to balance political yin against economic yang, such that neither dominates or bends the project out of shape. Chancellors come and, eventually, even the best go. But sometimes it's only then that you can really tell whether the problem was ever really the chancellor. Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
Reuters
22 minutes ago
- Reuters
Ukraine's Zelenskiy says interceptors downed many Russian drones overnight
July 4 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Friday that interceptor drones had proved effective in downing many Russian drones deployed in an overnight Russian attack on Kyiv and issued a new call for their rapid development and production. Zelenskiy noted the hours-long assault, the largest in the 40-month-old war with more than 500 Russian drones and missiles deployed, had been "difficult, but a significant portion were still shot down". "Today also brought important results from our interceptor drones. Dozens of Shaheds (Iranian-designed drones) were shot down specifically by these interceptors," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. "We are scaling this up as much as possible. More production of these interceptor drones, more training and more preparation for our drone operators. This is a clear task." Zelenskiy has long focused on manufacturing and developing drones, an industry that was virtually non-existent when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbour in February 2022. In recent weeks, he has spoken more specifically of the need to develop drone interceptors to parry increasingly intensive attacks by swarms of Russian drones, deployed along with missiles. Last month, the president noted that Ukrainian companies had already boosted production of the interceptors in response to the increasingly frequent and destructive Russian attacks. Air Force spokesperson Yuri Ihnat said last month that developing interceptor drones would help Ukraine use its resources more rationally in fending off Russian attacks, rather than relying on missiles and aircraft.
BBC News
23 minutes ago
- BBC News
Record growth of Chinese cars in UK
One in 10 cars sold in the UK in June were made in China, according to the latest industry Chinese brands such as BYD, Jaecoo and Omoda are growing rapidly in the has been a particular surge over the past few months, at a time when most other G7 countries have levied significant extra tariffs against their 18,944 cars made by Chinese-owned brands, including MG and Polestar, were sold in June, which is 10% of overall UK sales, according to the latest figures from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). That is up from 6% in the same month a year ago. Across the first half of this year, more than 8% - or 1 in 12 - cars sold were Chinese, up from 5% in 2023 and 2024. This was mainly but not exclusively electric industry grandees have warned that the UK industry will struggle to compete, and Britain might have to introduce quotas. Chinese firms and their franchises have been buying up car showrooms."Chinese manufacturers are producing cars which are better, cheaper and more innovative in every sector of the market," said John Neill, former SMMT President and ex-chief executive of Unipart."If they are going to sell here we are going to have to get the Chinese to manufacture here."The government has so far faced little pressure from existing suppliers on copying the tariffs imposed by the EU, US, and Canada on electric cars. The majority of EU member states backed big taxes being imposed on imports of EVs from China, which can be as high as around 45%, and Canada announced its imposition of a 100% tax on Chinese made EU and China are in negotiations to replace the tariff with a minimum price Chinese manufacturers are also in the process of opening factories in the EU which could export across Europe including the UK SMMT said that one in four buyers of new cars in the UK are now purchasing electric cars - although the transition to electric has been driven by "unsustainable" discounting by manufacturers, says Mike Hawes, the SMMT's chief executive."As we have seen in other countries, government incentives can supercharge the market transition," he said.
