David Pickering

reporter commentator & photographer

[David Pickering @DPickering]

@Grouse_Beater Yes, Lord Alexander of Brigadoon has a nice ring to it. We are so fortunate to have public servants like Douglas looking out for us!

[Inverness Thistle FC @InvThistleFC]

In February we stated that we had spent as much in the January transfer window as @CelticFC £0.00.

We can now say we ended our season on the same amount of trophies as @RangersFC , also 0.

Replicating two Glasgow giants has been nothing short of inspirational for us.
#02BAJGY

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

The stabbing of two Jewish men is horrifying.

So too is the attack on a Muslim man the same day, ignored by much of our media.

All human lives are equal — and we should oppose all hatred and violence wherever it appears. That’s how we build a safe & peaceful society for all.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

Peter Mandelson worked every day to try and prevent a redistribution of wealth and power in Britain.

That is why he was rewarded with a top job.

Our political system is built by - and for - a corrupt clique. We will carry on campaigning for a society that works for us all.

[Wokerati Marty @WokeratiMarty]

Here's an old ITV News report about how Margaret Hodge ignored reports of child sexual abuse when she was leader of Islington Council.

But despite this, Tony Blair made her Children's Minister.

It’s always jobs for their mates, no matter how dodgy they are. Nothing changes.

[John McDonnell @johnmcdonnellMP]

Possibly the most bizarre intervention from anyone over madcap period of last 48 hours was Margaret Hodge on Newsnight depicting the attempt by Keir Starmer’s office to secure an ambassadorship for Matthew Doyle as some sort of redeployment scheme for unemployed No 10 staff.

[James Melville 🚜 @JamesMelville]

British journalist and television presenter, Ranvir Singh opens up the real truth while discussing the Mandelson scandal:

“I’m afraid it taps into that very deep feeling, that the people we vote for are not the people who are running the country. The people we vote for are the front face, a shop window, but there are these unknown, unelected, highly paid, very influential people who are more powerful than the prime minister. We see the tip of the iceberg. We think we’ve got a democracy that’s open and fair. We don’t.”

Well said. 🎯

[David Pickering @DPickering]

@sonofr Shameful.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

The world watched as Israel razed Gaza to the ground.

Now, the world is watching as Israel razes Lebanon to the ground.

War crimes beget war crimes — and the failure to bring Israel to justice for genocide has emboldened it to destroy human life with total impunity.

[MikeD @mjdaly57]

Nearly every one of the bad faith actors who did everything they could to take down Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership have been rewarded with lucrative, lifetime seats in the House of Lords:

Lord Ian Austin
Baroness Ruth Smeeth
Lord John Mann
Lord Tom Watson
Baroness Margaret Hodge
Baroness Jenny Chapman
Lord Peter Mandelson
Lord Iain McNicol
Baron Mike Katz
Lord John (Walney) Woodcock
Lord Waheed Alli
Baroness Luciana Berger
Lord Steve McCabe
Baroness Deborah Mattinson.

And they’ll have you believe that hereditary peers are the problem.

@UKLabour @UKHouseofLords

[Nadeem Ahmed @Muqadaam]

Corbyn has been elected as the parliamentary leader of Your Party

Retweet if you support and stand with Corbyn

[Lesley Riddoch @LesleyRiddoch]

The Scotsman newspaper was first published 200+ years ago but on March 8th 1995 its female staff took over & the Scotswoman was published - a one day wonder. A wee film to celebrate International Women’s Day. https://t.co/w16oEAz65G

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

The attacks on Iran by Israel and the United States are illegal, unprovoked and unjustifiable.

Peace and diplomacy was possible. Instead, Israel and the United States chose war.

This is the behaviour of rogue states — and they have jeopardised the safety of humankind around the world with this catastrophic act of aggression.

Our government must condemn this flagrant breach of international law, and urgently pursue a foreign policy based on justice, sovereignty and peace.

[David Pickering @DPickering]

@decorativeartt Fair enough, but apart from that?!

[John Simpson @JohnSimpsonNews]

Very sad indeed to see Fergal go. His reporting has been magnificent over the years. A former RTÉ man who became quintessentially BBC. https://t.co/rvUMAB3Nre

[BUCHANAN: Dublin Time Machine @RobLooseCannon]

Today in 1989, Pat Finucane sat down to Sunday dinner with his wife Geraldine and their three children in their north Belfast home. He was 39 years old. Two gunmen from the Ulster Defence Association smashed their way into the house and fired fourteen shots at close range. His family watched him die at the table.

Finucane was one of the most prominent defence solicitors in Northern Ireland, known for representing republican suspects and for challenging the conduct of the security forces in court. In the febrile atmosphere of the late 1980s, insisting on legal rights was enough to mark a man for death.

The Stevens Inquiries found evidence of collusion between loyalist paramilitaries and members of the British security forces in connection with his assassination. Intelligence files were leaked and Loyalist informants were protected. Warnings were not properly acted upon. Brian Nelson, an agent within the UDA working for British military intelligence, had access to targeting information.

In 2012 the De Silva Review confirmed “shocking levels of collusion,” and Prime Minister David Cameron issued a formal apology in the House of Commons. The picture that formed was not of a rogue killing on the margins of the conflict, but of a murder facilitated by elements of the British state. When a government minister had publicly suggested months earlier that certain solicitors were “unduly sympathetic to the IRA,” the atmosphere was already poisoned.

The intention was to intimidate lawyers and silence scrutiny, all to preserve a system in which nationalists experienced structural inequality. But the killing did not crush the human rights movement in Northern Ireland. It strengthened it. The Finucane case became a touchstone, cited internationally as evidence of collusion and impunity, fuelling demands for policing reform and human rights protections that would later be embedded in the Good Friday Agreement.

[Guido Fawkes @GuidoFawkes]

You will have noticed Starmer and his ministers beginning to direct blame onto the officials responsible for vetting Mandelson.

This is a deliberate strategy. Guido hears after this week’s crisis meetings senior Downing Street are attempting to target FCDO permanent secretary Olly Robbins for signing off on Mandelson’s appointment despite there being doubtful material in the vetting. The argument will be that it was a decision for him and not the PM. Which is complete BS.

Guido hears Downing Street’s strategic masterminds are also looking for a way to put blame on the then head of the Propriety and Ethics team Darren Tierney. This is more difficult – a government source says “the diligence note made clear what was known at the time and it was Keir’s judgement…” Whether this wheeze will be swallowed by furious Labour MPs into the weekend is unclear…

Those familiar with Mandelson’s appointment process will remember that Morgan McSweeney went out of his way to push it through the blob – putting hours into meetings with the PET team and FCDO to get his mentor through the door. The people Morgan tried to sideline are now to be blamed.

There was a time not long ago when Starmer boasted about ‘carrying the can’ in any organisation that he leads. He said of his time with his staff as DPP: “When they made mistakes, I carried the can. I never turn on my staff and you should never turn on your staff… I will carry the can for mistakes of any organisation I lead.”

Can anyone remember if his nose grew to the size of the Golden Gate Bridge when he said that?

[Nicola James @NAJ562]

THREAD 2/2

Last time, they came for Corbyn with weaponised accusations of antisemitism - orchestrated by the Labour right, powerful lobbies, amplified across main stream media, including corners of the supposedly independent left media.

This time, the attack wears different clothes.

They daren’t come for Corbyn directly.
So they go for those around him.
Smear his allies.
Undermine his team.

And when they do mention Corbyn, it’s never on principle.
Just that he’s too old, too cautious, not radical enough.

The attack arrives as sectarianism.
Purity tests.
Demands for “democracy”, “transparency” and “accountability” from those chasing position and power, not change.

Nearly every allegation crumbles when examined - if anyone bothers examining it.

Much of the left media doesn’t any more.
It’s been monetised, co-opted, financially captured.
Millionaires sit on editorial boards.
Billionaires bankroll outlets.

Inconvenient truths go unpublished.
Fragmentation gets amplified.
Sabotage goes unchallenged.


And yes, I know how this sounds.
Paranoid. Conspiratorial.

Except they admitted it last time.
Mandelson actually said it out loud.

After everything we lived through last time, nobody should be falling for this twice.

Jeremy Corbyn has earned trust across more than four decades of consistency, integrity and action.


The Mandelson scandal isn’t a sideshow.
It’s a reminder.

Corbyn still frightens the system because he remains outside it.

He can’t be absorbed.
He can’t be managed.
He can’t be controlled through patronage.

That’s why the machinery is grinding again - this time encouraging splits, elevating those who cloak personal ambition in the language of grassroots democracy, amplifying narrow agendas that fracture rather than unite, risking the mass appeal that gave Corbynism its power.

The system doesn’t need to defeat Corbyn outright.
A fragmented slate does the job for them - slowing decisions, blunting direction, neutralising the risk he poses.

And for those insisting that Corbynism is “over”, that he’s too old, too cautious, or not radical enough - it’s worth asking a simple question.

If that were true, why is it still Corbyn the system reacts to?

It isn’t the loudest slogans they fear.
It isn’t the flashiest personalities.
It isn’t those chasing attention or purity points.

It’s still Corbyn.

That tells you everything you need to know about where the real threat lies - and who is most dangerous to them.


We get one shot at this.

Back Jeremy Corbyn.
Back the team he trusts to work with him.
Elect The Many to Your Party’s CEC.
https://t.co/MB6zwSYfts

Anything else delivers exactly what the system wants.

[Nicola James @NAJ562]

THREAD 1/2

Why the Mandelson scandal exposes how power really works - and why Corbyn still terrifies the establishment

“Mandelson wasn’t an aberration. He is the system.”
- @Jonathan_K_Cook

Here’s what most still fail to grasp:

Jeremy Corbyn didn’t frighten the establishment because of radical rhetoric. Politicians spout radical talk all the time. Talk changes nothing.

Corbyn terrified them because he operated outside their networks.

His campaigns were funded by ordinary people, not corporations.
He didn’t seek establishment approval.
He didn’t trade favours for support.
He didn’t owe them anything.
He refused to play their insider game.

Which meant they had no leverage.

They couldn’t warn him off quietly.
They couldn’t apply pressure behind closed doors.
They couldn’t buy him off later with directorships, peerages, status.

That’s what made him dangerous.
Not his words - his independence.

They couldn’t manage him.
So they worked to destroy him.

And they said so openly.

In 2017, Peter Mandelson announced he was working “every single day” to bring Corbyn down. By 2023, he was out canvassing against him in Islington North.
Extraordinary resources were deployed to remove one backbencher from Parliament.

Now observe the contrast.

Some figures move through the system untouched.
Their mistakes get buried.
Their conduct goes unexamined.
Their claims pass without serious scrutiny.
Not because they’re more radical.
Because they threaten nothing.
They don’t disrupt power.
They don’t force uncomfortable choices.
They don’t interfere with how decisions are actually made.

That’s why they’re handled gently.


Keir Starmer is the template.

He wasn’t elevated for brilliance.
He was elevated because he poses no risk.

Cautious.
Status-conscious.
Instinctively deferential to institutions, donors, media barons.
Dependent on establishment validation for authority.

That’s the type the system rewards.
Not independence.
Not disruption.
Not backbone.

He can be managed.


Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador exposed this starkly.
Other candidates existed.

The choice was about what Mandelson represents - and how the system rewards loyalty to itself.

Continuity with wealthy donors.
Reassurance for markets and corporate power.
A known quantity for Washington.
A guarantee nothing fundamental would shift.

Yes, Mandelson is compromised.
Yes, his record stinks.

But more than that: he’s embedded in networks of money, influence and power that have repeatedly shielded him from consequences - including proximity to corrupt regimes, predatory operators and criminal allegations serious enough to have finished anyone less connected.

None of that outweighed what mattered most:
he could be relied upon to serve the system’s interests.

That’s why neither London nor Washington blocked him.
Envoys aren’t chosen for integrity.
They’re chosen for alignment, predictability and control.

From that perspective, Mandelson was familiar and manageable.
Everything else was detail.


Starmer himself is disposable - just quietly so.
If he stumbles or becomes a liability, he’ll be replaced.
The system won’t miss a beat.


Corbyn was different.
Even from opposition, he remade the landscape.

He mobilised millions.
He forced over 40 government U-turns.
He set the terms without asking permission - on wages, public ownership, peace and austerity.

He demonstrated that power could be challenged without playing by their rules.

That’s why he’s still being marginalised.
That’s why those genuinely aligned with him get smeared.
And that’s why louder, more theatrical, more divisive figures - who fragment movements rather than build majorities - so often get soft treatment and convenient amplification.

Continues…

[Liverpool FC @LFC]

Our thoughts are with Manchester United, as we pause for remembrance on the anniversary of the Munich air disaster. #FlowersOfManchester