15/03/2026
For immediate release
THE MINISTRY OF MISSHAPEN MANDATES: WHY GOVERNING IS HARD WHEN YOUโRE A BIT BENT OUT OF SHAPE
By Our Political Correspondent
Dateline: Westminster โ In the sprawling aisles of British politics, the current Labour government is starting to look less like a finely tuned machine and more like the reduced-to-clear section at your local Morrisons.
You know the one. It's that section near the back of the store where the carrots look like they've lost a fight with a garden hoe, the parsnips resemble a thumbscrew, and the potatoes are shaped vaguely like the British Isles after a heavy night out. It's the โNaturally Wonkyโ range.
And frankly, Sir Keir Starmer's administration is embracing the aesthetic with a little too much enthusiasm.
Just as Morrisons relaxed its specifications to ensure โno veg gets left behind,โ No. 10 appears to have relaxed its specifications for basic governance. The result? A political harvest so bent, twisted, and oddly proportioned that it would make a farmer weep into their tractor's steering wheel.
Letโs browse the aisle of this particular supermarket sweep, shall we?
THE PARSNIP THATโS ALSO A U-BEND
First up in our wonky basket is the Minimum Wage for Young People. This policy is currently undergoing its sixteenth significant reshape of the Starmer premiership. One minute it's in the manifesto, the next it's being reviewed because business groups warned it was โpricing a generation out of the workplace.โ
It's like picking up a bag of potatoes only to find that half of them have decided to identify as sweet potatoes halfway home. You can't be cross about it, exactlyโthey're all still root vegetablesโbut it's not what you signed up for at the checkout.
Then there's the Farmers' Inheritance Tax, or as it's now known, the โTractor Tax That Wasn't.โ Initially, Rachel Reeves rolled in with a plan that looked set to break up family farms like a bad breakup breaks up a folk band. Farmers took to the streets with their tractors, blocking Whitehall in a display of agricultural displeasure.
After a โpersonal interventionโ by the Prime Minister, the government performed a U-turn so sharp it left skid marks on the M4. The threshold was bumped up. It's the political equivalent of picking up a wonky cabbage, noticing it has a massive hole in it, and the cashier shrugging, โYeah, but it's naturally holey.โ
THE SPROUTS THAT KEEP COMING BACK
Perhaps the most versatile item in the wonky range is the Winter Fuel Payment. This particular vegetable has been boiled, mashed, stewed, and turned into a smoothie. Initially, Labour stripped it from most pensioners to save a few quid. It was deeply unpopular. So they did a U-turn and gave it back to most pensioners, just with a slightly different income threshold.
It's the only vegetable in history that has been removed from the plate, scraped into the bin, and then retrieved from the bin because the family complained there was nothing to eat.
We also have the curiously shaped Employment Rights Bill. Remember the iron-clad promise of โday oneโ rights for unfair dismissal? It was a cornerstone of Labour's pledge to workers. By the time the bill navigated its way through Parliament and the House of Lords, that โday oneโ had quietly matured into a six-month probation period.
It's like buying a bag of โWonky Applesโ only to find out that three of them are actually pears. Still fruit, still technically edible, but not quite the crunch you were expecting.
THE MOULDY TOMATO AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BAG
But just when you think you've finished your shop and are heading for the checkout, you notice it. At the very bottom of your basket, lurking beneath the wonky parsnips and the oddly-shaped sprouts, is a tomato that has gone spectacularly, spectacularly mouldy. It's leaking. It smells. And it seems to have been sitting there since 2009.
Welcome to the Lord Mandelson and Jeffrey Epstein scandal โ the gift that keeps on giving, much like a forgotten bag of potatoes at the back of the cupboard.
Now, every savvy Morrisons shopper knows that a bit of wonk is acceptable, even charming. But a mouldy tomato? One that has been arrested by the Metropolitan Police? That's a different matter entirely.
It all started so simply. Sir Keir, in a moment of what he might now describe as โoptimistic shopping,โ decided to appoint the veteran Labour figure Peter Mandelson as the UK's ambassador to the United States. A distinguished role for a distinguished peer. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, quite a lot, as it turns out. Because Lord Mandelson, it seems, came with some rather unusual labelling that No. 10 somehow failed to read.
Firstly, there was the small matter of his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, the late financier and convicted s*x offender. This wasn't just a passing acquaintance. Newly released documents from the US Department of Justice revealed that Mandelson, while serving as Business Secretary in 2009, forwarded a sensitive economic briefing โ intended for the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown โ to Epstein. He also appeared to discuss government policy on bankers' bonuses and gave advance notice of a massive EU bailout. It was, as Gordon Brown himself put it, an โinexcusable and unpatriotic actโ during a global financial crisis.
But the wonkiness doesn't stop there. Bank records suggested Epstein made three payments totalling $75,000 to accounts linked to Mandelson between 2003 and 2004. Mandelson claims to have โno memoryโ of these transactions. He also appears to have celebrated Epstein's release from prison in 2009 with a gleeful email: โHow is freedom feeling?โ to which Epstein replied with a rather unsavoury metaphor, and Mandelson responded, โNaughty boy.โ
It's the kind of correspondence you'd expect to find scribbled in the margins of a very, very wonky courgette.
Then came the photographs. One particularly striking image shows a smiling Mandelson and the disgraced former prince Andrew, both barefoot and dressed in bathrobes, sitting with Epstein. It's a visual that is, to put it mildly, not great for the brand.
The government's handling of this mouldy tomato has been a masterclass in wonky governance. It emerged that Sir Keir did not even interview Mandelson personally before handing him the keys to the Washington embassy. Instead, the vetting was left to two of Mandelson's long-time friends and protรฉgรฉs.
Itโs like asking a squirrel to approve the security clearance for a nut.
The denouement has been predictably chaotic. Mandelson was eventually forced out of his diplomatic role and quit the Labour Party to avoid causing further embarrassment.
Sir Keir later admitted he regretted the appointment, saying that if he had known then what he knows now, Mandelson would never have been anywhere near government.
It is, without a doubt, the mouldiest tomato in the entire supermarket.
DONโT FORGET THE MANDATORY EXTRAS
And just when you think you've finally finished your shop, you find the Digital ID Cards. Sold as a mandatory measure to deter illegal working, they were quietly put back on the shelf after a public consultation revealed that people aren't wildly keen on mandatory tracking. Now, a passport will probably do just fine.
It's the classic wonky veg paradox: you buy a wonky leek because it's cheaper and reduces waste, but you spend ten minutes cleaning the mud out of it. The government introduces a policy to reduce waste โ of money, of time โ but spends ten months cleaning up the political mud it trails through the house.
The government even had to U-turn on U-turning the local elections, reinstating votes that were postponed due to a lack of resources, only to uncancel them amid a legal challenge.
That's not just a wonky vegetable; that's a vegetable that has achieved sentience, realised it's in a supermarket, and tried to roll itself back to the farm.
NATURALLY WONKY, NATURALLY WONDERFULโฆ MOSTLY?
Morrisons markets its wonky range with the slogan: โNaturally wonky, naturally wonderful.โ It suggests that just because something isn't perfectly straight, it's still perfectly good.
And perhaps that's the takeaway here.
In the grand tradition of Yes, Minister, governing is inherently messy. It involves compromises, double-speak, and the occasional baffling retreat.
Sometimes the weird-looking carrot tastes just as sweet as the straight one.
You just have to peel a bit more of the skin off to get to the good part.
And perhaps, just perhaps, throw the mouldy one in the bin before anyone calls the police.
