Westminster is obsessed with the Mandelson scandal. Voters are not

The politicos of Westminster and the pundits of Fleet Street have found themselves very excited indeed this week.

I can’t remember the last time a civil servant in a select committee hearing had people quite this gripped.

Everyone – from Starmer’s enemies to his (former) allies – is foaming at the mouth over the Mandelson scandal. The consensus in SW1 is near total: the PM has to go. The appointment of a man who allegedly sold state secrets and was linked to a notorious paedophile, and then proceeding to throw people under the bus for it is, we’re told, beyond the pale.

And, to be fair, when you set it out like that, it’s hard to argue.

But while the political class circles the prime minister like vultures over a carcass, has anyone stopped to ask whether the public actually care?

According to Politico, 52% of Brits think Starmer should resign. Damning – until you read the fine print. Of those, 47% said their reasons had nothing to do with Mandelson at all.

People want Starmer gone, that much is true. But they’ve wanted him gone for a while – and Mandelsongate, Vettinggate, Processgate (take your pick) isn’t why.

The first problem is right there in the naming. If you can’t give a scandal a snappy label and explain it in one breath, you’ve got about as much chance of cutting through as someone trying to explain the rules of cricket to me without sending me into a slumber.

Partygate was simple: they told us not to have parties. They had parties. They lied about it. There were photos. Done.

Now try explaining this current No10 crisis to one to your mates down the pub, and make sure you don’t miss out all the details about complex vetting procedures, the civil service jargon, and the interchangeable cast of beige men.

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Which leads to the second problem: it’s just not very exciting. Matt Hancock was caught on camera snogging his aide. The Profumo affair had sex, spies, and drugs. By contrast, “Starmer may or may not have known Mandelson failed a vetting process” is hardly gripping stuff.

And the biggest reason is that, even though something dodgy has clearly taken place, it doesn’t really touch people’s lives. With Partygate, people felt personally insulted. Millions of people, even the Queen, had to stand alone at their loved ones’ funerals, whilst the prime minister had wine and cheese nights in Downing Street.

With the expenses scandal, politicians were using public money to pay for extravagancies like duck houses during a recession. But this time round, the public haven’t been taken advantage of in anything like the same way, and therefore don’t have as much reason to care.

Should they care about it? Yes. But when people are more worried about their bills, NHS waiting times, and their council tax going up, it just doesn’t make the cut.

None of this is to say that Starmer is safe. Far from it. If anything, the opposite is true, but not because of this. As the Labour MP Sarah Champion recently admitted, on the doorstep voters want him out not over Mandelson, but because they simply don’t like him.

The u-turns and perceived weak leadership have done nothing to improve people’s lives – and that is why the public feels he should be punished.

There are very few people left out there at all who want Starmer to remain. He is seen as electorally toxic.

But thus far, there hasn’t been a petard with which to hoist him, nor any clear mechanism for removal. You can’t exactly mount a coup simply because a leader comes across as dull, whatever some pundits might suggest. This is just the first real opportunity to try and see him off.

So when an opportunity comes along, however insignificant to the electorate, it gets seized. After all, it wasn’t technically Partygate that finished Johnson, it was Chris Pincher.

The double whammy of the devastation Labour will face in the May elections, and a possible investigation into whether Starmer misled Parliament could be enough to push him out. The Times is already reporting that contingency plans for a smooth transition are being discussed.

But whether he goes in May, or, as Downing Street has convincingly reassured us “will stay in post for this parliament and beyond”, all political careers end in failure.

But when Starmer goes, the Mandelson scandal won’t be what people think of as his great failure. Not because the handling of the affair isn’t a significant disaster, but because, for many, it only adds to the long list of mishaps that threaten to squander what should have been a once-in-a-generation Labour landslide.