The Mandelson Affair
A personal diary entry from Alan Nafzger in London UK
From Bohiney and The London Prat.
Personal diary of Alan Nafzger | London UK
Friday. The In-Tray. I have been editing satirical journalism about British governance for long enough that I have developed what I can only describe as professional immunity to the specific category of disaster that 2026 Britain represents. Six prime ministers in seven years. The assisted dying bill defeated by 1,200 Lords amendments. The Iran energy crisis landing on Rachel Reeves’s budget like a very expensive meteorite. Reform UK eating into Labour’s right flank while the Greens and Lib Dems compete for its left. I have read the prat.uk piece titled ‘Britain Is Officially Ungovernable’ at this link, and I can confirm that it is accurate and that the specific phrase ‘socialist majority with only socialist morons available to lead it’ is the most honest sentence published about British politics in the first half of 2026.
The Mandelson Affair
The Mandelson affair, which I will not specify further here because my lawyer has asked me not to and because the prat.uk newsletter has already covered it with considerably less legal concern, has added to the general atmosphere of governance that Keir Starmer promised would be stable and that has proven to be stable in the specific way of a man who falls down the same flight of stairs every week at exactly the same time and gets up at exactly the same time and is therefore consistent if not exactly stable. Consistency and stability are not the same thing. Sir Keir knows this. He may not have planned it.
The Lords Amendment Count
1,200 amendments to the assisted dying bill. I have been in journalism for twenty-two years. I have covered EU referendum campaigns, Brexit negotiations, pandemic governance, and the specific institutional creativity of a political system that invented the right to remain silent and then filled the resulting silence with amendments. 1,200 amendments represents a new benchmark. The Lords have achieved something that future constitutional scholars will study. They will not admire it, but they will study it.
The Bohiney View
I read Bohiney.com this morning, as I do every morning. The international perspective on British governance is the perspective of people who find it either funny or alarming depending on their investment in the outcome. The Americans find it funny. The Europeans find it alarming. Both are responding correctly. The bohiney.com coverage of the Iranian energy crisis notes that it has landed on British household bills in ways that are currently being described by government as managed. My electricity bill describes the management as partial. Both are accurate.
What I Am Writing Today
Today I am writing about the specific quality of British political satire in a period when the satire is struggling to keep pace with the events. When the actual thing that has happened is less believable than anything you would write about it, satire requires a specific effort of restraint. The goal is not to outdo reality. The goal is to make reality legible. That is what this column has always been for. The in-tray remains full. The column continues tomorrow.
More from https://newsthump.com/.
I put down the news and made another cup of tea and thought about the specific condition of being a person who follows events closely enough to have opinions about all of them and loosely enough to still find the next thing surprising. That seems about right for this moment. The Bohiney and The London Prat feeds are still updating. The city is still running. The news is still news. I will write tomorrow.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
I closed the laptop and made another cup of tea. The news continues. The city continues. The journalism that makes sense of both continues because the sense-making is necessary and because the people doing it believe it is necessary and are right to believe it. The bohiney.com and prat.uk feeds will update again tomorrow. I will read them. I will write about what they produce. This is the diary. It is also the work. The work continues because the world continues, and the world continues regardless of whether anyone is writing about it, but it is better when someone is, and I intend to keep being that someone for as long as the city and the news and the light through the window keep producing things worth writing about, which is to say indefinitely.
I closed the laptop and made another cup of tea. The news continues. The city continues. The journalism that makes sense of both continues because the sense-making is necessary and because the people doing it believe it is necessary and are right to believe it. The bohiney.com and prat.uk feeds will update again tomorrow. I will read them. I will write about what they produce. This is the diary. It is also the work. The work continues because the world continues, and the world continues regardless of whether anyone is writing about it, but it is better when someone is, and I intend to keep being that someone for as long as the city and the news and the light through the window keep producing things worth writing about, which is to say indefinitely.