Peter Mandelson once described Donald Trump as “little short of a white nationalist and racist”, the Telegraph reports. In her story, Amy Gibbons says Mandelson made the comments in an interview with the Italian journalist Alain Elkann in July 2019.

The Trump presidency cleared upset Mandelson greatly because Elkann opened the interview by asking the former cabinet minister how he was, and Mandelson replied:

I wake up today and discover that not only am I seeing my country, which I love, being forced out of its own European neighbourhood, but is crossing the Atlantic to make common cause with an American president who is little short of a white nationalist and racist.

So, you can imagine, I am not very happy. This disturbs me greatly, because it’s completely different from all my upbringing, whether my family or in politics, what I believe in, and the identity I see for my own country.

Those are the words from the audio on Elkann’s website. The website also contains a transcript, in which the word “racist” is not included in this passage, but a line has been added saying the UK was being forced out of the EU “by a hard right Conservative government with the support of under half of the population”.

In the interview Mandelson also said Trump was a danger to the world.

What Donald Trump represents and believes is anathema to mainstream British opinion, and the idea that as a result of Brexit we have to kowtow to an American president who holds those views will outrage people in Britain.

Even those who have a sneaking admiration for Donald Trump, because of the strength of his personality, nonetheless regard him as reckless and a danger to the world.

Many people in mainstream or leftwing politics said similar things, or worse, about Trump around the time of his first presidency. One of them was JD Vance, who is now Trump’s vice president-elect.

Councils need stronger powers to block adverts on outdoor billboards that are deemed harmful, the Green party is saying. Carla Denyer, the Green co-leader, championed this issue as a councillor in Bristol but she says, to deal with the problem effectively, councils need stronger powers.

Denyer says she has written to Angela Rayner, the deputy PM and housing secretary, about this issue. Explaining what should change, Denyer says:

It’s very promising to see councils implementing new policies to protect their residents from some of the impacts of consumerism, advertising, greenwashing and injustice. But that’s not enough. National planning laws need to change – they haven’t kept pace and it is clear that local authorities and communities need more power to object to harmful ads.

We need updated planning regulations that properly control billboards, with local councils able to refuse on a range of grounds such as climate, nature, public health, light pollution, and the impact on local businesses.

National planning policy under the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) acknowledges the quality and character of places can suffer when advertisements are poorly sited and designed. I have written to the government to ask for a strengthening of the planning laws that control advertisements.

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has said that funding for GPs in England will rise by 4.8% in real terms in 2025-26. Releasing details of the proposed new contract for GPs, the Department for Health and Social Care also revealed that that number of specific targets they get set will be drastically reduced – claiming this will allow GPs to spend more times with patients.

In a news release about the contract details, which are out for consultation with the BMA, DHSC said:

Backed by the biggest boost to GP funding in years – an extra £889m on top of the existing budget for general practice – the proposals would also bring back the family doctor by incentivising GPs to ensure patients most in need see the same doctor at every GP appointment …

Currently, GPs must perform against a range of targets in order to receive certain financial incentives under a scheme called The Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), piling added pressure onto already overstretched doctors.

The government will significantly reduce the number of targets – from 76 to 44 – freeing them up to spend more time with their patients.

And Streeting said:

We promised to bring back the family doctor, but we want to be judged by results – not promises. That’s why we will incentivise GPs to ensure more and more patients see the same doctor at each appointment.

Dave West from the Health Service Journal has posted a copy of Streeting’s letter to health staff on social media. He points out that, although the funding increase looks generous, GPs are also facing significant cost increases because of the government’s decision to raise employers’ national insurance.

Heidi Alexander, the transport secretary, has suggested that laws on drink and drug-driving could be reviewed amid concern about rising deaths on the roads.

In an interview with LBC, Alexander, who only recently took office after the resignation of Louise Haigh, said:

This is a conversation that I’ve been having with officials in the first couple of weeks that I’ve been in post. I was appointed three weeks ago, and one of the first things I asked to do was to get the team in who are working on a new road safety strategy that my predecessor committed to. I think she was entirely right to do that.

The laws around drink driving and drug driving, it might be time for us to have a look at those.

She was speaking two days after 19-year-old Thomas Johnson was jailed for nine years and four months for causing the deaths of three of his friends in a car crash in Oxfordshire last year. As PA Media reports, Johnson had been inhaling laughing gas behind the wheel and driving at speeds of more than 100mph before losing control of his car and crashing into a lamppost and a tree.

But while Alexander suggested she would review drink and drug-driving laws, she also said the government was not considering banning newly-qualified drivers from carrying passengers – an idea proposed by the AA motoring organisation. Asked if that was an option, Alexander said: “That’s not something that the government is currently looking at.”

Keir Starmer has urged councils to “get on with the job” of fixing pothole-plagued roads. The prime minister made the statement as part of a government announcement about councils in England getting almost £1.6m next year to repair potholes – enough to fill in 7m extra ones, it claims.

In its news release the Department for Transport said:

In a Christmas boost for drivers, the landmark investment – an increase of nearly 50% on local road maintenance funding from last year – goes well beyond the government’s manifesto pledge and is enough to fix the equivalent of over 7 million extra potholes in 2025 to 2026 …

The government is today announcing how much each local authority is being allocated. Each local authority can use its share of the £1.6 billion for 2025 to 2026 to identify which of their roads are in most need of repair and to deliver immediate fixes for communities and raise living standards across every area of the country.

And Starmer said:

Through our Plan for Change we’re determined to put more money back into the pockets of hardworking people and improve living standards. That’s why we’re giving councils funding to repair our roads and get Britain moving again – with a clear expectation that they get on with the job.

Simon Williams, head of policy at the RAC, said:

This is the biggest one-off road maintenance funding settlement councils in England have ever been given. So we have high hopes it’s the turning point that ends the degradation of our roads and finally delivers fit-for-purpose, smooth surfaces for drivers and all other road users.

Good morning. “I’m reliably informed that I will not be brought back,” Peter Mandelson told a podcast in June, when asked whether he might get a job in a Keir Starmer administration after the election which was then only about a week away. “That has been made absolutely clear. They don’t want any big beasts coming back to mark anyone’s homework.”

Let’s hope that in his new job the intelligence he gathers about what is going on in Donald Trump’s administration turns out to a little bit more accurate.

The news has not been officially confirmed yet, but the story that Mandelson will be the next ambassador to the US has been green-lighted by the government spin machine and here is our overnight version, by Donna Ferguson.

Prime ministers who have to deal with a US president they don’t particularly like have two options: “hug ‘em close”, or “long spoon”. Harold Wilson was in the long spoon category, but more recently “hug ‘em close” has been the option preferred by Tory and Labour leaders and we have already seen Keir Starmer adopting this approach with some gusto. The Mandelson appointment is just an escalation of this. Steven Swinford from the Times broke the news about Mandelson last night and in his story he reports:

One source said that Starmer’s decision to make a political appointment reflected how seriously he takes the UK’s relationship with the US, adding that Mandelson is a “significant figure in his own right”.

So that is one reason for the appointment. Another is that he might turn out to be very good at it; even his opponents admit that he is skilled political operator, and as a former EU trade commissioner he is an expert in the one issue that will dominate UK-EU relations in the Trump era. And if anyone in Labour politics is likely to establish good personal relationships with the Trump team, it might be him; he is comfortable around rightwingers and plutocrats – although when he made his famous comment in 1998 about being “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, provided they paid their taxes, he probably never imagined a world in which anyone could be worth $400bn – the amount Trump’s pal Elon Musk has accumulated.

But opinion is divided about the appointment. Sir Simon Fraser, a former permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, worked with Mandelson at the business department, where he was permanent secretary and Mandelson was business secretary, and before that at the European commission. On the Today programme this morning Fraser said Mandelson was the right man for the job. He explained:

He’s a big political hitter, well connected in our government, and I think that’s what we need with the Trump administration.

He’s very interested in international affairs and foreign policy. And by the way, he is well connected in America.

And he has conducted really difficult trade negotiations with the Americans, when we were working together at the EU, so that’s all very important.

But there are two other things. He also knows the China policy agenda very well. That is going to be really important for the Trump administration.

And, finally, Peter Mandelson is, of course, pro-European. He supports a better relationship between the UK and the EU. And balancing the EU relationship the US relationship is going to be the biggest strategic foreign policy challenge.

So, if you put all that together, he is pretty well placed for the job.

Another former diplomat who has welcomed the appointment is Lord Darroch, who was himself ambassador to Washington during the first Trump administration. In an interview on Newsnight last night, he said, with some Trump allies thinking Starmer runs a leftwing government, Mandelson was “exactly the man to persuade them that this is completely wrong”.

But Mandelson’s old enemies on the Labour left may be less complimentary. John McDonnell, shadow chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn, posted a message on social media saying this was a bad appointment. (McDonnell is currently suspended from the parliamentary Labour party over a rebel vote.)

For many reasons associated with Peter Mandelson’s history in and out of political office many will feel KeIr has lost all sense of political judgment on this decision.

We are expecting the appointment to be confirmed later today. And we are also expecting a large batch of new peers to be announced. But otherwise it looks quiet; the Christmas parliamentary recess has started, and there is virtually nothing in the diary.

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