JOSH PUT ON THE SPOT RE MANDY

CRUMBRIA: 16.09.2025: EXCLUSIVE

KEIRNOCCHIO wasn’t the only politician left pissing in the wind by the sacking of US ambassador Peter ‘Mandy’ Meddlesome.

Also left in a bugger’s muddle was Josh MacAlister, the world’s greatest living politician and Labour MP for Whitehaven & Wokeington.

Last Wednesday, the Rochdalian’s first media round as the new education minister coincided — with exquisite timing — with another downpour from the Mandelson/Epstein shit rain.

Super smooth Josh, usually a natural in the TV studios, was momentarily wrong-footed during an interview with Sly News.

Sky reminded the West Crumbria MP that Number 10 had backed Meddlesome on Tuesday, despite reports emerging in The Telegraph on Wednesday morning that Meddlesome stayed in Epstein’s house while he was in jail for soliciting a minor, and later set up business meetings with him after his conviction.

“Does Downing Street still have confidence in Mandelson in light of those extra facts?” Sky asked Josh, a former headteacher.

The super-cool MP replied, rather unconvincingly: “They do… I’ve not seen the details of all of that, but they do, yep.”

Sky pressed on: “There’s also some suggestion of backbench MPs calling for Mandelson to be sacked. Are you hearing that?”

Josh: “I’ve not heard that. No.”

Did the MP genuinely not know what had broken that very morning, or was this a textbook case of a rabbit frozen in the headlights — eyes wide, brain buffering?

Either way, the new minister found himself in a deeply awkward position, and for a fraction of a millisecond, it almost showed.

Unusually, the Sky News interview has not been uploaded to the MP’s YouTube channel where he likes to keep his adoring fans updated with his every superb media appearance.

(No prizes for guessing why.)

Closer to home, CBBC Radio Crumbriashire’s political reporter has since run an urgent item on the MP, asking the burning question we all apparently want answered:

How does our dearest, darling Josh juggle life as the world’s greatest living politician with his heroic mountain rescue volunteering!

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The Chronic’s cartoonist, Cranksie, nailed Mandelson back in May with this cartoon: