Client Update - 6th February 2026

I do not imagine that any of this is new to you, however I should start this week’s missive with comment on Sir Keir Starmer and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney. The story has quite fairly dominated news flows this week after the prime minister admitted he did know about Peter Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein from a document he was handed at the end of December 2024. Crucially this was before he appointed Mandelson as British ambassador to the United States. Starmer admitted in the Commons that he did know that Mandelson had stayed in the financier’s Manhattan apartment in 2009, after he had been convicted and was in jail. Starmer, though, insisted that Mandelson had not told him when asked about the extent of their friendship and accused the former Labour peer of lying. 

Even Starmer’s colleagues in the Labour party have found it hard to digest this news, with Lord Hutton of Furness, a Labour peer, stating “The issue is the leadership from the prime minister, and I think unless that changes dramatically, I think the government is in serious trouble.” Other Labour MPs, though, see this as a problem that lies with McSweeney, who was a driving force behind the appointment of Mandelson.

I think it important to point out that towards the end of 2024, the prime minister was handed a file detailing the potential conflicts of Mandelson being appointed to the role of British ambassador. This is said to have included a significant section on Epstein. Starmer had wanted to publish the document he was given prior to appointing Mandelson, but Scotland Yard have blocked this, suggesting that it may be prejudicial to the criminal investigation into Mandelson.

Despite Mandelson and Starmer apparently not even really liking one another, McSweeney insisted that he was the man for the job. Mandelson and McSweeney forged an extremely close relationship under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. Before he appointed Mandelson, Starmer asked him three questions through McSweeney on his relationship with Epstein, with specific reference to his stay at the Manhattan apartment. Mandelson is said to have responded that he did not stay at the apartment and had no recollection of staying there, but the latest release of Epstein files tell a different story. This is the last thing the embattled prime minister would have needed at this moment in time and Angela Raynor (she’s back) wasted no time in twisting the knife in prime minister’s questions as the heat from inside his own party turned up a few degrees. Et tu Angela?

Away from politics and back to markets. It has also been a difficult week for US tech stocks as Anthropic launched a powerful new AI “agent” tool that can automate legal, data, and other daily workflows, alarming investors about disruption to existing software and IT‑services business models. As a result, software and data stocks sold off, with US and European names such as Salesforce, Adobe, Intuit, RELX and Thomson Reuters falling as markets repriced long‑term revenue and margin risk. The damage was less about AI itself and more about fears that general‑purpose AI agents could erode demand for many specialised, high‑margin enterprise tools and services. The current bias by our own investment team to quality assets like boring old European consumer staples such as Nestle with strong market positioning from consumers faithful to their global brands, seems pretty sensible to me right now. There is plenty of opportunity in global markets today, trying to compete against AI does not seem like one of them.  Do have a good weekend.