Keir Starmer has mounted a desperate fight to save his job as Prime Minister by pinning the blame on the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) over the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson.
The Prime Minister admitted to the Commons that his “judgement” over the decision was “wrong” but insisted he did not mislead parliament when he had previously said Mandelson had cleared security vetting for the post of ambassador to Washington.
Starmer said UK Security Vetting’s recommendation regarding Mandelson “could and should have been shared with me” by the then FCDO permanent secretary, Olly Robbins and if he had known “I would not have gone ahead with the appointment.”
However, a series of carefully crafted questions by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch left Starmer further in a bind over his failure to ask tougher questions of his officials during the appointment process.
Despite the Prime Minister’s background as a lawyer and chief prosecutor, there remain a number of questions over his account.
Starmer’s imprecise use of language to parliament
At PMQs on 4 February this year, in the wake of fresh revelations from the Epstein files, Badenoch asked the prime minister: “Can the Prime Minister tell us: did the official security vetting that he received mention Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein?” The PM replied: “Yes it did.”
During today’s statement, Badenoch asked Starmer how he could have known the security vetting had mentioned the relationship with Epstein when he had not seen the details or knew what it entailed.
The Prime Minister replied that he had been referring to the due diligence documents, not security vetting: “I make it very clear I had not seen the security vetting file … I knew about the due diligence.”
But the exchange on 4 February shows that Starmer was responding to Badenoch over “security vetting”, not “due diligence”.
This imprecise language from a former lawyer will not be very convincing to those who have criticised him over the Mandelson saga.
Conservative MPs claimed it shows that the PM has misled parliament during his statement on Monday.
Still no response over newspaper story
In one of her questions, Badenoch asked the PM about a story in The Independent last September, revealing that Mandelson had failed security vetting.
The Tory leader said that on 11 September, journalists asked the then No10 director of communications Tim Allan if it was true that it had failed.
Badenoch asked why Downing Street did not deny the story at the time.
However Starmer did not respond to the question when asked in the Commons on Monday.
This failure to respond could fuel questions over whether there were some in Downing Street who did know that there had been a failure of vetting – despite claims to the contrary by No10 and the Prime Minister.
Failure to respond over Simon Case advice
It emerged on Monday, before Starmer rose to his feet, that the then Cabinet Secretary Simon Case had issued advice to the PM saying that Mandelson should be vetted before his appointment was announced – as would be usual for political appointees.
Case wrote a note to the PM saying that in the case of a political appointment “you should give us the name of the person you would like to appoint and we will develop a plan for them to acquire the necessary security clearances and do due diligence on any potential conflicts of interest or other issues of which you should be aware before confirming your choice”.
In the House, Starmer did not respond directly to questions over this revelation. Instead, he insisted the usual process for a political appointment had been followed, but that procedure had been changed after the Mandelson row.
But why did Starmer apparently override this advice from the government’s most senior civil servant?
There has also been an earlier revelation that the PM had been advised by his national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, that the appointment was “weirdly rushed”.
This means that the PM ignored the advice of two of the most senior people in Downing Street.
Why wasn’t Starmer more forensic?
Labour MP Rachael Maskell asked the PM why, when it emerged in early February of this year that Mandelson, while a member of Gordon Brown’s cabinet, had passed on secret information to Epstein, Starmer had not been more forensic in trying to find out whether the Labour peer was a security risk.
She said: “At the beginning of February 2026 we learnt that Peter Mandelson had shared highly sensitive government information with Jeffrey Epstein from the former prime minister Gordon Brown.
“At that juncture, if I was in his shoes I would have been forensic in recognising a security risk and wanting detailed answers. What’s not adding up for me is why we are now in mid-April before we get this information.
“And why the Prime Minister didn’t drill down to ensure that we had the security information which clearly we learnt that Peter Mandelson had breached.”
The PM replied that he did order a review of the security vetting “because I was concerned that it had failed”.
However it will seem unusual that Starmer, again as a former lawyer and chief prosecutor, did not apply his forensic skills to the matter back in February.
The defence company with Putin links
In her final question, Badenoch asked the PM about Sistema, a “Russian defence company reportedly linked to the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin’s war machine”.
She asked: “Was the Prime Minister aware, before the appointment, that Peter Mandelson had remained a director of that company long after Russia’s invasion of Crimea?”
Starmer did not respond to this question. It is possible that the PM did not address it because he did not want to open up a new line of inquiry on Mandelson’s wider links, but he cannot say did not know the question was coming because the Tory leader had sent her list to the premier in advance.
Questions remain
While the Prime Minister seems to have survived this latest battle over Mandelson, Labour MPs have continued to raise questions in public and in private over Starmer’s handling of the appointment.
Dame Emily Thornberry, Labour chairwoman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, said: “I am afraid to say, doesn’t this look like, for certain members of the Prime Minister’s team, getting Peter Mandelson the job was a priority that overrode everything else and that security considerations were very much second order.”
One Senior Labour MP suggested that Badenoch could try to force a motion to refer the issue to the privileges committee, which could force Labour MPs into a decision over their support for the PM.
The MP said of Starmer: “He’s a process-driven guy who is clearly so in hock to and embedded in the institution that he genuinely believes that the dry, official explanation will pass muster.
“But if my caseworker sends out a letter in my name that I have to retract and apologise, I own it. I don’t chuck my team under the bus one by one. Why does he have less agency or willingness to front up than the average backbencher at a village fete?”
Hence then, the article about the five holes in starmer s mandelson story was published today ( ) and is available on inews ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( The five holes in Starmer’s Mandelson story )
Also on site :
- ‘Technofascism’: Critics accuse Palantir of pushing AI war doctrine
- ‘Proud to stand alongside Elon Musk’ – Telegram’s Durov
- Gulf nation warns US it could ditch petrodollar for yuan – WSJ