3 hours ago
5
Sometimes the obvious question is the killer question. The one on the minds of practically every person in the country. No need for anything tricksy. No try-hard rhetorical flourishes. Just keep it simple. Play it straight.
And in an unusually unshouty prime minister’s questions – always a sign that MPs realise there is something important at stake – Kemi Badenoch did just that. Told it as it was. Channelled the nation’s anger.
She focused on just one fact: that Keir Starmer, the intelligence services and just about everyone else knew that Peter Mandelson was still mates with Jeffrey Epstein long after the financier had been convicted of child prostitution.
The looks on the faces of the entire Labour frontbench said it all. They may have all long ago deleted their social media posts from last year calling Mandy an inspired Washington appointment, but their consciences weren’t so easily cleared. They all had the air of quiet desperation. People whose memories had come back to haunt them like a curse. They stared into the middle distance, trying not to catch anyone’s eye. Anything to get through the next half hour.
Starmer had nothing. Just a jumble of excuses. Mandelson had lied about the depth and extent of his relationship with Epstein. Well, maybe he had but that’s hardly the point. You knew he had been hanging out with him long after his conviction and you weren’t bothered.
The vetting process had been totally rigorous. Pull the other one. What had it consisted of? The cabinet secretary asking Petey if he had ever really liked Epstein and Mandy saying no, he had always hated him? Was that it? Keir tried throwing a bit of red meat. He had removed Mandelson as privy councillor. Far too late. The whole country had priced that in on Monday.
This one was on Keir and Keir alone. It was his judgment on the line. And his judgment that was found wanting. Starmer might think it unfair. Last year almost no one – least of all the Tories – had raised any questions about Mandelson’s links to Epstein. Michael Gove had even described it as a brilliant appointment.
Now there was a pile on. Keir had reckoned that with an amoral slimeball in the White House there was something to be said for having an amoral slimeball as ambassador. A meeting of minds. Peter would have been happy telling Donald Trump how marvellous he was for years. But this had blown up in Starmer’s face.
There has always been a disconnect between the Labour establishment’s relationship with Mandelson and that with the rest of us. Peter has been idolised and indulged by Labour for decades. As if he was some kind of svengali with special powers. Gordon Brown may feel betrayed but he was the one who made him a lord and brought him back into cabinet after he’d already been sacked twice by Tony Blair. Some of this is on you, Gordon.
The establishment was charmed by Mandy, inviting him into their dining rooms. Offering him sinecures and baubles. As for the rest of the country? We could all see what everyone else had missed. From the start, we knew he was untrustworthy. A wrong ’un. And we were right.
Kemi kept at it. There again, the Tories have more experience than most in appointing shady characters. They were the ones who gave us Boris Johnson. A man who never knowingly recognised the truth. Kemi moved on to the humble address that would follow PMQs, in which she hoped to get the government to reveal as much information on Mandelson’s vetting process and his six months in Washington.
Keir tried to fight back. He would hand over some documents. But not ones that related to security matters or might damage relations with the US or other countries. Given the nature of Mandy’s job, you could see only dross ending up in parliament’s hands.
It took Ed Davey to make the most telling moral point. Had, at any time during the Mandelson saga, any consideration been given to Epstein’s victims? The silence was telling. The victims had been nowhere in this. All that had mattered was what was in the best interests of HM Government. Everything else had just been for show. The Lib Dem leader also observed that the Poles believed Epstein had been working for Vladimir Putin. In which case, so had Mandelson … Starmer didn’t dare go anywhere near that.
Once PMQs had been wrapped up, the Commons began its debate on the humble address that was extended from 4pm to 7pm. Partly because many MPs wanted to speak, partly to allow the government to reach a point of compromise. Because this wasn’t a debate between the government and opposition. It was one between absolutely everyone in the chamber and Nick Thomas-Symonds, paymaster general, who had drawn the short straw of answering for the government.
The shadow chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, Alex Burghart, could scarcely believe his eyes. He had expected resistance, not some kind of love-in with Labour backbenchers. But Labour MPs have just about had enough of a leadership with a seemingly unerring instinct for the wrong move. They could sense the mood of the nation. Anything that had even the look of a government cover-up was out of the question. Now was the time for complete transparency. Not just to save Labour, but to save their souls.
Even so, there was an edge of genuine jeopardy – borderline menace – in the interventions of Angela Rayner, Meg Hillier and Clive Efford. Refer all sensitive Mandelson documents to the intelligence and security committee rather than get the cabinet secretary to mark his own homework or you’ve got a major rebellion. And, by the way, once we’ve finished looking at the prime minister’s judgment on Mandy we might start to look at his judgment on other areas. Understand?
Thomas-Symonds looked like he had got the message. Another government climbdown was imminent.
