The Mandelson scandal continues to scar Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership
The Mandelson scandal has exposed a vacuum of leadership at the heart of Government. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer entered Downing Street promising to end the cycle of scandal that had come to characterise previous Tory administrations.
However, if the PM’s claims are to be believed, he unwittingly walked into one of the biggest scandals in recent history.
Starmer’s defence of his handling of the appointment of Lord Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to the US is that it is the fault of Foreign Office officials and he didn’t know that Mandelson had failed checks carried out by the agency responsible for assessing security clearances.
Leader of the Opposition Kemi Badenoch is right to say that the Mandelson row is “an issue of national security”.
The PM’s defence is an admission of a failure of leadership. The number of people who have lost their jobs over this scandal is piling up but Starmer clings on.
The equation is simple, either the PM has been negligent or he has lied.
The exchanges in the House of Commons exposed the PM’s failings. The public, however, will take a dim view of Starmer’s focus of process and procedure. The die has been cast in many people’s minds and that will be reflected in the upcoming local elections. The PM has been heavily damaged.
Starmer may not have known that Mandelson failed the vetting checks but it’s difficult to understand why the PM did not himself examine more closely Mandelson’s relationship with pedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
This scandal is not going to fizzle out. Sir Olly Robbins, Foreign Office’s top civil servant who was sacked last week, is expected to give his own account to MPs today at the Foreign Affairs Committee.