Enda Brady

with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

And then while it's back in the spotlight now, in March of this year, just a few weeks ago, government documents were released revealing details about Mandelson's initial appointment and a process that one senior government advisor said had been weirdly rushed.

So I think there's two things here.

First of all, the Trump administration.

People have been scratching their heads in London, in Paris, in Berlin, Rome.

How do we deal with this Trump administration?

And the feeling was that because Mandelson was such a big political beast, he'd been in the room with, say, George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Bush.

serious players, big hitters, and not being phased by their personalities or how they operate, that Mandelson would be the ideal appointment.

Someone who could just look them in the eye, crack on with business, represent the UK to the best of his ability.

If you look at ambassadors and diplomats, a lot of the time they're, you know, quiet, intelligent, serene people who you could imagine being trampled by Donald Trump and J.D.

Vance.

And Starmer's view was that Mandelson has got tough political steel running through him and he can stand up for himself.

And then secondly, he's a Labour Party grandee.

And I think there was a feeling that if Mandelson's got the energy at his age, well, we'll use it.

So number 10 has insisted that the prime minister had no knowledge that the security officials had advised that Mandelson shouldn't be given the clearance.

So they go away, they look into your background and whatever they felt was there in Mandelson's background, they felt he shouldn't be given the clearance.

Now, number 10 is insisting that Keir Starmer didn't know this, that he'd been denied clearance.

And the Downing Street view is that responsibility lies with the Foreign and Commonwealth and Development Office.

And the UK government put out a statement saying that the decision to grant developed vetting to Peter Mandelson against the recommendation of UK security vetting was taken by officials at the Foreign Office.

So really, the view from government is that they're passing this one on to the Foreign Office.