Jonathan Freedland

in that reputation.

He liked the idea that he could pull off outcomes that others thought were impossible.

And with the particular circumstance, namely the return of Donald Trump to the White House, they believed only somebody extraordinary could handle this extraordinary president.

To catch a rogue, a maverick, it would take someone who was himself an out-of-the-box player.

And for a while, let's remember two things.

One, when the appointment was announced, greeted almost universally across the Westminster Village as a moment of inspiration.

Across the newspapers, media, lots of people said, this is a brainwave.

masterstroke but also it did seem to go well that he did get access to the trump administration trump seemed to have some kind of affection that was a positive nickname by trump standards and they did get that initial us uk trade deal people like us me the guardian thought it might not be worth the paper it's written on but it was a deal so at first that black arts master magician thing seemed to be working

Yeah, we don't know.

And that's obviously this question of knowledge is central to the whole scandal.

Keir Starmer is not actually saying that he knows now or that even he should have known.

He's just saying I should have been given the up or down verdict.

The reasoning is legitimate that that stays secret because that could be all kinds of personal circumstances that, you know, no one would deserve to be made public.

The suspicion around the place is that this wasn't Epstein-related.

That, in a way, was already out there.

That's the kind of thing that would have been done in this earlier, lighter-touch due diligence process that was conducted before the appointment was announced.

This was the security vetting that went afterwards.

This is likelier, so people say.

They may not know.

to relate to his business dealings, particularly with China and with Russia, through this company that Peter Mandelson set up in his post-government life called Global Council, very highly paid sort of strategic advice consultancy.