Laura

This is a controversy that has, once every few months, blown up in flames, goes away for a while, blows up in flames, goes away for a while.

OK, Star Wars just not being able to move on from it.

Look, there are certainly lots of people in the Labour Party who were saying, who believed at the time of the appointment that the Epstein connection, which Mandelson had apologised for, he said that he shouldn't have been his friend, that was all out there in the public domain.

But there were people who felt at the time that meant he should not ever have been on the list for that job.

The fact is, Keir Starmer knew it was a risk, but it was a risk that he and his chief of staff were willing to take.

Now, politics is about calculated risks.

There was a moment when it looked like that risk had really been paying off.

The UK got

a better trade deal with the United States than many other countries.

The relationship between Trump and Starmer initially seemed incredibly warm.

There was all the bonhomie.

Some people thought it was absolutely skin-curdling, but other people looked at that and went, well played Keir Starmer.

No one would ever have thought that you, of all people, the right-on lawyer from North London,

would have been the person to be able to get a great smooth entry into having a relationship with this maverick, unpredictable, sometimes bellicose American president.

But look, here you are laughing and joking in the Oval Office.

Wow, well played.

Well played, Peter Mandelson.

But of course, when that drip, drip, drip of terrible revelations coming out of the Epstein files emerged, of course, that's when that relationship and that past and the extent of those links became clearer.

And then his position simply wasn't tenable.

But I was thinking yesterday, I mean, I was just reminded that it did take quite some time.