Starmer addresses the Mandelson vetting saga
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Guardian.
What is the Mandelson vetting saga about?
Today, Keir Starmer and the never-ending Peter Mandelson saga. It's a long-established rule of British government that if a minister says something false or misleading in the debating chamber, they have to return to correct the record.
What did Keir Starmer say about the vetting failure?
Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
On Monday afternoon, it was Keir Starmer's turn.
Thank you, Mr Speaker. With permission, I'd like to provide the House with information that I now have about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as our ambassador to the United States.
Standing up before during MPs, Storm insisted he hadn't lied previously when he'd said that full due process had been followed. It was the Foreign Office, he said, that had misled him by not telling him that Mandelson had failed vetting procedures.
It beggars belief that throughout the whole timeline of events, officials in the Foreign Office saw fit to withhold this information from the most senior ministers in our system in government.
If he'd known, he said repeatedly, he would not have appointed him.
How did the opposition respond to Starmer's statements?
This was not a lack of asking. This wasn't an oversight. It was a decision. It was a... It was a decision taken not to share that information on repeated occasions. The opposition were not convinced. The Prime Minister appointed a national security risk to our most sensitive diplomatic post. Instead of taking responsibility for the decisions he made, the Prime Minister has thrown his staff and his officials under the bus. He says he had no idea. He gives every impression of a prime minister in office, but not in power.
Has Starmer done enough to silence calls for him to step down?
What was the original sin of Starmer's appointment of Mandelson?
And what does all of this tell us about his judgement and his authority as the prime minister? From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today in Focus, can Starmer survive the Maddelson scandal? Jonathan Freeland, welcome back to Today in Focus.
Good to be with you, Helen.
So you are, of course, a columnist at The Guardian and the host of our sister podcast, Politics Weekly America, and you are, for your sins, a long-time Peter Mandelson watcher on both sides of the Atlantic. And we're recording with you just after Keir Starmer's address to Parliament. How do you think he came across?
He looked sober and serious and for a while I thought he was getting through with the kind of command of the House and they were listening, hearing him out. A turning point came actually in this moment when he said lots of people here, members, will find it incredible.
Mr Speaker, I know many members across the House will find these facts to be incredible.
Yes.
Because, of course, it opened up the door for them to indeed say they did find his account incredible and for there to be jeers. And thereafter, it opened the door for a whole series of questions that were difficult, led by quite a good performance by leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch, who just went in with more precision than she often has. And so I think having started well, it went less well for him because there are quite a few questions there. And at the centre of it is his own admission of grave misjudgment.
Why did Mandelson fail the vetting process?
And we're going to come on to talk about the questions that he did answer and those that remain hanging. But before we go there, let's do a quick recap for those at the back, starting with what's been called the original sin of this scandal. Starmer appointing Peter Manelson to be the UK ambassador to the US back in December 2024. This is a guy, of course, who was nicknamed the Prince of Darkness, a man who Donald Trump called Sneaky Pete. Why on earth did Starmer want such a controversial figure to have such a plum job?
In a way, it's partly the faults that drew him. I mean, it is partly that reputation for the black arts that has given Peter Mandelson what many in the public would think of as a negative reputation. But inside politics, people still believed until really these latest revelations. that he had an almost magical power. He could understand politics and how it operated in a way that lesser mortals could not. He himself perpetuated that reputation.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–0:08
2
What is the Mandelson vetting saga about?
0:08–0:28
3
What did Keir Starmer say about the vetting failure?
0:28–1:19
4
How did the opposition respond to Starmer's statements?
1:19–2:03
5
What was the original sin of Starmer's appointment of Mandelson?
2:03–3:37
6
Why did Mandelson fail the vetting process?
3:37–4:41
7
What did Starmer clarify in Parliament regarding the vetting?
4:41–7:11
8
What unanswered questions remain for Keir Starmer?
7:11–28:07