Keir Starmer is enduring perhaps his most uncomfortable afternoon in the House Commons since being elected Britain’s Prime Minister. He promised in his opening remarks that he would set out the full timeline of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador, which ended in Olly Robbins’s dismissal last Thursday. Carefully worded and legally precise, his statement contained another revelation: Chris Wormald, the ex-cabinet secretary, was not told Mandelson had failed the UK Security Vetting interview (UKSV), despite leading an official review.
Starmer’s tone was one of scorned hurt and anger. He remarked repeatedly how various facts of the case were “staggering.” “I do not accept,” he said, “that I could not have been told about UKSV’s denial of security vetting before Peter Mandelson took up his post.” “The fact that I was not told even when I ordered a review of the UKSV process is frankly staggering,” he added. But while his indignation may well be genuine, his refusal to accept any of the blame failed to convince many members across the House. “Many members across the House will find these facts to be incredible,” Starmer remarked at one point – only to look bemused when opposition MPs burst into laughter.
It was the sheer volume of criticism which will worry No. 10
Various veterans popped up in the first hour to try and shed some light where there was heat. David Davis raised the issue of Simon Case’s advice at the time of Mandelson’s appointment: to do the vetting before, rather than after, he was given the post. The PM obfuscated, insisting limply that “It was what I understood to be the usual process.” Diane Abbott, Starmer’s longtime rival, noted her leader’s incuriosity. “It’s one thing to say,” she remarked, “‘Nobody told me, nobody told me anything, nobody told me.’ The question is: why didn’t the prime minister ask?” Answer came there none.
But it was Kemi Badenoch who stole the show today. Reasoning, perhaps, that Starmer’s instinct is to hide behind process, the Leader of the Opposition opted to make hypocrisy the thrust of her argument – a sign perhaps of how much the events of 2022 are scarred in the collective Tory psyche. Starmer, she said, had told Boris Johnson that “if ‘he misled the house, he must resign.’ Does he stand by those words, or is there one rule for him and another for everyone else?” It was politicking at its finest: even Badenoch no longer argues that Starmer knowingly misled the House. But it had the Tory benches cheering.
She hammered him for having “thrown his staff and his officials under the bus,” ridiculing miscellaneous casualties as “people fired for a decision he made.” If Andrew Bonar Law was the Unknown Prime Minister, then Starmer is the Unknowing Prime Minister:
Apparently, he didn’t even speak to Peter Mandelson before his appointment. It doesn’t appear that he asked any questions at all. Why? Because he didn’t want to know.
Having done a decent job of biffing Starmer about for his failings, rather than posit further questions in the Commons, she posted them on X, where the media will doubtless follow them up.
Opposition parties were not content to let Badenoch have all the fun. More striking than the Tory leader’s comments were those by Sir Ed Davey, whose party keeps a careful eye on the ever-shifting tides of popular opinion. Like Badenoch, he likened Starmer to Boris Johnson – a comparison which both men will loathe. “He’s let down the millions of people across our country who are so desperate for change,” he added, demanding, again, that the Prime Minister resign. Lee Anderson, the Reform spokesman, preferred to go for the theatrical, dubbing Starmer a “liar”: a remark which earned him the predictable rebuke from the Speaker.
But it was the sheer volume of criticism – the quantity as well as quality of the questions asked – which will worry No. 10. “Worse than anticipated,” one Labour MP texted me afterwards as way of a summary. Starmer may not, yet, be finished – but he is by no means out of the woods on Mandelson yet.
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