Ben Quinn is a Guardian political correspondent.
Forcing Labour MPs to oppose the Tory motion aimed at sparking a probe into Keir Starmer will play into the “terrible narrative” that they are complicit in a cover-up, one of the prime minister’s own backbenchers has said.
Emma Lewell, a leftwing backbencher who spoke immediately after Kemi Badenoch opened the debate, said she shared a feeling with the public of being “let down, disappointed and angry”.
She said:
I feel the way that today’s vote has been handled by the government smacks once again of being out of touch and disconnected from the public mood.
The fact that MPs like me are being whipped into voting against this motion is in my view wrong. It has played into the terrible narrative that there is something to hide and good decent colleagues will be accused of being complicit in a cover-up.
Recent weeks have seen such abuse intensify and ongoing abuse and threats to me and my staff’s safety continues. Tryst has gone and it has been replaced by anger. The already fragile fabric of our democracy is eroding further every day this continues.
Darren Jones repeats there was no pressure put on officials over the Mandelson appointment not to have him vetted.
He also cites Boris Johnson initially denying attending parties during the pandemic in 2020 when it later emerged he had done so and was fined by police.
Darren Jones reiterates there is pressure on governments to get things done. But he insists there is “clearly a difference between asking for progress updates and putting pressure on officials to predetermine an outcome and not to follow the proper process”, which he said was not the case with Mandelson.
Darren Jones adds that the testimony from Cat Little, Ollie Robbins and Chris Wormald shows that due process over the Mandelson appointment was followed in line with the processes at the time.
He also condemns the “ranting incoherence” from Badenoch.
Darren Jones, chief secretary to the PM, said victims of Jeffrey Epstein suffered the most hideous abuse and will be reminded of that every time it is debated.
And he reiterates Starmer’s regret over appointing Peter Mandelson.
He also says testimony provided by Ollie Robbins, the former Foreign Office chief, dismisses suggestions from the Conservatives that the PM knew Mandelson had failed vetting.
Alex Burghart, the shadow chancellor, said Labour MPs “know how this ends. How this ends is the prime minister not fighting the next election.”
He adds Labour MPs are then left with “what is left of their reputations”.
The latest episode of Today in Focus is out. It features Lucy Hough and Kiran Stacey talking about today’s Mandelson developments.
That is all from me for today.
In the Commons, Alex Burghart is now winding for the Tories.
Then Darren Jones, the chief secretary to the PM, will wind up for the government before the vote.
Nadeem Badshah will be covering that, and all the reaction.
Yassin El-Moudden is a Guardian reporter.
Back in the Commons, the SNP MP Dave Doogan started his speech with a colourful simile about quite what a liability was.
If one is in public office, having anything to do with Lord Mandelson is akin to filling the world’s smallest hot-water bottle with the world’s largest kettle dressed only in your shorts and your flip-flops.
The question isn’t whether you will get burned, the question is how badly you’ll get burned and potentially how fatally one can get burned having anything to do with Peter Mandelson.
Doogan said that, although Starmer has described the appointment of Mandelson as a mistake, that was not correct.
One of the falsehoods that the prime minister has sought repeatedly to advance is that this was a mistake. It was a mistake to appoint Peter Mandelson. It was no such thing. It was a debt to be repaid. He had to appoint Peter Mandelson to that job. It was a deal he made with the devil.
Doogan was referring to claims that Mandelson was crucial in helping to get Starmer elected as PM. In his evidence this morning to the foreign affairs committee, Morgan McSweeney addressed this in part, and suggested Mandelson was not as influential as some people claim. (See 11.26am.)
He ended his speech by saying that Mandelson should never have been appointed.
When [Starmer] stands there and he says sorry to the victims of Epstein, what he should continue to say is ‘When I appointed him to the pinnacle of diplomatic appointments within the United Kingdom over in Washington, I appointed him in the knowledge that he was a sympathiser and close friend and confidant of the world’s most prolific paedophile, and I still appointed him. I just didn’t know how much of a friend and a confidant he was of the world’s most prolific paedophile.’ That is no defence.
Iran’s ambassador to the UK has been summoned by the Foreign Office over “unacceptable and inflammatory comments” posted by the embassy on social media, the Press Association reports. PA says:
Seyed Ali Mousavi was called in by Middle East minister Hamish Falconer over an online message reportedly recruiting expats to become martyrs.
The Foreign Office said the minister condemned the “completely unacceptable actions”.
The intervention followed reports in Metro about a message on the embassy’s Telegram channel calling for expats to “sacrifice their lives for the homeland”.
In the Commons the Conservative MP Christopher Chope said that, if the privileges committee did investigate the claims about Keir Starmer, “even if some of the allegations were proved to be true, in my view, the penalty would not be that severe.”
He recalled Margaret Thatcher supporting him during the 1997 election campaign and doing a visit after Neil Hamilton was found to have broken Commons rules. Asked about the Hamilton scandal, Thatcher’s response was just to say: “Nobody’s perfect.”
He also said that, while his constituents did want to see the government replaced, they did not want to see Starmer resign, because they were worried about his replacement being worse.
(Chope sounded as if he were trying to be helpful to Starmer, but the PM would not see it like that. Hamilton was involved in the cash-for-questions scandal and be became a byword for Tory sleaze.)
Back in the Commons, the Green MP Ellie Chowns said MPs were not being asked to decide if Keir Starmer did mislead MPs over the Mandelson appointment. They just had to consider if there was a case to answer. “And it is absolutely clear that there is a case to answer,” she said.
Peers have ended their stand-off with MPs over plans to curb social media for under-16s after the government agreed to introduce “age or functionality restrictions”, the Press Association reports. PA says:
The two chambers of the House of Commons had been locked in a fight over the children’s wellbeing and schools bill regarding the content under-16s are exposed to online.
Peers stood down this afternoon after ministers announced they would impose social media restrictions for young people regardless of the outcome of a consultation which is currently under way.
Pressure in the House of Lords had been led by Tory former education minister and academy chain founder Lord Nash, who accepted the government’s concession.
Lord Nash told the upper chamber: “[I] thank the government for their active engagement in the matter of social media, albeit rather last minute, and for making a binding commitment to impose some form of age or functionality restrictions for children under 16, and to be focused on addictive features, harmful, algorithmic driven content and features such as stranger pairing that we know can be most damaging to children’s safety.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
