Ministers are now in the unfortunate position of having to defend Mandelson’s record in order to claim that Starmer was right to have appointed Peter Mandelson in the first place before sacking him for impropriety. Mental gymnastics at play here…
Scotland Secretary Douglas Alexander told the Today Programme that Mandelson’s abilities “outweighed the political risks” but that the appointment would not have gone ahead if the emails released on Wednesday were in the public domain back then. The only new information is that Mandelson thought Epstein was innocent. That means:
Alexander told Sky: “We knew this was an unconventional presidential administration and that was the basis on which there was a judgment that we needed an unconventional ambassador.” One way of putting it…
Alexander also said Starmer was too busy on Wednesday morning to call Mandelson and ask him to explain what he meant when he said in an interview that much more embarrassing material was on the way. Starmer and McSweeney taking a battering for the judgement calls at every stage of this…
Robert Jenrick told a rally on Monday:
“They say Chancellors are either undertakers or bookies. This one is an ostrich – and when the Chancellor buries his head in the sand, the rest of us, we’re left staring at his you know what.”