Spin, spin, spin! That furious sound you can hear out of Westminster is Labour’s apparatchiks doing their damnedest to dig Keir Starmer out of yet another hole. The Prime Minister is accused of misleading parliament over the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Our Man in Washington. The Labour grandee failed his developed vetting clearance in late 2024 to become the US ambassador – but the decision was then overruled by the Foreign Office to ensure he could take up his post.

Downing Street are briefing that Starmer was only made aware of this fact on Tuesday night this week. But there are three claims that Mr S would like to see the PM justify in the coming days. The first is the claim by Olly Robbins, the Foreign Office’s top official on 14 January 2025, when he told the Public Administration Committee that:

The Prime Minister wanted to make this appointment himself… The Prime Minister took advice and formed a view himself, and we then acted on that view.

This suggests Starmer was made aware of the advice, which would likely have included the somewhat relevant point that he had failed vetting. The second claim is a letter by Yvette Cooper, the current Foreign Secretary, and Robbins, published on 16 September 2025. In that letter the pair explain Mandelson’s vetting process to the Foreign Affairs Committee, saying:

The process is also independent of Ministers who are not informed of any finds other than the final outcome. This remained the case in the instance.

That suggests that ministers – including potentially the Prime Minister – were made aware that Mandelson had failed his vetting. But the final claim is the most damaging. Standing at the despatch box on 4 February 2026, Starmer had the following exchange with Kemi Badenoch at Prime Ministers’ Questions:

Badenoch: “Can the Prime Minister tell us: did the official security vetting that he received mention Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein?”

Starmer: “Yes, it did.”

How then can Starmer have been unaware that Mandelson had failed his developed vetting? It’s the age old question of which is worse in politics: his knowing, or his not knowing? Over to you, PM…

IMPORTANT: PMQs Wed 4 Feb

Starmer asked ‘did the security vetting he received mention Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein’

Starmer answers: ‘yes it did’

So Starmer had seen the DV vetting

So how can he have been unaware that Mandelson had failed that DV?#receipts pic.twitter.com/47rd8cayZY

— Ross Kempsell (@RossKempsell) April 16, 2026