No 10 says Starmer found Mandelson’s emails to Epstein ‘reprehensible’

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said that Keir Starmer found Peter Mandelson’s emails to Jeffrey Epstein “reprehensible”.

When he was asked if Starmer agreed with Mike Tapp, the Home Office minister who said this morning the emails were “sickening” (see 10.11am), the spokesperson was at first reluctant to use the same language.

But, when pressed, he said:

I think it’s self-evident that he found the content of these emails reprehensible.

Key events

Afternoon summary

The Liberal Democrats have called for a review of government vetting procedures following a Sky News report saying “the security services expressed concern about the appointment of Lord Mandelson as ambassador to Washington, but No 10 went ahead anyway.”

The Labour party will later tonight announce how many MPs have got the required nominations to stand for depuy leader. Bridget Phillipson, the education secretary, has already passed the 80-MP threshold and Lucy Powell, the former leader of the Commons, seems likely to be the only other participant in the contest. (See 9.26pm.) Bell Ribeiro-Addy has confirmed that she did not get enough support.

Unfortunately, I have not secured the high number of nominations required to proceed in the deputy leadership contest. I am disappointed that the full range of Labour members’ views will not be represented on the ballot paper.

For a full list of all the stories covered on the blog today, do scroll through the list of key event headlines near the top of the blog.

Broadcasters in Downing Street today, where they set up following the news of Peter Mandelson’s sacking. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

Braverman says pulling out out of ECHR could lead to referendum on Irish reunification

Peter Walker

Peter Walker is the Guardian’s senior political correspondent.

Suella Braverman has hinted that a referendum on Irish reunification might end up being a result of the UK pulling out of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), arguing that Northern Ireland should not be able to effectively block this from happening.

The Conservative MP and former home secretary was speaking after an event in London alongside Tory peer David Frost and Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform UK, about how and why the UK could quit the convention.

The cross-party line up did not, however, mean she was about to defect, Braverman said.

I’ve been elected as a Conservative member of parliament. I’m very grateful to the people of Fareham and Waterlooville, thousands of them, who sent me back to parliament, and I’m here doing my job for them.

Questioned on the potential repercussions for peace in Northern Ireland, where the ECHR forms part of the Good Friday accord, Braverman said this need not be a barrier – even suggesting that this would be the case if it helped push a vote on a united Ireland.

It’s worth remembering that the unionists didn’t agree to the Windsor framework or the Northern Ireland protocol, and yet the UK government proceeded nonetheless.
I think that same principle can be applied in this context, and it does suggest that the principle of consent has been significantly weakened over time. Listen, if there needs to be a border poll, then you know, the people should have a vote. I think the unionists are confident about the position.
But ultimately, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom. It is not some disjointed, detached outpost subject to its own separate laws. If the UK, United Kingdom, leaves the European Convention on Human Rights, so must Northern Ireland.

US congressman says Mandelson’s sacking shows how powerful people ‘must be held accountable’ over Epstein

Ro Khanna, a prominent Democratic congressman in the US, has said that Peter Mandelson’s sacking shows what will happen to other powerful people when the Epstein files are published in full. He was speaking to the New Statesman’s Freddie Hayward. Hayward says in his report:

Peter Mandelson’s resignation is being welcomed on the Hill. Democrats are touting his exit as the first of many scalps they hope to get over the Epstein saga. No Democrat has led the charge more vociferously than Representative Ro Khanna.
Khanna said today that “rich and powerful men who covered for Epstein’s paedophilia or participated in it must be held accountable,” adding that “Mandelson is the first example of many that will follow when the files are released”.

Former No 10 policy chief Liz Lloyd appointed minister and given peerage

Downing Street has also announced three new ministerial appointments.

Liz Lloyd, who was Keir Starmer head of policy delivery in Downing Street until the reshuffle last week, and who previously worked as deputy chief of staff to Tony Blair in No 10, is getting a peerage and being made a minister dealing with science and business, and also serving as a whip in the Lords.

Michael Shanks is being made a minister of state in the energy department. Previously he was a parliamentary under-secretary (a more junior category of minister) there.

And Chris McDonald has been appointed a junior minister in the energy and business departments.

Labour publishes ‘expanded’ list of 52 PPS appointments

The Labour party has released a list naming what it says is an “expanded team” parliamentary private secretary appointments.

PPS are MPs who serve as unpaid ministerial aides. They are not ministers, or proper members of the government, but they are party of the “payroll vote” – expected to vote with the government on all occasions – and they are considered part of the wider government family.

There were 32 on the first government list published in September last year. Now there are 52.

Since the list does not seem to be available online, here it is in full.

10 Downing Street
Catherine Fookes
Abena Oppong-Asare
Jon Pearce
Treasury
Helena Dollimore
Kirith Entwistle
Alistair Strathern
Cabinet Office
Claire Hazelgrove
Naushabah Khan
Alice Macdonald
Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Catherine Atkinson
Jessica Toale
Home Office
Sarah Coombes
Alan Gemmell
Sally Jameson
Department for Business and Trade
Luke Charters
Jeevun Sandher
Marie Tidball
Department of Health and Social Care
Joe Morris
Steve Race
Rosie Wrighting
Ministry of Defence
Shaun Davies
Rachel Hopkins
Pamela Nash
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Andrew Pakes
Tom Rutland
Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government
Tom Hayes
Laura Kyrke-Smith
Harpreet Uppal
Department for Work and Pensions
Natalie Fleet
Gordon McKee
Ministry of Justice
James Frith
Joe Powell
Melanie Ward
Scotland Office
Frank McNally
Alison Taylor
Department for Science, Innovation and Technology
Callum Anderson
Preet Gill
Department for Culture, Media and Sport
Jack Abbott
Lola McEvoy
Department for Energy Security and Net Zero
Anna Gelderd
Connor Rand
Wales Office
Becky Gittins
Attorney General’s Office
Alex Barros-Curtis
Kevin Bonavia
Department for Education
Emma Foody
Amanda Martin
Alan Strickland
Department for Transport
Liam Conlon
Julie Minns
Northern Ireland Office
Matt Rodda
Leader of the House of Commons
Leigh Ingham
Leader of the House of Lords
Paul Waugh

Ed Balls says it’s ‘hard to see logic’ of reshuffle that saw his wife, Yvette Cooper, moved out of Home Office

Ed Balls has said it is “hard to see the logic” of the reshuffle that saw his wife, Yvette Cooper, moved from home secretary to foreign secretary.

Balls, a former Labour shadow chancellor who is now a TV presenter and podcaster, was speaking on his Political Currency podcast, which he co-hosts with George Osborne. Normally he avoids saying anything revelatory about his wife on the podcast, but his comments today could be seen as confirmation that Cooper was not happy about the move – even though arguably it could be seen as a promotion.

Commenting on the reshuffle, Balls said:

It’s really hard again to see the logic.
David Lammy has spent four years building an array of foreign contacts around the world. Suddenly, he’s taking the sentencing legislation, through the House of Commons … which has been put in place by Shabana Mahmood. She’s been moved and so we have to start from scratch in terms of working out how to deliver that.
I think, from Yvette’s point of view, how could you not be excited by the idea of being the foreign secretary? But it’s obviously frustrating when you spent years getting to the point where you had a plan to turn this round in terms of migration, and whether that’s around deportations, or getting other departments to pull their weight in terms of housing asylum seekers, turning around the appeals system, getting the France deal in place, the Germany deal coming through, third country relations which are in the pipeline – and suddenly to find you have to have a new home secretary, starting from scratch and you’ve gone to the Foreign Office. Of course it’s frustrating.

Reform council to ‘rescind’ climate emergency declaration

Plans by Reform UK to “rescind” the declaration of a climate emergency at one of the English county councils it now controls have been condemned by opposition parties, Ben Quinn reports.

I enjoyed this, posted BTL, but attributed to a commentator on Bluesky.

To resign in disgrace once, Mr. Mandelson, may be regarded as a misfortune; to resign twice looks like carelessness; but a hat-trick is just taking the piss.

No 10 says it was not responsible for Mandelson’s security vetting prior to being appointed ambassador

Downing Street has said that No 10 was not involved in the vetting of Peter Mandelson before he was made ambassador to the US.

At the afternoon lobby briefing, a No 10 spokesperson said:

No 10 was not involved in the security vetting process. This is managed at departmental level by the agency responsible and any suggestion that No 10 was involved is untrue.

Mandelson does not accept he thought Epstein’s first conviction ‘wrongful’, BBC reports

According to the BBC, Peter Mandelson does not accept the Foreign Office/No 10 line that he though Jeffrey Epstein’s first conviction was “wrongful”. (See 10.54am and 1.12pm.) “Rather [Mandelson] privately supported his friend, believed was telling the truth and thought the length of his sentence should be challenged,” Joe Pike from the BBC reports.

The difference between thinking a conviction was wrong and the sentence being wrong may be minimal. Epstein did plead guilty in 2008, but it was part of a complicated plea deal, and quite what Epstein told Mandelson about what he had or had not done – ie, what what Mandelson believed about his friend – is not clear.

Farage urged to ‘come clean’ about Clacton house after BBC investigation raises questions about his account of purchase

In May this year my colleague Rowena Mason revealed that, even though Nigel Farage had been telling people that he had bought a house in Clacton, in fact it had been purchased by his partner, Laure Ferrari. It was hardly the biggest lie in politics – Farage argued that whether “whether I say ‘I’ or ‘we’ is pretty irrelevant” – but it was indicative of a certain slipperiness and casual attitude to accuracy that critics would argue is typical of the Reform UK leader.

The scoop did not attract huge interest at the time. But, after Angela Rayner resigned as deputy prime minister because she had underpaid stamp duty, there was renewed interest in the Farage Clacton house. Rayner got into trouble because she should have paid the extra stamp duty owed when someone buys a second home, and Farage was asked if he had been doing the same thing.

Billy Kenber and Phil Kemp from the BBC have now published the results of a very thorough investigation into this. They have found no evidence that there was anything about the purchase that was unlawful. But they have found evidence that undermines Farage’s suggestion that his partner, a former waitress, was able to buy the £885,000 home without a mortgage because she comes from a wealthy family.

They also found that Farage recently commissioned a KC specialising in tax to provide a statement saying the correct stamp duty was paid – even though Farage says he was not involved in the purchase.

Kenber and Kemp say:

It is legal for an unmarried person to gift or otherwise transfer wealth to their partner for them to buy a property in their own name and doing so does not incur stamp duty.
Farage has though faced accusations that he has acted hypocritically and sought to avoid tax if he played a role in financing the purchase of his constituency home in his partner’s name.

Commenting on the BBC story, Anna Turley, the Labour party chair, said:

Nigel Farage repeatedly misled his constituents and the British public about buying a home in his constituency. There are now far too many unanswered questions about the house he stays in while in Clacton. He must urgently come clean with the public as to whether he financially contributed towards the purchase of this property.
Misleading the public for political gain about buying a constituency home is appalling in itself. But if he deliberately put in place this arrangement to avoid paying his fair share of tax that would be even worse.

And Sarah Olney, a Lib Dem Cabinet Office spokesperson, said:

Nigel Farage has serious questions to answer over this. After spending days attacking others over their tax arrangements he now needs to be frank and honest about his own.
I’m not holding my breath. The only time Nigel Farage wants to answer questions is when he is in the US talking Britain down.

In a statement to the BBC, a spokesperson for Farage said:

Laure Ferrari is the sole legal and beneficial owner of the property. It belongs solely to Laure and was purchased with funds which belong to her. All taxes were properly paid. Nigel has no financial interest in the property whatsoever.

Mark Brown

Mark Brown is the Guardian’s north of England correspondent.

Fiona Hill, a former Russia adviser to the White House, said the timing of Peter Mandelson’s sacking could hardly be worse. She told the Guardian:

I do have to say that it’s come at a terrible time for US-UK relations because it’s just ahead of the state visit. It just puts a cloud over an already extraordinarily difficult visit.
This visit is very personal to Trump … it’s important for managing the relationship at this particular point, whether people like it or not. This is going to make things much more difficult.

Having said that Hill, an adviser to the UK government on its strategic defence review, suggested she was not surprised by the outcome. “I just had the same sinking feeling that everybody else did,” she said.

Man held after suspected arson attack on office of Labour MP Sharon Hodgson

A man in his 20s has been arrested by police after a suspected arson attack wrecked the constituency office of the Labour MP Sharon Hodgson, Mark Brown reports.

The Conservatives have restated their call for what they are describing as the “Mandeslon files” – the papers showing the extent of the vetting before Mandelson was appointed ambassador to the US, and what they said about Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Eptsein – to be published.

In a statement, Priti Patel, the shadow foreign secretary, said:

This whole affair has been a national disgrace.
Keir Starmer continued to defend Peter Mandelson even after more and more shocking revelations came to light and his position was beyond untenable. It’s just more weakness from a prime minister without a backbone.
The British public deserve to know what Labour knew, and when. They must immediately publish all of the Mandelson files.

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No 10 says Starmer found Mandelson’s emails to Epstein ‘reprehensible’ – UK politics live | Politics

No 10 says Starmer found Mandelson’s emails to Epstein ‘reprehensible’

Afternoon summary

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