The Buck Stops Here

Keir Starmer is fighting to cling on in No 10 today as he tries to blame the head of the Foreign Office for the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal.

The Cabinet minister insisted Sir Keir had no idea until Tuesday this week that Mandelson failed his security vetting, saying that was ‘beyond unacceptable’ and Sir Olly had left his position because he had ‘lost the confidence’ of the premier. 

But Sir Keir – who is in Paris for a summit on the Middle East crisis later – is facing a rising outcry for his own resignation, with even Labour MPs privately warning he cannot survive. 

Kemi Badenoch said the PM had ‘lied’ and was ‘taking us for fools’. ‘All roads lead to a resignation,’ she said. Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said the ‘buck stops’ in Downing Street.

Sir Keir previously stated that Mandelson passed security vetting, and told the Commons that ‘due process’ was followed. He did not mention the bombshell developments at PMQs on Wednesday.

Mr Jones denied that the PM would have to resign for misleading Parliament, and confirmed Sir Keir will be making a statement to MPs on Monday.

As the Mandelson furore comes back to haunt Labour again, questions have been raised over when Sir Olly will get a massive payoff, with Mr Jones acknowledging that vetting processes were followed.

Whitehall departments have been banned from proceeding with appointments against vetting advice, amid suggestions that this has happened in other cases, and Sir Keir has been accused of breaking the ministerial code for not alerting MPs to the vetting issue earlier.

The minister told LBC: ‘Given the nature of the problem here, not just in terms of the appointment, but the position that it has put the Prime Minister and Cabinet ministers in as a consequence of the decision to overrule the recommendation of UK Security Vetting, and the fact that the system even allowed for that to happen in the first place, it’s of a scale of a problem that we’ve not experienced in government before.

‘It is beyond unacceptable.’

Questioned on BBC Breakfast whether the PM is going to resign, and whether he has either knowingly or unknowingly deceived MPs, Mr Jones replied ‘no’.

‘The Prime Minister was right… because the security and vetting process had been conducted and the Foreign Office granted what’s called developed vetting status to allow for Peter Mandelson’s appointment, so he had been through the process and he had been cleared by the Foreign Office to start the role, so the Prime Minister was right about that,’ he said.

‘What the Prime Minister was not told until Tuesday evening this week was that the Foreign Office’s decision to give that developed vetting status, and to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador, was against the recommendations of security and vetting officials.’

He told Sky News that even though security officials recommended that Mandelson be refused developed vetting status, he was allowed to see the most sensitive documents.

It doesn’t matter who they are; they all stink of immorality and deception.

There needs to be a General Election, and there needs to be one now! But we all know there won’t be one before 2029 because Labour won’t allow it, and they will alter the rules, violate laws and carry on nonetheless.

Anything that this man does is quite frankly unforgivable and no longer acceptable, and if he wants to leave his integrity intact, he needs to resign now and call a General Election, but the irony of this is that if it were the Conservatives doing this, Starmer and his comrades would be the first to say resign.