And of course Starmer is now pathetically trying to pretend he didn’t know Mandelson had failed developed vetting. Despite stating he had. Isn’t it incredible how much the supposed Prime Minister doesn’t know when it suits him?
As asked on social media:
“If the official line ends up being that Keir Starmer didn’t know, his private office didn’t know, that Number 10 didn’t know, that the Cabinet Office didn’t know, it poses so many questions.
1) Why did Starmer assert categorically that Mandelson had cleared security vetting when he hadn’t?
2) Why did Starmer and No 10 repeatedly, over a period of many months, say that ‘due process’ had been followed when it hadn’t?
3) Why did the Foreign Office not inform the Prime Minister that Mandelson had failed his vetting?
4) Is it really credible that the foreign office decided to take this decision in some kind of hermetic bubble – a decision of huge consequence, with direct ramifications for the Prime Minister?
5) In February, when humble address was tabled including the request for all information about Mandelson’s vetting, did nobody think to check that Mandelson had indeed passed his vetting?
6) Why were documents about Mandelson’s security vetting withheld from the first tranche of the Mandelson files? They were specifically requested in the humble address and yet they were absent.
The broader question for the Prime Minister is whether allegedly not knowing that Mandelson had failed his vetting was enough of an excuse for giving categoric public assurances that he had cleared vetting in public.”