{"id":407062,"date":"2026-02-04T08:45:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T08:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/407062\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T08:45:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T08:45:08","slug":"starmer-faces-scrutiny-over-mandelsons-appointment-as-police-investigate-alleged-leaks-to-epstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/407062\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer faces scrutiny over Mandelson’s appointment as police investigate alleged leaks to Epstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

Government tries to carve out exemption as it faces calls for full disclosurepublished at 08:14 GMT<\/p>\n

08:14 GMT<\/p>\n

\"\"Henry Zeffman
Chief political correspondent<\/p>\n

It is worth stressing that in a not-too-distant parallel universe, this would have been a major scandal about a man who was a senior government minister 16 years ago. <\/p>\n

Yes, it still would have been a very big deal – but one in which the current government would have been something of a bystander. <\/p>\n

In reality, it is a scandal about a man who took up Britain\u2019s top diplomatic posting last year, on the appointment of this government and this prime minister. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s the point Kemi Badenoch will seek to press this afternoon, with a motion demanding that the government release an array of documents, including due diligence conducted before Lord Mandelson\u2019s ambassadorial appointment but also much else besides such as all electronic communications between Mandelson and ministers, officials and advisers while he was ambassador. <\/p>\n

The government is not trying to vote that motion down, which is telling. Had they tried to, they may have lost the vote. <\/p>\n

Instead, they are seeking to carve out an exemption, saying that they will not release papers \u201cprejudicial to UK national security or international relations\u201d. <\/p>\n

Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is arguing this morning that this shows the government is committed to \u201cmaximum transparency\u201d. But the Conservatives will argue that the international relations caveat is far too broad.<\/p>\n

It will be fascinating to see whether the government can carry Labour MPs with them on this later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Government tries to carve out exemption as it faces calls for full disclosurepublished at 08:14 GMT 08:14 GMT…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-407062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-kingdom","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-great-britain","10":"tag-greatbritain","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}