{"id":482359,"date":"2026-03-18T15:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/482359\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T15:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T15:08:09","slug":"badenoch-presses-starmer-on-mandelson-appointment-at-pmqs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/482359\/","title":{"rendered":"Badenoch presses Starmer on Mandelson appointment at PMQs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Starmer goes on attack over Iran as Badenoch pushes PM on Mandelson at PMQspublished at 13:36 GMT<\/p>\n<p>13:36 GMT<\/p>\n<p>      Media caption, <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Starmer on Iran: &#8216;We will not be drawn into the wider war&#8217;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The prime minister and Kemi Badenoch attacked each other&#8217;s leadership style at PMQs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Tory leader took aim at Keir Starmer&#8217;s appointment of Peter Mandelson, while Starmer attacked Badenoch over her stance on the Iran war and comments by her shadow justice secretary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Peter Mandelson&#8217;s appointment<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Badenoch persistently pressed Starmer on whether he spoke to Mandelson about Jeffrey Epstein before his appointed as US ambassador. In response, Starmer reiterated that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/live\/c4g39en2217t?post=asset%3A0d5df3f9-f990-4920-8b97-1f6e9d54bfd5#post\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the appointment was a &#8220;mistake&#8221;<\/a> and repeated his apology to Epstein&#8217;s victims.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Shadow justice secretary&#8217;s comments<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In his exchange with Badenoch, Starmer called for shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy to be sacked over comments he made about Muslims praying in public (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/live\/c4g39en2217t?post=asset%3A9af39950-85fb-48c0-a410-b8c115bde78f#post\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here&#8217;s what Timothy said<\/a>). &#8220;If he were in my team, he&#8217;d be gone,&#8221; the PM said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Angela Rayner&#8217;s warning<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Badenoch also mentioned comments from former deputy PM Angela Rayner, who called Labour&#8217;s immigration proposals &#8220;un-British&#8221;. The Tory leader said she and Rayner agreed this &#8220;weak man&#8221; should be replaced by a &#8220;strong woman&#8221; &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/live\/c4g39en2217t?post=asset%3A50d7a6e2-168b-4967-bfa5-7358883c472d#post\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">watch the moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Iran<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The prime minister reiterated that the UK would not be drawn into the wider Iran war, and said the longer it went on the more it would increase the cost of living.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The future of the UK&#8217;s nuclear deterrent<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey asked <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/live\/c4g39en2217t?post=asset%3A6be70da7-3b86-4de3-a381-64623830d7c0#post\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">whether the UK should be reliant on the US<\/a> when it renews its nuclear deterrent &#8211; the PM said he&#8217;d do what&#8217;s in the UK&#8217;s &#8220;best interests&#8221;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starmer goes on attack over Iran as Badenoch pushes PM on Mandelson at PMQspublished at 13:36 GMT 13:36&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-482359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482359","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=482359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=482359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=482359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=482359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}