The UK prime minister surely won’t have many worse days than this in his political career. Outside the chamber, Labour MP John McDonnell told Sky he had lost confidence in Starmer and that McSweeney “had to go”. Badenoch had accused him of trying to “whitewash” the release of what have become known in Westminster over the past 24 hours as the “Mandelson Files”. Starmer, his voice trembling with rage and emotion, insisted Mandelson had “lied repeatedly to my team” about the extent of his Epstein links. Had Mandelson’s continued links to Epstein after the latter’s 2008 conviction for soliciting underage girls cropped up during Downing Street’s Mandelson vetting?

Source: The Irish Times February 05, 2026 08:28 UTC