Keir Starmer has appealed for sympathy over the Mandelson scandal, saying he has been ‘really hard on myself’ for appointing the disgraced peer as US ambassador.
In a self-pitying interview, the Prime Minister said he is haunted by his decision to ignore warnings about Lord Mandelson’s ‘particularly close’ friendship with Jeffrey Epstein.
‘Nobody was criticising me more than myself,’ he told Sky News on Thursday. ‘I hate the fact I made that mistake. And I dwell on it. I beat myself up about it.
‘It’s certainly not a mistake I’d ever repeat. But, there’s no criticism anybody else can level at me that will be as harsh as the criticism I dished out for myself.’
Documents published this month show that Sir Keir went ahead with the appointment despite being warned in writing that Lord Mandelson had continued his friendship with Epstein for years after his conviction for child sex offences – and had even stayed at his New York mansion while he was in jail.
But even after the warning from the Cabinet Office, he did not question Lord Mandelson himself, instead dedicating the task to his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, who was known to be a close personal friend of the Labour grandee, and who asked him just three questions.
Kemi Badenoch urged Sir Keir to ‘come clean’ over the Mandelson scandal, as questions mounted over the mysterious theft of Mr McSweeney’s phone.
The theft means that hundreds of messages relating to Lord Mandelson’s appointment may never be released, despite being demanded by Parliament.
All smiles: The PM celebrated Lord Mandelson’s appointment last year but now says it was a mistake which haunts him
Whitehall sources confirmed that the Cabinet Office has not asked Lord Mandelson to surrender his own phone, meaning that only a fraction of the material surrounding the disastrous appointment may ever be published.
The PM said it was ‘far-fetched’ to suggest that the loss was linked to demands for the release of the Mandelson files.
Mr McSweeney’s phone was stolen on October 20 last year, months before Parliament voted to order the release of the Mandelson files.
‘The idea that somehow everybody could have seen that sometime in the future there’d be a request over the phone is, to my mind, a little bit far-fetched,’ he said.
But Mrs Badenoch first demanded that Sir Keir ‘publish all the documents’ surrounding the appointment on September 10.
Days later, it was reported that the Conservatives were considering a Parliamentary motion to compel the release of the information.
A Whitehall source told the Mail that the possibility had been raised at a meeting of Labour officials in early October, with one raising the question: ‘What is they come for Morgan’s mobile?’
Mrs Badenoch said: ‘I think there are a lot of questions that need answering, and what we need is for Morgan McSweeney and, let’s be frank, Keir Starmer to come clean about what happened.’
The controversy is also causing deep unease among some Labour MPs. Labour veteran Karl Turner branded the PM’s former aide ‘McSwindle’, adding: ‘I don’t believe McSwindle had his iPhone stolen.
‘We mustn’t take the public for fools. And I am afraid this smacks of too convenient by far.’
