Deputy leader plays down leadership talk and says party must focus on long-term challenges rather than personnel

Labour’s deputy leader has warned there will be “no magic bullet” to solve Labour’s problems – or major challenges facing the country – as its MPs grapple with how to navigate the fallout out from the local elections.

Lucy Powell told the Guardian she understood there was “huge anger and despondency” from Labour MPs in the aftermath of the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal, but said the prime minister would not make a similar mistake again.

Former chief of staff who helped bring Mandelson out of Labour shadows for Washington post to be questioned by MPs on vetting process

Like many Labour stories, Peter Mandelson’s and Morgan McSweeney’s both start at Lambeth council.

Mandelson was in his mid-20s. It was 1979, and he was a new councillor under the leadership of “Red” Ted Knight. He came to despise the local party, describing the Lambeth Labour party’s leadership as “contributing very little to the economic development of south London, instead politicising everything, attacking the police and the Tory government, and making the council go broke.”

Despite his explanation and the need for political stability, the PM is still unpopular – and Olly Robbins has yet to give his side of the story

Labour MPs frustrated with the lack of a clear mission from Keir Starmer’s No 10 have often urged the prime minister to be more forceful in his arguments, to prosecute his values, to find an enemy to define himself against.

The prime minister has found one: Olly Robbins. Starmer prosecuted his case against the former Foreign Office chief on Monday with the vigour of his former life at the bar.