Conservatives expected to push for privileges committee involvement in a Commons vote on Monday

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A series of senior Labour figures have dismissed calls for a new investigation into what Keir Starmer told MPs about the appointment of Peter Mandelson as political point scoring, before a possible Commons vote on the issue.

The Conservatives have called for the cross-party privileges committee, the remit of which includes examining whether MPs broke rules, to look at whether the prime minister misled parliament when he said normal procedures were followed with Mandelson’s appointment.

Some familiar, arcane terms are returning to the fore as the Tories study the tactics Labour used against Boris Johnson

The lexicon of a British parliamentary scandal is arcane.

As Keir Starmer fights to remain prime minister, he has had to respond to a “humble address”, had his judgment picked over during an “emergency opposition day debate” and now faces the ignominy of a “privilege motion”.

There are hoaxes or half-truths that can change the course of a country’s history, and others that are simply met with indifference, because it’s not a time for revolutions. When Boris Johnson was a correspondent in Brussels for The Daily Telegraph, his story about the supposed — and false — effort of EU bureaucrats to ban prawn cocktail-flavored crisps, so popular among the British, became another wave in the Brexit storm. Another affront that had to be avoided.

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