MPs jeer as PM says it is ‘incredible’ he was not told full story and says he was wrong to appoint Mandelson as US ambassador

At his press conference Nigel Farage was asked about reports saying that Keir Starmer knew about the security concerns about Peter Mandelson that led to him failing his security vetting interview. That was a reference to the Telegraph splash, which says:

Senior Whitehall sources told The Telegraph that the UKSV [UK Security Vetting] findings largely restated security risks that had already been drawn to Sir Keir’s attention.

One senior source with knowledge of the process said: “The reality is that Starmer had already been warned about the major risks and he had waved them away.”

Sources have told The Independent that MI6 failed to clear the Labour peer largely because of concerns over his business links to China.

However, there were also worries that his past links to the disgraced financier and convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein “would compromise him”.

It’s impossible for the prime minister to say the warning lights weren’t flashing.

And if you were prime minister and there were news reports last September that your ambassadorial choice had failed vetting, you would have thought perhaps he might have had some curiosity to try to find out whether this had really happened or not. I just find the whole thing totally incredible. Incredible. There is no way the prime minister couldn’t have known.

The Labour backbenchers are not yet of a mood to get rid of their prime minister, although after 7 May they just might be.