13/09/2025

The Week in Westminster

BBC

Government

4.0 • 258 Ratings

🗓️ 13 September 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After a week of chaos and crisis for the Government following the dramatic sacking of Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador, George Parker speaks to Labour peer, Margaret Hodge, and Labour backbencher, Clive Lewis, about the operation in Downing Street, the party's deputy leadership contest and the mood among MPs.

As the Assisted Dying Bill returns to Parliament this week, George is joined by Labour peer, Lord Falconer, who is sponsoring the Bill through the Lords, and Conservative peer, Mark Harper, an opponent of assisted dying.

Peers have recently been venting their anger about the new door to the House of Lords which hasn't been working properly. One of them is the Conservative, Robert Hayward, who tells George about his fears for the wider costs of the restoration and renewal of the Palace of Westminster.

And the Prime Minister's biographer, Tom Baldwin, and Guardian columnist, Polly Toynbee, discuss why Peter Mandelson keeps getting - and losing - top jobs, and what it means for Sir Keir Starmer's government.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is George Parker with The Week in Westminster. It's long been a source of bafflement to Peter
0:05.6	Mandelson's friends that the so-called Dark Lord is a master at handing out advice to colleagues
0:11.2	when they're in trouble, but appalling at looking after his own reputation. And so it came to pass
0:17.7	at the worst possible time for Secere Stama that Lord Mandelson completed a hat trick of
0:23.1	sackings from high public office. Kemi Badernock, the Conservative leader, wondered on Wednesday
0:28.9	how long it would take the Prime Minister to sack his ambassador to the US over Lord
0:34.4	Mandelson's relationship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
0:39.1	The Daily Telegraph reports today that while Lord Mandelson was business secretary,
0:43.7	he brokered a deal with Jeffrey Epstein while he was business secretary,
0:47.3	and that this occurred after Epstein had been convicted of child sex offences. Given this new information, does the Prime Minister
0:58.3	really think it is tenable for our ambassador to remain in post? Mr Speaker, the relationship between
1:05.9	the US and the UK is one of our foremost relationships and I have confidence in the ambassador in the role that
1:11.7	he is doing. That confidence didn't last long. The next day, after surveying a trove of previously
1:18.6	unseen emails from Lord Manderson to his best pal, Epstein, Stama Sacks him. So, what does this
1:26.5	episode say about the Prime Minister's judgment?
1:29.7	And where does it leave him at the end of another week of political chaos?
1:34.4	After Angela Rainer quit an attack scandal, he's now lost his US ambassador on the eve of a state
1:40.9	visit by President Trump.
1:43.0	And his party is about to engage in an internal debate
1:46.7	about who should succeed Ms Rainer as Deputy Labour leader, with Education Secretary Bridget Philipson
1:52.8	battling it out with the recently sacked leader of the Commons, Lucy Powell. To discuss all that,
1:59.7	I brought together Margaret Hodge, who's joined the House of Lords
	...

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