Did Keir Starmer “lie, lie and lie again" over Mandelson?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 17 April 2026
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
That's the charge from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, who has called on the Prime Minister to resign today.
The Guardian reported last night that Starmer appointed Mandelson as Britain’s ambassador to Washington even though he had failed government security vetting. The PM has said today he is "absolutely furious" he was not told about this - and has sacked Olly Robbins, the top civil servant at the Foreign Office.
Starmer had previously insisted that “full due process” was followed in the appointment, and that Mandelson had cleared the vetting. Could it really be the case that Starmer was never alerted to the vetting issues? And if he was never told - should it have been his job to know? Why does he keep coming across as a passenger, rather than the driver, of government?
And does the latest revelation in the Mandelson affair put the PM in fresh peril - just as it looked like the leadership speculation was beginning to dim?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK commercial banking, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:07.0 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.0 | It felt to be like deep foe outrage. |
| 0:15.0 | It's hard to believe that everything falls into place as currently explained to us. |
| 0:21.9 | It either makes him look once again like a gullible fool who is deeply and curious about his own government. |
| 0:27.6 | Or he's lying. |
| 0:28.5 | You may be able to thread the needle and say, okay, yeah, this all makes sense. |
| 0:33.9 | I'm as pissed off as you, mate. God, God, yeah, I know, God. |
| 0:37.0 | We're all in this together, aren't we? |
| 0:38.5 | That I wasn't told that Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting when he's appointed is staggering. |
| 0:47.0 | That I wasn't told that it failed security vetting when I was telling Parliament that due |
| 0:53.1 | process have been followed is unforgivable. |
| 0:56.4 | That is the Prime Minister, once again sounding furious, once again saying that he was blindsided. |
| 1:04.5 | He's either telling the truth or he's in a deep spot of bother right now. |
| 1:09.6 | But how much longer can he go on when there's this pervasive |
| 1:13.6 | sense of helplessness, hopelessness and haplessness? Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:24.9 | The newsagents. It's John in the studio |
| 1:28.8 | And it's Lewis in Colombo |
| 1:31.1 | A very humid Colombia |
| 1:33.1 | Not the detective I hasten to add |
| 1:34.7 | The city in Sri Lanka |
| 1:36.0 | What are you doing there? |
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