Hello, welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Heel and I'm joined today by Tim Shipman

and Isabel Harbman. Now, Isabel, that was quite a PMQ session we've just witnessed, right?

It was. And it wasn't just quite a PMQ session because of the subject matter, Peter Mandelson,

or indeed because Kemi Baderot was getting another go at the Peter Mandelson, or indeed because Kemi Badernock was getting another go at the Peter

Mandelson affair, which she'd done really well on last September, but also because it just

highlighted so many of Kirstarmer's weaknesses, his tendency to hide behind process, the fact that

he can very easily get sidetracked into defending the honour of the cabinet secretary

rather than talking about victims. And also, I suppose, as somebody who's writing a book on public

inquiries, I was just delighted that we had another call for a public inquiry from Sir Ed Davy.

So for me, it ticked a lot of boxes. I think of the six questions, I mean, it was the third answer

when it was, Kevin Baynot was asking him, were you aware of the fact that that relationship between Peter Madel's and Jeffrey Epstein had continued after the conviction? And he finally admitted, yes, we knew and yes, the security service knew. That seemed to be the key mission. That was the key mission. And he knew he was going to have to make it after the Bader knock had opened her mouth for the first time. but Starma was able with the first question to say, here's some stuff you didn't know.

We've stripped him of the Privy Council. I've been on to the palace, la-di-da-di-da. Here's some news. Obfuscate, obfuscate news. And then in the second one, he sort of, there was more process and regret. And just the giant indignation.

I mean, you talk about Lord Mandelson, Peter Man, Mandelson, as the Prime Minister referred

to him throughout. This man who has lied to me. And what was glorious about this, him defending

the honour of the cabinet secretary. So just to explain, Kimmy Bade-Knox basically said, we need independent oversight of the documents that you're releasing, because you're saying you won't release some of them for national security reasons. Well, frankly, we don't believe you. We think there's going to be a cover-up. And Stama says in response to that, oh, but the cabinet secretary will be overseeing it, will not be a political decision. Well, everybody knows the

Cabinet Secretary is appointed by the Prime Minister. In fact, this Cabinet Secretary, there isn't a single

other person in government who would have appointed him apart from this Prime Minister. He owes his

job entirely to Kirstama. Cabinet Secretary is a part of the team. We'll do what they need to do

to please the Prime Minister and to avoid embarrassing the sort of order and dignity of the Cabinet office and all of that.

So Bade knock quite rightly said, bring in the Intelligence and Security Committee.

They can make these decisions. They're properly independent, not like the Cabinet Secretary.

And dear old Starmer went, well, I'm really quite upset that she's impugning the integrity of the

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