BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts.

Hello there, I'm Alicia McCarthy.

Thanks for downloading the yesterday in Parliament podcast.

On Tuesday, the 28th of April, the Prime Minister saw off an attempt to open a parliamentary

investigation into whether he misled MPs with comments he made about the Peter Mandelson

affair. Since Peter Mandelson was sacked as the UK's US ambassador over his links to the

paedophile Geoffrey Epstein, a lot of newspaper ink has been spilled analysing how he got the job

in the first place. A conservative, Sir John Whittingdale, was certainly curious.

The Prime Minister had decided that he wished to make a political appointment.

Was it you who first said, Prime Minister, I've got the perfect candidate, Peter Mandelson?

I think the first person who put Madison's name forward is Madison.

Answering there was Morgan McSweeney,

Sakea Starrmer's former Chief of Staff,

who resigned over the Mandelson appointment

when those Epstein revelations came out.

He was in front of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee,

which is looking into how the then-Labor-Peer security vetting

got signed off.

Morgan McSweeney admitted the appointment had been a serious error of judgment,

but explained that he believed Peter Mandelson's political and EU experience

made him the right person to send to Washington to get a post-Brexit trade deal.

But the committee chair, Labour's Dame Emily Thornbury accused

...