The Kemi Badenoch demeaned herself by saying Keir Starmer "told lie after lie after lie about the appointment of Peter Mandelson". This overwrought language preaches only to the converted.
She thinks the prime minister misled the Commons when he said that "full due process" had been followed in making the appointment, when he was actually warned by Jonathan Powell, the national security adviser, that it had been "weirdly rushed".
Badenoch also seized on some gaps in yesterday's documents to suggest that there had been a "cover-up". Again, over the top.
She might do better to take the advice of George Osborne, the former chancellor, who said on his podcast today that the government should have refused to pay £75,000 to terminate Mandelson's contract. "If I'd been chancellor, I just absolutely would have said, 'No, see us in court. Forget it. There's no way he's going to take us to court. We don't have to pay anything.'"
The prime minister, meanwhile, took personal responsibility for his "mistake" in appointing Mandelson as ambassador to the US and reiterated his apology to Jeffrey Epstein's victims.
David Maddox writes that Labour MPs are furious, but will not move against Starmer yet.
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