Lord Peter Mandelson was pictured with his head in his hand hours before Keir Starmer faces a Commons showdown over his vetting scandal.
The Prime Minister will battle to save his job in an address MPs later on Monday following extraordinary revelations that the disgraced peer took up the Washington job despite failing security vetting.
Downing Street has repeatedly refused to say whether Sir Keir Starmer will correct the record after telling Parliament due process was followed in making Lord Mandelson ambassador to the US.
Mandelson was sacked last year, just nine months into the Washington DC posting, after further details of his association with the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein emerged.
No 10 has insisted red flags were not disclosed by the Foreign Office, with Sir Keir blaming officials for not passing on this information to him when he was telling MPs that “full due process” was followed.
Asked whether the Prime Minister accepted he had misled Parliament, his official spokesman said: “The Prime Minister would never knowingly mislead Parliament or the public.
“He’s clear though, that this information should have been provided to him… so he will obviously update the House with the full information.”
Asked if he would correct the record, the spokesman said he would be “updating with information” that he should have had previously.
On whether this meant he was effectively admitting he did inadvertently mislead MPs, the official said the Prime Minister would be “updating Parliament with the full facts of this case”.
The scandal has fuelled calls for Sir Keir to resign, both from opposition parties but also from his critics within the Labour movement, who already fear an electoral bloodbath for the party in May’s contests in English councils and the Scottish and Welsh parliaments.
Questions also linger over a letter from former cabinet secretary Lord Simon Case, dated November 11 2024, in which he appears to advise Sir Keir that security clearances should be done before confirming Lord Mandelson as his choice for the role.
The note said that in the case of a political appointment “you wish to take, you should give us the name of the person you would like to appoint and we will develop a plan for them to acquire the necessary security clearances and do due diligence on any potential conflicts of interest or other issues of which you should be aware before confirming your choice”.
It was published in response to a Commons motion compelling the Government to disclose information relating to the appointment after further details emerged about the peer’s association with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
No 10 declined to say whether it had been a mistake to ignore this advice, pointing out that the “normal thing” had been for civil servants to undergo security clearance after appointment and before signing a contract, which the Government has since changed.
Sir Keir effectively fired the Foreign Office’s top official Sir Olly Robbins last week after it emerged Lord Mandelson had been given developed vetting (DV) status despite failing checks carried out by the agency responsible for assessing security clearances.
Whitehall veteran Sir Olly will give his own account to MPs on Tuesday at the Foreign Affairs Committee.
