The prime minister has spoken to reporters in Paris this morning, saying it is “unforgivable” and “staggering” he wasn’t told Peter Mandelson was denied security clearance.He said:double quotation markThat I wasn’t told that he’d failed security vetting when I was telling parliament that due process had been followed is unforgivable.Not only was I not told, no minister was told and I’m absolutely furious about it.Keir Starmer added:double quotation markIt is totally unacceptable that the prime minister making an appointment is not told that security vetting has been failed.He added he will “set out all the relevant facts in true transparency” to parliament on Monday.

That’s all from me, Tom Ambrose, and from the UK politics live blog for today.Thanks for following along.Here is a round-up of the day’s headlines:Keir Starmer said it is “unforgivable” that he was not told Peter Mandelson had failed to pass security vetting for the role of ambassador to the US.The prime minister said he was “absolutely furious” and it was “staggering” that he had not been informed the Foreign Office had overruled the recommendation from specialists in the UK Security Vetting team.Tory leader Kemi Badenoch repeatedly branded Keir Starmer a “liar”, saying he had repeatedly “put his own self interest above the national interest”.

Responding to a direct question about whether the prime minister had lied, she said: “You ask if I believe that the Prime Minister is lying? Yes, I do.The only other alternative is that he is so grossly incompetent he has no idea what is going on.He told me at PMQs, the full due process has been followed.”A retired high court judge is expected to review Peter Mandelson’s vetting process and the wider national security vetting system.The review, commissioned by Downing Street, comes after a Guardian investigation revealing that security officials decided Mandelson should not receive developed vetting clearance, but were overruled by the Foreign Office to allow him to become US ambassador.

The Liberal Democrats have asked Keir Starmer’s ethics adviser to investigate the prime minister for failing to tell Parliament Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting as soon as he became aware.In a letter to Laurie Magnus, Lib Dem frontbencher Lisa Smart said the prime minister “appears to have failed in his obligation to correct inadvertent errors ‘at the earliest opportunity’”, as required by the ministerial code.Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said Downing Street should answer questions in parliament, following the revelations about the vetting of Peter Mandelson.Speaking as he campaigned in Edinburgh for the Scottish parliament election, Sarwar said the scandal around Mandelson was the “tipping point” which led to his earlier call for Keir Starmer to quit.Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has accused Eluned Morgan, the Labour first minister of Wales, of being “unwilling to speak out” following the latest revelations about the vetting of Mandelson.

ap Iorwerth said: “Keir Starmer says it is ‘staggering’ he was not told that Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting.What is truly staggering is that he expects the public to believe him.It is now clear that he is either lying or utterly unfit to be prime minister.In the face of such serious questions, Eluned Morgan’s silence is indefensible.”SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has called on the prime minister to “do the right thing” and resign.

Keir Starmer has faced more pressure to quit after it was revealed that the Foreign Office overruled a recommendation not to clear Peter Mandelson to be the UK ambassador to the US.Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock has insisted that Keir Starmer will not quit over what he described as the Peter Mandelson “horror show”.“Keir is not going.If we subtract the Mandelson thing over the last day, or the last eons, regardless of the 8 May outcome, it is widely understood that the last thing the Labour party needs is the approach that the party, a party, is more concerned with its own welfare than the condition of the country,” he said.Support for rejoining the EU rather than simply rejoining the single market is growing among British voters, with more than 80% of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green party supporters favouring this option, research mapping voter attitudes 10 years after the Brexit referendum shows.

But Labour’s “muted” approach means it now risks losing support among progressive voters and in “red wall” constituencies, experts have said as part of a research by Best for Britain.Police in protective clothing are responding to an incident near the Israeli embassy in central London as counter-terrorism officers investigate a video shared online overnight in which a group claims to have targeted the embassy with drones carrying “dangerous substances”.The Metropolitan police said there was an increased police presence in Kensington Gardens as officers investigated a number of “discarded items” and have urged people to avoid the area while they carry out their work.Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called for the prime minister to stand down.Posting on X, Farage said: “It’s time for Keir Starmer to go.

”Keir Starmer is facing calls to resign after the Guardian revealed that Peter Mandelson failed the developed vetting process over his appointment as US ambassador – but was able to take up the post after the Foreign Office overruled the recommendation.Here is the timeline of Mandelson’s controversial appointment and the fallout it has caused:Support for rejoining the EU rather than simply rejoining the single market is growing among British voters, with more than 80% of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green party supporters favouring this option, research mapping voter attitudes 10 years after the Brexit referendum shows.But Labour’s “muted” approach means it now risks losing support among progressive voters and in “red wall” constituencies, experts have said as part of a research by Best for Britain.While three in five (61%) of all voters support the government’s current approach to EU relations only 19% did so “strongly”, the research showed.A full return to the EU was supported by 53% of all voters with support at 83% among Labour voters, 84% Liberal Democrat and 82% on Greens, the polling found.

Four in 10 Conservative supporters and one in five Reform voters also backed the policy, Best for Britain found.“We think that there is inherent risk with halfway houses,” said Tom Brufatto director of policy and research at Best for Britain which maps the space for public policy on EU relations.Badenoch was also asked about reporting in the Independent in September last year, which said that sources indicated that Mandelson did not clear security vetting for the role, while MI6 failed to clear the Labour peer largely because of concerns over his business links to China.Badenoch said:double quotation markBack in September, these questions were asked.I find it very hard to believe that the director of communications did not tell anyone or even ask anybody before answering.

He did not deny the claims.That is one of the reasons why I think that they knew more than they are pretending to know.Now, I think it is very significant that we are seeing that questions were asked and answers were denied.This is a cover up, one way or another.Asked about the Guardian exclusive which revealed that senior government officials have been considering whether to withhold from parliament sensitive documents that show Mandelson failed security vetting before he assumed the role of US ambassador.

Badenoch said:double quotation markI think it would be very serious if we find out that the vetting documents are being withheld, documents which are particularly sensitive were to go to the ISC, the intelligence and security committee,It sounds like the [the intelligence and security committee] has not received all the documents, perhaps, if they have been received they’re being covered up in some kind of way,So they should be sent unredacted documents,Let’s see the full story,The Conservatives were planning “the next set of actions” if they believed the government was not acting with full transparency, she added.

“We are not letting this go, because it shows the rot at the heart of Keir Starmer’s government,” she said.Kemi Badenoch is not a woman known for pulling her punches, but at a press conference in SW1 this afternoon she was even more pugnacious than usual.Badenoch repeatedly branded Keir Starmer a “liar”, saying he had repeatedly “put his own self interest above the national interest”.Responding to a direct question about whether the prime minister had lied, she said:double quotation markYou ask if I believe that the Prime Minister is lying? Yes, I do.The only other alternative is that he is so grossly incompetent he has no idea what is going on.

He told me at PMQs, the full due process has been followed.Now it’s looking like he appointed Mandelson before the vetting was completed.That is not for due process, that is untrue.So he lied.Badenoch called on the prime minister to resign saying the “buck stops with him” and it was the only “decent” response.

She said she was “considering every parliamentary option” and urged Labour MPs to force a vote of no confidence in their leader.Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has accused Eluned Morgan, the Labour first minister of Wales, of being “unwilling to speak out” following the latest revelations about the vetting of Peter Mandelson.ap Iorwerth said:double quotation markKeir Starmer says it is ‘staggering’ he was not told that Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting.What is truly staggering is that he expects the public to believe him.It is now clear that he is either lying or utterly unfit to be prime minister.

In the face of such serious questions, Eluned Morgan’s silence is indefensible.He added:double quotation markAt a time when bold leadership is required, we have a first minister in hiding, unwilling to speak out and unwilling to hold her own party boss to account.The first minister has repeatedly said she will call out Keir Starmer when necessary – this is one of those times when she should be doing so.She should call on him to resign, out of respect to Epstein’s victims and in the interests of restoring integrity to public life.Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused Keir Starmer of being “blinded by faith in his own righteousness” as she claimed his position is untenable.

During a press conference after it emerged that the prime minister did not know Peter Mandelson failed security vetting for the role of ambassador to the US, the leader of the Opposition described the development as a “national disgrace”.She said:double quotation markThis is a prime minister who spent his entire time in opposition telling people that he was whiter than white, telling the country that the rules mattered, that standards mattered, that misleading Parliament mattered, but who once in office has repeatedly put his own self-interest above the national interest.A man who has tried to cling on to his job, whatever the cost, he is so blinded by faith in his own righteousness that he cannot see what everyone else in the country can see.Badenoch added:double quotation markBut this is a national disgrace.The buck stops with him and the only decent response is to resign.

He cannot deny that he has recklessly misled the house, he cannot deny that this is his unforgivable failure.The stench of cover up is now overwhelming.A retired high court judge is expected to review Peter Mandelson’s vetting process and the wider national security vetting system.The review, commissioned by Downing Street, comes after a Guardian investigation revealing that security officials decided Mandelson should not receive developed vetting clearance, but were overruled by the Foreign Office to allow him to become US ambassador.The disclosure on Thursday led to the resignation of Olly Robbins, the top official in the Foreign Office, and increased pressure on Keir Starmer.

The prime minister and other Cabinet colleagues have claimed that no ministers were aware Mandelson had failed vetting.According to multiple sources, the government plans to appoint Adrian Fulford to lead a formal review of the vetting process.Discussions were under way earlier this week on the terms of reference, which have yet to be completed.Fulford, a former appeals court judge, has recently finished chairing the first phase of the inquiry into the knife attack at a children’s dance club in Southport two years ago.He sits as chair of the security vetting appeals panel, which has powers to reconsider failed applications for security clearance.

The Lib Dems are in buoyant mood, with polls suggesting their best Holyrood results for years and the party targeting ten constituencies as well as encouraging voters to go for them on the peach regional ballot too – this Holyrood election is more unpredictable than most but it’s feasible that this party could play a role in keeping the SNP out of power if it does a deal with Labour.They launched their manifesto this morning including commitments on improving NHS access, especially for mental ill health, changes to early years schools to have play-based learning until the age of 7, like in Finland, and more support for children with ASN.Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton insisted there was “no pact or alliance with Labour” – to some laughter in the room given the ongoing row about whether Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar suggested to Reform’s Scottish leader Malcolm Offord they work together to beat the SNP.But his message was clear that after May 7 he’d be open to discussion.Cole-Hamilton said: “The one thing I share with Anas is a desire for change and the biggest change that Scotland needs is a change of government.

And of course, if there’s an opportunity to unseat the SNP – who need to lose power, who need a period of quiet reflection on the opposition benches of this parliament – [with a party that] which shares our values, then of course we will look at that seriously”.It’s something the Scottish public are already thinking about – recent polling shows that 32% of the Scottish public would be happy to see the Liberal Democrats having influence over the Scottish government, the most popular of all the smaller parties.The exit of the top civil servant Olly Robbins from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the latest departure of an official or minister under Keir Starmer’s two-year tenure as prime minister.Here we take a look at some of the most high-profile resignations since Starmer came to power.Keir Starmer believes Parliament had a right to know Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting, the prime minister’s spokesperson said.

Asked if Starmer had misled MPs, they said:double quotation markHe’s very clear that Parliament had a right to know this, and indeed that he had a right to know this, and that it’s completely staggering that UK security vetting recommended against the developed vetting security clearance for Peter Mandelson and that he was not told, the foreign secretary was not told and as a result Parliament was not told.The Liberal Democrats have asked Keir Starmer’s ethics adviser to investigate the Prime Minister for failing to tell Parliament Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting as soon as he became aware.In a letter to Laurie Magnus, Lib Dem frontbencher Lisa Smart said the prime minister “appears to have failed in his obligation to correct inadvertent errors ‘at the earliest opportunity’”, as required by the ministerial code.In a separate statement issued by the Lib Dems, Smart said:double quotation markThe Prime Minister failed to tell Parliament that he knew Mandelson had been denied vetting on Wednesday, presumably crossing his fingers and hoping the truth would not come out.What a shameful way for a Prime Minister to behave.

To stand in front of the dispatch box and deny Parliament such crucial information looks like a serious breach of ministerial code,That’s why I’ve written to the ethics adviser to report this breach and ask him to investigate at the earliest opportunity,Starmer made catastrophic errors of judgment from the very beginning of the Mandelson scandal and it seems he has just kept on making them,His position is now untenable,Downing Street has said it does not accept that the Foreign Office felt pressure to overrule UK Security Vetting’s recommendation against Mandelson receiving developed vetting clearance.

Asked whether Number 10 would accept that the FCDO felt pressured over the appointment, a Downing Street spokesman said:double quotation markNo.The security vetting process that the Foreign Office led obviously took place following the appointment, as is often the case in these appointments, but at no point – the Prime Minister has said he finds it completely staggering that at no point in that vetting process the fact that UK Security Vetting had recommended against providing Peter Mandelson developed vetting was ever communicated to Number 10.