Starmer has ‘full confidence’ in Morgan McSweeney, No 10 says amid calls for his sacking – as it happened

Keir Starmer has full confidence in his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney, Downing Street has said.There have been calls by backbenchers for the sacking of McSweeney, whom many blame for his ally Peter Mandelson’s appointment to the ambassadorship.Asked if the prime minister agreed with calls for his chief of staff to be sacked, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said:It’s full confidence.It comes as Downing Street said it was talking with the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) about the process of releasing documents related to Mandelson’s appointment.The spokesperson said:We have begun discussions with the ISC about the process for releasing these documents

Mr Rules hits tipping point as Mandelson proves the one mistake that can’t be undone

It’s beginning to feel terminal. Not that there hasn’t been talk of Labour MPs wanting to remove Keir Starmer before. Just that this time there’s the sense of a tipping point being reached. No more second chances. No praying for a miracle that will never come in the May elections

Former Tory head of London council appointed Reform leader in Wales

Dan Thomas, a former Conservative leader of Barnet council, has been announced by Nigel Farage as Reform UK’s leader in Wales, three months before Senedd elections in which the hard-right party could win the most seats in the country.Farage received a standing ovation before he introduced Thomas at a sold-out rally at the International Convention Centre Wales, near Newport, on Thursday morning. Journalists were jeered and booed during the media conference.Thomas led Barnet council between 2019 and 2022, when the north London council was seized by Labour, and defected to Farage’s Reform party last summer. He stood down in December as a councillor for Finchley Church End – long synonymous with Margaret Thatcher – to move back to his south Wales valleys home town, Blackwood

Starmer apologises to Epstein victims as he seeks to weather Mandelson scandal

Keir Starmer has attempted to reboot his faltering premiership, apologising for appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador and urging his MPs to unite behind him.The prime minister gave a lengthy speech on Wednesday about community cohesion, but faced a barrage of questions about his leadership after one of his most turbulent days since entering Downing Street.With his authority over the Labour party and the Commons looking shakier than ever, the prime minister insisted he understood MPs’ concerns and issued a frank apology to victims of Jeffrey Epstein.Starmer said he regretted appointing Mandelson in Washington given his relationship with the financier and convicted child sex offender, about which he said the Labour peer had repeatedly lied.“The victims of Epstein have lived with trauma that most of us could barely comprehend, and they have to relive it again and again

Mandelson sought Epstein’s help in hunt for lucrative roles at Glencore and BP

Peter Mandelson began seeking advice from the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on how to land “highly paid” senior roles with companies including BP and Glencore within days of Labour’s 2010 electoral defeat, emails show.A flurry of messages, sent in the weeks and months following the collapse of the New Labour project, reveal how Epstein mentored Mandelson as the former cabinet minister touted himself for lucrative jobs at global businesses.The emails. released by the US justice department among 3m pages of files on Epstein, lay bare the money-spinning opportunities available to departing ministers.In particular, they reveal Mandelson’s dogged pursuit of a job with the global mining firm Glencore, which became known as the “billionaire factory” thanks to the huge rewards on offer to senior staff from its $60bn stock market float in 2011

What are files from Mandelson’s US ambassador appointment likely to reveal?

It remains to be seen how many documents connected to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador will be released, and also when they will emerge, given they need to be vetted by parliament’s intelligence and security committee.But when the information does arrive, these are some of the key questions that Labour MPs in particular will be keen to have answered.This is the central issue, albeit one where we do already know one answer. As conceded by Keir Starmer in the Commons on Wednesday, when he made the appointment late last year he knew Mandelson had maintained his links with Epstein even after the disgraced financier had served a jail term for soliciting a minor for prostitution.This was an admission of the obvious, given the fact it had been reported by the media before the ambassadorial appointment was made