STEPHEN GLOVER: Our benighted nation is marooned in limbo as this mendacious PM clings to energy

Last night Labour MPs chose by a large majority not to subject Sir Keir Starmer to an inquiry into whether he has lied to Parliament about his catastrophic decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador.

It’s no surprise. Labour MPs were on a three-line whip, and those who disobeyed face censure or punishment. Only 14 of them voted against the Government with about 50 abstaining.

In any case, with important local elections and parliamentary elections in Scotland and Wales next week, most Labour backbenchers didn’t want to injure Starmer fatally now.

So he has won a skirmish. But the war remains to be fought. It will end with Starmer’s ejection. For how long, though, must the country be left in suspension as this desperate man refuses to be removed from office?

We have a zombie Government and a Prime Minister who has lost credibility in the country, and authority within his party. Politicians are convulsed with the Starmer-Mandelson psychodrama while the world faces an energy crisis and Britain drifts towards an economic crash.

If ever a strong and stable Government were needed, it’s now. Yet we have a PM whose main concern is to save his own skin, while some ministers rubbish him behind the scenes.

People look at Starmer and see a dull lawyer who is the most ineffectual Prime Minister of modern times. I exclude Liz Truss, who wasn’t so much ineffectual as lethal.

What may not have been obvious in the past is that Starmer has a variable relationship with the truth. Many thought – including me for a time – that this plodding, lawyerly creature at least had the virtue of honesty. Surely we could rely on that.

We can’t. One hesitates to call any prime minister a liar, though Sir Keir Starmer had no such compunction when criticising Boris Johnson over ‘Partygate‘.

But the Mandelson affair has exposed Starmer in his true colours. I suspect the interest of many has wavered as various hitherto obscure characters have appeared before the Commons foreign affairs committee, and allegations have been made by opposition parties.

However, at the centre of a welter of accusations the issues are straightforward – as Kemi Badenoch has demonstrated with her forensic abilities, which were on show again in the Commons yesterday.

There are two deadly charges against Starmer. One is that No 10 put pressure on the Foreign Office to accelerate Mandelson’s vetting. The other is that due process wasn’t observed in appointing the ‘Prince of Darkness’ to Washington.

Starmer claimed in the Commons last week that ‘no pressure existed whatsoever in relation to this case’. Yet yesterday Sir Philip Barton, former head of the Foreign Office, informed the Foreign Affairs Committee that he was ‘told [by No 10] to get on with’ vetting as quickly as possible.

Sir Philip – a laconic fellow with an unexpected twinkle in his eye – added that he received a letter from Starmer’s principal private secretary to push through ‘the necessary arrangement at pace’.

If that doesn’t amount to pressure, I don’t know what does. No 10 was plainly desperate to appoint Mandelson in December 2024 – so much so that it informed the King and the Trump administration of his appointment before vetting began, which Sir Philip acknowledged was unusual.

In fact, he disclosed that No 10 had initially taken the line that it wasn’t necessary to vet Mandelson because he was a member of the House of Lords.

Sir Olly Robbins, who became head of the Foreign Office in January 2025, made a similar point to the same committee last week. He said No 10 had shown a ‘dismissive attitude’ towards vetting.

So much for ‘due process’ being observed. A child of three can see that Starmer was determined, come hell or high water, to appoint Mandelson. He was influenced by his then chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, who also made an appearance before the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday.

This unprepossessing piece of work is the opposite of Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former consigliere, in one respect. Whereas Cummings tried to shaft Boris after leaving No 10, McSweeney remains loyal to Starmer.

He admitted he had championed Mandelson, and was sorry for ‘his serious error’. But of course all his mistakes – which to judge by yesterday’s evasive performance were legion – should be placed at the door of the man who employed him.

The Government’s latest defence – used on the BBC yesterday by Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson and also by McSweeney – was that there are two kinds of ‘pressure’.

According to them, No 10 wanted the job done quickly, but it didn’t ask the Foreign Office to hurry up the vetting. This is a casuistical distinction. There was pressure.

Sir Philip, and then Sir Olly, clearly felt under the cosh. This must have affected the thoroughness of their work. Sir Olly wished to oblige No 10 by giving it what it sought – a clean bill of health for Mandelson.

For his pains, he was sacked by Starmer on the grounds that the PM hadn’t been told that Mandelson had failed vetting. But the evidence is that No 10 didn’t care about the vetting. It yearned for the Prince of Darkness at any cost.

Sir Olly Robbins may be a self-satisfied ‘Yes’ man and Euro fanatic who did his best to water down Brexit while working for Theresa May. Ignore all that. He was thrown under the bus by Starmer, who is the villain of this story.

It is a bad thing to sack a blameless man. It’s also bad and very foolish to deny that pressure was applied, and to claim that due process was observed, when both assertions are false.

What a deceptive man Starmer is. He looks solid and dependable. A dull dog, but an honest one, has been the judgment of many. It turns out that this particular dog isn’t to be trusted.

We really shouldn’t be surprised. Here is a man who was elected leader of the Labour Party on a hard Left Corbynista platform. Then he changed course dramatically. Having described Jeremy Corbyn as a ‘friend’, he later stated that he was ‘never a friend’.

Labour promised before the 2024 election that it would only raise a few specified taxes. It has hiked numerous ones. Starmer has also exaggerated increases in defence spending, He is stealthily insinuating Britain back into the maw of the EU.

Most politicians bend the truth. I know that. But when Starmer repeatedly claims that Kemi Badenoch wanted Britain to join the US in its war against Iran, he is uttering a serious falsehood.

Is a man who accepts £32,000 in clothes and £2,400 for several pairs of glasses from Labour peer Lord Alli to be accounted honest? It is not the behaviour of a man of integrity.

No, these latest lies shouldn’t surprise us. We should know by this time the measure of the man. To make matters worse, the slippery lawyer is deficient in judgment. Why on earth pick Mandelson of all people, and then expedite his appointment?

Yet Starmer twists and turns, splitting hairs over what constitutes pressure, and pretending that due process was followed when it’s blindingly obvious that it wasn’t.

Our benighted country will be marooned in limbo until his final, inevitable fall, watching helplessly as this mendacious man clings on to power.