THE Peter Mandelson affair shows that the Prime Minister has lost all authority and cannot effectively govern the country, according to Shadow Science Secretary Julia Lopez.
She told GB News: “Well, it absolutely raises questions about the Prime Minister’s judgement. If you remember, in September when Kemi asked the Prime Minister if he had full confidence in Peter Mandelson, the Prime Minister said that he did.
“And he said that knowing full well about the the ongoing links with Epstein and Mandelson, after Epstein was released from prison, the Prime Minister later admitted in the on the floor of the house that he was aware of that information, and at that point, the the air went out of the room at that stage.
“This does beg questions. Peter Mandelson is not a low risk figure. He has resigned or been sacked from his roles in the New Labour government before and Sir Keir Starmer decided that was a risk worth taking.
“Ministers effectively admitted as much, that they thought that, yes, he’s a risky figure, but he comes with other benefits. And it was not just the issues with the Epstein relationship.
“There were questions to be asked about the deals that were being done when Peter Mandelson was the ambassador to the United States, and questions about a defence deal that was done that wasn’t fully transparent, and the links with Peter Mandelson’s former company.
“So there is a lot to unpick here. And the fact is, we’re now going to have a whole bunch of papers released over a very long period of time. And as those papers are released, it’s going to ask more and more questions of the government of Keir Starmer and his judgement.
“The problem is now, in the meantime, the Prime Minister cannot govern. There are rebellions brewing, left, right and centre among Labour MPs, and he’s lost all authority.
“That’s a real problem for your viewers, because they care about things like, are we going to get immigration reform? Are we going to get welfare reform? Are we going to see jury trials scrapped?
“And the Prime Minister, in the case of jury trials, we hope we can’t get those, those things through, but on other things that are important to the management of the country, we have to really worry that we have someone at the top who doesn’t actually have any authority anymore.”