How Badenoch forced Labour’s hand on Mandelson

“Will there ever be a normal news week?” one LOTO adviser messaged yesterday. It has been quite a week in Westminster – and one in which Kemi Badenoch has succeeded in carving out the agenda.

Sir Keir Starmer, meanwhile, is on the ropes. Questions over his judgement in appointing Peter Mandelson as US ambassador – despite knowing of his links to the paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein – have sent Labour into open turmoil. Some MPs are now privately calling for his resignation; others are opnely briefing against him. Only a handful of loyalists remain. “It feels like the end of days,” one Labour MP tells me.

And they now have the option for an unholy alliance as Badenoch yesterday – in a speech that was whipped up within 24 hours – made them an offer to join forces: “Let’s talk seriously about a vote of no confidence.”

A Tory shadow cabinet member adds: “You know things are bad when their MPs are telling me – a Conservative shadow secretary of state – just how awful it is.”

Each Conservative intervention has only made matters worse for the Prime Minister. At PMQs prep earlier this week, things felt routine enough. “We did the prep and asked the questions,” one person involved tells me. “The effect was where it all came down.” By forcing Starmer, on the third attempt, to admit that he knew Mandelson had maintained ties with Epstein after his conviction, Badenoch played a blinder.

“She did well to force Keir’s hand,” a shadow cabinet minister says. “Not only blocking his attempt to stitch up the release of documents, but also making him admit he knew about Mandelson’s Epstein connection before appointing him.”

“You could hear everyone gasp and see the Labour benches droop in despair. It was a genuinely shocking moment.”

A Tory adviser adds: “The last thing we expected was that Starmer would finally confess he’d known about Mandelson’s ongoing relationship with Epstein, at which point Kemi’s PMQs request for all documents to go to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) became the only real option for the government.” That was despite Starmer dismissing that very option at PMQs.

Inside Tory HQ, they knew they had spotted a moment of “massive weakness” when Starmer gave in to an opposition humble address (a clever bit of Parliamentary procedure) on his own appointment – the same one he had said he had “full confidence” in when Badenoch challenged him back in September. The deliberately broad wording extends the scope well beyond Mandelson’s appointment to include electronic communications and minutes of meetings between Lord Mandelson and ministers, officials and special advisers during his tenure as ambassador.

That could include messages between the disgraced former ambassador and the Prime Minister himself, as well as his chief of staff – and Mandelson protégé – Morgan McSweeney.

“The benefits of having government experience from responding to humble addresses,” a senior Tory tells me, “and helped by the fact that half the parliamentary Labour party hate Mandelson!”.

One shadow cabinet member jokes that by the time disclosure could come around, McSweeney’s phone will probably be destroyed, at the bottom of the Thames somewhere. “But it doesn’t really matter,” they added, “the damage will be done”.

When originally planning the humble address, Badenoch “was absolutely clear she wanted to force Labour MPs either to collude in a cover-up or vote for total transparency”, a Tory adviser says. After Conservative whips “did a cracking job” leaning on Labour counterparts, by the end of the day No 10 had accepted ISC involvement – and “the Prime Minister looked utterly powerless”.

Tory chief whip Rebecca Harris was central to forcing it through, alongside Meg Hillier, who had called for ISC oversight, and Jeremy Wright, the ISC’s deputy chair. They were seen in intense discussions with Labour chief whip Jonathan Reynolds in the chamber. But it was the former government chief whip, now Leader of the House Sir Alan Campbell, who I’m told ultimately helped shepherd it through without a vote.

Those working in LOTO and the Tory whips’ office are credited with “delivering a masterclass” behind the scenes, alongside Alex Burghart – who led ono the humble address – and Neil O’Brien. “They are superb,” one colleague says.

As another shadow cabinet minister puts it: “We’re getting quite good at this opposition thing.”

The “cherry on top” came when, as one Conservative adviser tells me, “we realised we had enough MPs on both sides ready to hurl insults at Starmer”, prompting the decision to drop their second opposition day topic and devote the entire debate – until 7pm – to Mandelson’s appointment.

The adviser added: “The idea of Starmer being some sort of forensic lawyer must surely now be consigned to history. This is a man who chose not to probe Peter Mandelson’s original claims of innocence. Who chose not to probe the security vetting on Mandelson. And who has been taken apart by Kemi in two PMQs sessions dissecting the Mandelson appointment, to the extent his tenure in No10 is now hanging by a thread.”

Starmer likes to say his career was spent championing victims. Yet he appointed a man he knew had an ongoing relationship with a convicted paedophile to one of the most senior diplomatic jobs in the land.

What happens next is unclear. Many in Westminster expect McSweeney to go first, Starmer later – there is no obvious successor, no easy handover, and a set of awkward local elections to get through in May. But perhaps their fates are bound together.

As one shadow cabinet minister wonders aloud: “Does Keir think: if he has to go, I’ll go too?”

One LOTO source tells me Badenoch wanted her speech yesterday to make clear this was “not just a Westminster bubble story”, which is why she repeatedly stressed that “Britain is not being governed”.

“While Labour lurch around punching themselves in the face,” they say, “the world moves on at pace. And instead of keeping up with it, we have a government that is just not really governing. Not taking any big decisions or passing any important legislation.”

Amid the Mandelson maelstrom, not only have Badenoch and the Tory machine demonstrated their political competence; there was also a personal boost for the Tory leader. At a shadow cabinet meeting this week, pollster Luke Tryl of More in Common noted that Badenoch’s favourability is improving and the party’s polling has stabilised – with her now leading the Conservatives like David Cameron once did.

“Positive news,” one shadow cabinet member texts me. Not a bad way to end the week.