A BBC Radio 4 presenter hit out at a senior minister after he insisted that Keir Starmer did not mislead parliament over Peter Mandelson’s security vetting.

It emerged on Thursday that the ex-Labour peer failed an intense vetting process but was still appointed as the UK’s ambassador to Washington last year.

Mandelson was sacked in September 2025 after the depth of his relationship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein emerged.

Reform UK, the Conservatives and the Greens are now calling for Starmer to resign, claiming he misled parliament when he previously claimed “due process” was followed over Mandelson’s appointment.

No.10 has blamed the Foreign Office for overruling the security advice and giving Mandelson vetted status, claiming ministers were unaware that the ex-Labour peer had failed vetting.

Starmer also sacked the top civil servant in the Foreign Office, Olly Robbins, on Thursday night.

Chief secretary to the prime minister Darren Jones was sent out to bat for the government on BBC Radio 4′s Today programme this morning – and took a verbal lashing from presenter Justin Webb.

Webb said it was “not credible” Robbins would have taken a decision “this momentous” to overrule the advice without mentioning it to the foreign secretary or the prime minister.

But Jones replied, “I find this whole situation astonishing as well,” insisting that he had already suspended the right for the Foreign Office and other organisations to use that exemption.

Webb said it would have been “normal” for the prime minister – who was previously the UK’s director for public prosecutions – to check that he was correct when he told MPs that “due process” was followed in hiring Mandelson.

Jones said the PM only became aware of that fact on Tuesday evening of this week and insisted that Starmer has not misled MPs.

“Come on, Mr Jones, he gave a misleading impression!” Webb replied. “He said at the Commons, ‘full due process was followed at this appointment, as with all our ambassadors’.

“Technically that’s true, but he was giving a misleading impression, wasn’t he? Albeit he didn’t know it himself.

“In those circumstances, he’s meant to go back to the Commons and ’fess up.”

Jones refuted that claim, but Webb hit back: “In that statement in Hastings, he was absolutely clear, wasn’t he, that this had happened. The vetting procedure had been properly done.

“That the vetting procedure, because Lord Mandelson had subsequently been appointed and then had to be fired, the vetting procedure itself was at fault.”

But Jones insisted this was a “failure of the state” that this process was allowed to happen in the way that it did, distancing Starmer’s responsibility.

Webb said: “Number one it’s his job to get a grip of things, number two, he just seems incredibly incurious about things that are important.”

“That is not the case,” Jones insisted. “The Foreign Office did pass the developed vetting status in vetting Peter Mandelson.”

The presenter gave a short laugh, and said: “But the point is did he recommend Mandelson passed it? This all sounds very legalistic and very loyal and I think to most people listening it is simply a fact of have you got a grip or have you not got a grip?

“Are you saying things that are true or things that turn out to be false?

“On both those things – on the grip and on the true or false thing – Sir Keir fails.”

Jones rejected that description and once again blamed the Foreign Office, and said the process was “flabbergasting”.

Webb then asked why Starmer did not tell the Commons on Wednesday before PMQs about the problems with Mandelson’s vetting.

Jones said he asked the cabinet secretary to give him a “detailed list” of the facts before going to MPs.

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Victoria Beckham has spoken out for the first time about her family’s estrangement from her eldest son Brooklyn Peltz Beckham.

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Thursday, the former Spice Girls performer was asked about her family’s ongoing public rift with her eldest child.

Without saying Brooklyn’s name, the fashion designer replied: “We love our children so much.”

She continued: “We’ve always tried to be the best parents that we can be. And you know, we’ve been in the public eye for more than 30 years right now, and all we’ve ever tried to do is protect our children and love our children.

“And, you know, that’s all I really want to say about it.”

Victoria and her husband Sir David Beckham share four children – 27-year-old Brooklyn, 23-year-old Romeo, 21-year-old Cruz and 14-year-old Harper.

Back in January, Brooklyn made headlines the world over with a series of candid Instagram stories, in which he accused his parents of “trying to endlessly ruin” his relationship with his wife, Nicola Peltz Beckham.

Brooklyn took aim at his parents for what he called their ongoing attempts to forcefully try to control “narratives in the press about our family”.

He also alleged that his mum “hijacked” his first dance with Nicola during their 2022 wedding ceremony.

“I have been silent for years and have made every attempt to keep these matters private,” Brooklyn wrote at the time.

“Unfortunately, my parents and their team have continued to go to the press, leaving me with no choice but to speak for myself and tell the truth about only some of the lies that have been printed.”

He added: “I do not want to reconcile with my family. I’m not being controlled, I’m standing up for myself for the first time in my life.”

While Sir David has not addressed his son’s comments directly, he did make some well-timed comments during an appearance on Squawk Box in January, the day after Brooklyn’s posts, telling the show’s hosts that “children are allowed to make mistakes”.

“They make mistakes. Children are allowed to make mistakes. That’s how they learn. So, that’s what I try to teach my kids,” he said. “You have to sometimes let them make those mistakes.”

During the interview, the football icon also spoke about how “dangerous” social media can be.

“I’ve always spoke about social media and the power of social media, for the good and for the bad,” he said.

“The bad, we’ve talked about, what kids can access these days and it can be dangerous. But what I’ve found personally, especially with my kids as well, use it for the right reasons.”

In a move that seems indicative of the Trump administration’s increasingly fractured relationship with the Vatican, Pete Hegseth appeared to mistake lines from a classic crime film for Scripture during a public appearance this week.

The defense secretary delivered a prayer during a livestreamed worship service at the Pentagon on Wednesday. “They call it CSAR 25:17, which I think is meant to reflect Ezekiel 25:17,” he said in his introduction of the prayer he’d been given.

However, viewers quickly noticed his words more closely echoed one of Samuel L. Jackson’s monologues from 1994’s “Pulp Fiction” than the biblical verse he’d referenced.

“The path of the downed aviator is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” Hegseth said in part. “Blessed is he who, in the name of camaraderie and duty, shepherds the lost through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to capture and destroy my brother, and you will know my call sign is Sandy 1 when I lay my vengeance upon thee.”

Watch Pete Hegseth’s prayer service below. His reference to Ezekiel 25:17 begins around the 6:56 mark.

In “Pulp Fiction,” Jackson portrays hit man Jules Winnfield, who offers a similar declaration before shooting a man to death.

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men,” he says. “Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and goodwill, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord, when I lay my vengeance upon thee. And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”

Hegseth said the prayer was recited by the “Sandy 1” combat search and rescue (CSAR) mission in Iran, and to be fair, Pulp Fiction writer-director Quentin Tarantino reportedly drew from a scene in the 1973 Japanese film Bodyguard Kiba as the basis for Jackson’s monologue.

The actual Ezekiel 25:17 passage as it appears in the King James Bible is significantly shorter than both Hegseth’s and Jackson’s, reading simply: “And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.”

Hegseth has yet to address the discourse publicly. The Pentagon’s chief spokesman, Sean Parnell, issued a statement on X Thursday acknowledging the CSAR prayer and Hegseth’s words were “obviously inspired by dialogue” in Pulp Fiction, but that both the prayer and the film scene were “reflections of the verse Ezekiel 25:17, as Secretary Hegseth clearly said in his remarks at the prayer service.”

“Anyone saying the Secretary misquoted Ezekiel 25:17 is peddling fake news and ignorant of reality,” he added.

Still, videos comparing Hegseth’s prayer to Jackson’s monologue went viral online and, as of Thursday, had drawn a fair number of snarky responses.

“When our leaders mix up God and a movie, in trying to suggest that God is behind them, that suggests the muddle we’re all in,” New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof wrote on X.

Journalist and author James North quipped: “The Old Testament’s ‘Book of Tarantino.’”

Hegseth’s prayer gaffe comes amid rising tensions between the Trump administration, including President Donald Trump himself, and high-ranking Catholic leaders.

On Sunday, the president deemed Pope Leo XIV “WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy” in a post on his Truth Social platform after the pontiff criticized both the Iran war and the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.

That same day, Trump drew further outrage when he shared what appeared to be an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ ― or, at the very least, a Christ-like figure ― on Truth Social.

Though the president argued the image was intended to depict him as a doctor, he or his team quietly deleted it after public figures on both sides of the political aisle condemned it as “blasphemous.”

Tucker Carlson went to town on President Donald Trump over his explanation for the AI-generated image he posted of himself looking like Jesus Christ.

During Wednesday’s episode of the Tucker Carlson Show, he described Trump’s post as “disruptive.”

“It’s Donald Trump, president of the United States, dressed as Jesus, healing a man. You can see the healing power coming off of his right hand,” the political commentator said.

Trump, who Carlson described as a “famously irreligious man,” tried to explain his way out of the controversy after he received widespread criticism, even from his own base.

“So, he sent that out and then withdrew it, deleted the tweet from the internet after an outcry, but was asked about it, and he said, ‘Yeah, I sent that’ … And he said, ’I sent it out, but it wasn’t me as Jesus,’ though obviously it is. [Trump said] ‘it was me as a doctor because I heal people.’”

When asked about it a day later, Trump denied even posting the image.

“He said, ‘No, no, I didn’t have anything to do with that. I didn’t send it out,’” Carlson added. “Which wasn’t exactly an answer to the question.”

Carlson then took issue with Trump reposting a doctored photo of Jesus “caressing” him.

“That’s unmistakably Jesus, the Christian Messiah, the man God at the center of Christianity, with his arm around Donald Trump, basically saying, ‘You go, Trump. I’m on your side.’”

So what do Trump’s posts mean, Carlson asked, before answering his own question.

“It’s mockery. He’s mocking Jesus. He’s making fun of Christianity. The central figure of the religion is being held up for mockery,” he said.

Carlson also blasted Trump for threatening war crimes and dropping an F-bomb in another Truth Social post on Easter Sunday.

“And then he seemed to make fun of Islam. ‘Praise Allah,’ he said. So in one short statement of about 110 words, he seemed to give the finger to the world’s two largest religions, Christianity and Islam,” Carlson said.

A week later, Carlson noted, Trump again behaved offensively towards religion.

“Also on Sunday, the Christian holy day, he attacked the pope, the leader of the world’s largest religion and largest Christian denomination, and attacked him personally and said basically, he’s only pope because of me,” Carlson said.

This prompted Carlson to wonder if the US is a “Christian nation.” And if it is fundamentally a Christian nation, what does Trump’s mockery of religion say about the future of America?

“Donald Trump is not the first president to give the finger to Jesus, hardly. But he is the first president to do it in public,” Carlson said.

Watch Carlson’s remarks on “The Tucker Carlson Show” below:

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Keir Starmer sacked the top civil servant in the Foreign Office last night after the row over Peter Mandelson appointment returned.

Hours after it was revealed that the ex-Labour peer failed security vetting but still got the top job as the UK’s ambassador to Washington, the prime minister fired Olly Robbins.

According to the BBC and the Times, Starmer was “furious” after the Guardian reported that the Foreign Office had defied advice from the vetting process and appointed Mandelson anyway.

No.10 insists neither Starmer nor his ministers were aware of this detail until this week.

It read: “Neither the Prime Minister, nor any Government Minister, was aware that Peter Mandelson was granted Developed Vetting against the advice of UK Security Vetting until earlier this week.”

It remains unclear why Mandelson failed the vetting and if Robbins was the person who decided to override security advice.

Mandelson worked as the ambassador to Washington between February and September 2025 before he was fired as the depth of his relationship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was revealed.

He has denied any wrongdoing in connection to the disgraced financier.

Mandelson is currently being investigated by police on suspicion passing market-sensitive information to Epstein when he was a minister under New Labour.

The Conservatives, Reform UK and the Greens have all called for the prime minister to resign.

They accuse him of misleading MPs when he told them in September that “due process had been followed” when it came to hiring the former ambassador to Washington.

According to the Ministerial Code, ministers who knowingly mislead parliament are expected to stand down.