(Bloomberg) — UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he wasn’t aware of the contents of emails from Peter Mandelson to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein before publicly backing his then-US ambassador in the House of Commons.
Starmer and his Downing Street team are under pressure over why the UK prime minister expressed confidence in Mandelson in Parliament on Wednesday, despite Bloomberg News approaching Mandelson for comment about the Epstein emails on Monday, Sept. 8. The UK government has confirmed that the Bloomberg right-of-reply approach to Mandelson, which included the most damning emails between Mandelson and Epstein and which were the basis for Starmer firing Mandelson, had been seen by the Foreign Office by Tuesday last week.
Starmer’s official spokesman, Dave Pares declined on Monday to say whether or when officials or aides in 10 Downing St. became aware of the Bloomberg right-of-reply approach, and whether that occurred before Starmer defended Mandelson at his regular prime ministers’ questions appearance on Wednesday.
“What I knew before PMQs was that there had been media inquiries, I didn’t know the content of the emails,” Starmer told broadcasters on Monday. “That’s why, at that point, I gave the answer I did at PMQs.”
Bloomberg’s initial message to Mandelson included 20 questions for him based on this cache of emails and gave the then-ambassador until Sept. 12 to respond. Bloomberg subsequently wrote Mandelson, moving forward the deadline to Wednesday. Mandelson didn’t respond to either message.
Starmer’s eventual decision to sack Mandelson on Thursday — which followed on from the resignation of his deputy prime minister the prior week and a cabinet reshuffle before that — has fueled a sense of crisis around Britain’s prime minister, who finds his party lagging in the polls to the populist Reform UK. Starmer’s director of political strategy, Paul Ovenden, separately quit on Tuesday amid media allegations about his past conduct.
–With assistance from Ellen Milligan.
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