Sky News presenter Trevor Phillips has delivered one of the most pointed assessments yet of Keir Starmer’s handling of the Peter Mandelson vetting scandal, arguing that the Prime Minister chose Mandelson “in the teeth of opposition” from his own cabinet, never adequately questioned his background, and must now live with the consequences of a decision that was always his alone to make.
Opening his Sunday morning programme, Phillips set out the case against the Prime Minister’s repeated insistence that he was simply let down by civil servants who failed to tell him Mandelson had failed his security vetting clearance.
“He chose Mandelson himself, in the teeth of opposition from the foreign secretary, his national security adviser, and from many in his cabinet,” Phillips said. “He then defended that decision month after month. He did so in full knowledge that his choice did business in Russia and China, had palled up with a convicted paedophile and stayed in the man’s home while he had been in jail.”
‘A barrister who never asked the right questions’
Phillips acknowledged that the UKSV vetting failure itself may genuinely not have been communicated to Starmer. But he argued that the broader failure of scrutiny was the Prime Minister’s own responsibility – not Whitehall’s.
“It’s hard to imagine what more could possibly have emerged from the vetting process that could have changed his mind,” Phillips said. “He could have chosen to ask more questions about the background of his candidate for the single most important diplomatic role this country has to offer. After all, as a barrister, forensic questioning is supposed to be his core skill.”
Phillips pointed to his own experience as someone appointed to public office three times – under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown – noting that both prime ministers “took the trouble to speak to me personally.” Starmer, by multiple reports, never spoke directly to Mandelson before giving him the job, and never asked him face-to-face about his links to Jeffrey Epstein. By the Prime Minister’s own admission, he also never asked his advisers what the security team had discovered about Mandelson.
‘Blaming the hired help won’t work’
On Starmer’s decision to sack Foreign Office permanent secretary Olly Robbins following the Guardian’s revelations, Phillips was direct: “If you’re the boss, blaming the hired help won’t work. It never does.”
His concluding assessment was the most withering. “He gambled. And the gamble failed,” he said.
The remarks were made during an interview with cabinet minister Liz Kendall, who sought to defend the Prime Minister against the mounting criticism.
The cabinet response
Kendall pushed back on the characterisation of Starmer as having exercised poor judgement, insisting he is an “honest man” who would have cancelled Mandelson’s appointment had he known about the vetting failure.
She pointed to what she described as a consistent record of sound decision-making in office. “On the fundamental judgements facing this country, whether it’s on international issues, rebuilding our relationship with the EU, saying we won’t get involved in the war… investing in our defence – or whether it’s on domestic issues, lifting children out of poverty, tackling violence against women and girls – all of the big fundamental issues facing this country – the prime minister has made the right calls,” she said.
The defence – focusing on the sweep of Starmer’s policy record rather than the specific question of the Mandelson appointment – is likely to be the government’s consistent line in the days ahead.
The central question
Phillips’ critique identifies what is likely to prove the most politically durable element of the Mandelson scandal: not the bureaucratic question of who knew what about the vetting failure, but the more fundamental question of why Starmer appointed Mandelson at all given what he already knew.
The Cabinet Office’s due diligence report – based entirely on publicly available material – warned Starmer about Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein before the appointment was announced. Starmer proceeded regardless. The Foreign Secretary reportedly opposed the appointment. The national security adviser reportedly had reservations. Senior cabinet members were uncomfortable.
Starmer overruled all of it. He then told parliament that “full due process” had been followed and defended the decision publicly for months until Mandelson was eventually sacked in September 2025 after further details about his Epstein connection emerged.
The Prime Minister has framed his current anger as being directed at civil servants who withheld information. His critics – including Phillips – argue that the information already available to him before the appointment was made was more than sufficient to give pause to any leader exercising careful judgement. The question of whether Starmer asked the questions he should have asked, of the people he should have asked them, is one that a Monday parliamentary statement is unlikely to fully answer.
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