Letter from committee on oversight says it is clear the former ambassador ‘holds critical information’ Peter Mandelson has been asked to testify to the US Congress over his relationship with the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Robert Garcia, ranking member of the committee on oversight and government reform, and congressman Suhas Subramanyam have written to Mandelson requesting he be questioned as part of the investigation into Epstein. Continue reading...

Starmer’s Mandelson decision was a spectacular lapse of judgement - and still not a case for detonating the Prime Minister.

Report on handling of pandemic contains stinging criticism of ‘toxic and chaotic’ culture inside Boris Johnson’s No 10 * UK politics live –latest updates The UK’s response to Covid was “too little, too late”, a damning official report on the handling of the pandemic has concluded, saying the introduction of a lockdown even a week earlier than happened could have saved more than 20,000 lives. The document also has stinging criticism of a “toxic and chaotic” culture inside Boris Johnson’s Downing Street – which it said the then prime minister actively embraced – in which the loudest voices held sway and women were sidelined. Continue reading...