Epstein Files: Starmer Under Pressure Over Mandelson

Summary

Newscast: "Epstein Files: Starmer Under Pressure Over Mandelson"

BBC News | February 4, 2026
Host(s): Adam Fleming, Chris Mason, Laura Kuenssberg

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Episode Overview

This episode covers the rapidly escalating scandal involving Peter Mandelson’s links to Jeffrey Epstein, Keir Starmer’s leadership under fire, and the Labour government’s handling of calls for transparency. With Westminster in uproar, the team dissects both the day’s dramatic parliamentary events and the wider political fallout—also featuring a discussion with Laura Kuenssberg about Reform UK and her new documentary.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Mandelson-Epstein Scandal: Events Unfold Chronologically

PMQs: Starmer’s Tone and Revelations ([03:09]–[09:57])

• The episode is structured chronologically due to the sheer volume and complexity of the day’s news.
• The first major moment: Keir Starmer’s strikingly forceful condemnation of Peter Mandelson during Prime Minister’s Questions. He uses only Mandelson’s surname, accuses him of “betrayal,” and repeatedly claims Mandelson “lied” about his relationship with Epstein.
  • Notable quote (Starmer):

    “Mandelson betrayed our country, our Parliament and my party. Mr Speaker, he lied repeatedly to my team…” ([04:38])

• Starmer refers Mandelson to the police, pledges legislation to strip Mandelson of his title, and moves to remove him from the Privy Council, with the King’s agreement.

Security Vetting and Parliamentary Drama ([06:45]–[14:39])

• Kemi Badenoch presses Starmer: Did security vetting mention Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein?
  • Starmer admits it did, but says Mandelson misrepresented the relationship and lied throughout the process.
  • Notable quote (Starmer):

    “Yes, it did… Mandelson completely misrepresented the extent of his relationship with Epstein and lied throughout…” ([07:19])

• Chris Mason explains why this on-the-record acknowledgment—while somewhat expected—has outsized weight: it “opened the door” for further questions about the government’s judgment and threshold for appointments.

Parliamentary Maneuvering and Labour MP Dissent ([09:57]–[18:57])

• Conservatives use the humble address procedure to demand all documents related to Mandelson’s vetting are published.
• Labour MPs—many uneasy—push for the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) to oversee any vetting disclosure, signaling deep mistrust of Downing Street and even of their own party’s leadership.
  • Notable observation (Fleming):

    “…implying subtextually that they didn’t trust their own Prime Minister and Downing Street to release the whole story.” ([17:29])

  • Chris Mason notes the “black mood” and describes Labour MPs as feeling forced ‘to defend the indefensible’.

Police Investigation and Delays ([14:48]–[19:43])

• The Metropolitan Police announce a formal inquiry into Mandelson, requesting that related materials not be immediately published to avoid prejudicing any proceedings.
  • It’s revealed that Starmer’s PMQs statement was toned down on police advice.
• Mason walks listeners through the two-stage ambassadorial vetting procedure: initial “due diligence” and a highly intrusive “developed vetting,” noting only a tiny circle sees the latter’s full findings.

Unprecedented Measures and Leadership Fallout ([19:43]–[22:36])

• The week’s actions—removing Mandelson from the Privy Council, giving police access to Cabinet documents—are significant, even historic, steps.
• Angela Rayner’s vocal role on the Labour backbenches displayed open tensions and has “leadership challenge” undertones.
  • Fleming reflects:

    “…feels a bit. Leadership challenging. To create a new horrible word.” ([21:49])

  • Mason: “There is a sense of where does the Prime Minister go from here with this lingering in the air?... It’s a perilous moment, this, for the Prime Minister, no doubt about it.” ([22:00])

2. Broader Repercussions and Political Context

Internal Labour Discord and Damage to Starmer ([11:10]–[21:49])

• Many Labour MPs fear lasting reputational damage and resent being forced into defending an appointment many already saw as high-risk.
• Rumbles of discontent focused not only on Starmer but on his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney.

Royal Developments & Epstein Files

• Side discussion of Prince Andrew’s (Mountbatten-Windsor) move out of Royal Lodge, amidst renewed scrutiny of the Epstein files ([22:36]).

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Interview: Laura Kuenssberg on Mandelson, Labour, and Reform UK

([26:28]–[49:50])

Kuenssberg’s Mandleson Take ([26:30]–[33:48])

• Kuenssberg calls the Mandelson scandal an “absolute scandal of epic proportion.”
  • Memorable quote (Kuenssberg):

    “It’s not just that Peter Mandelson had huge questions to answer about his decisions around his social life and his links with the convicted paedophile… There are now a paper trail of questions of a member of Gordon Brown’s cabinet giving commercially sensitive information to the banking sector during the very moment of an international financial crisis. It’s astonishing...” ([26:55])

• She reflects on Mandelson’s role as “Mr. Fix It” in Gordon Brown’s government and how revelations suggest this ended in tears.
• The level of Labour’s current instability is profound, with Starmer’s position “not in a solid place right now.”
  • The possibility of texts emerging between Mandelson and Starmer’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney is raised as a political danger.

Reform UK Documentary: Power vs. Rhetoric ([35:01]–[45:23])

• Kuenssberg’s documentary “Reform: Ready to Rule?” follows Reform UK’s transition from oppositional force to running major councils (notably Kent), highlighting how opposition slogans often founder against the gritty reality of governing.
  • Memorable quote (Kuenssberg):

    “There’s a rhetoric and there’s a reality.”

• She observes significant splits, struggles with local government, and the learning curve many Reform councillors face.

Notable Farage Interview Excerpt ([40:31])

• Farage’s revealing leadership admission:
  • Quote (Farage):

    "Do you know the worst thing about this job? ...You wake up in the morning and you know a local councillor from somewhere in the country has done something or said something, and guess what? You're the one that's responsible." ([40:31])

  • The team notes: for a leader, this is strikingly candid yet also potentially damaging, as he seems less interested in the hard work of responsibility.

Farage and School Controversies ([45:23]–[49:50])

• Kuenssberg challenges Farage on allegations of racism and anti-Semitism from his schooldays.
  • Farage’s response is a “qualified politician’s apology”—“if they genuinely were [hurt], then that’s a pity and I’m sorry, but, but, but, but never ever did I intend to hurt anybody.” ([45:29])
• A former classmate, Peter Edwy, rejects this as a non-apology and says urgent questions remain about Farage’s fitness for public office.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (w/ Timestamps)

• Keir Starmer (on Mandelson):
  “He lied repeatedly to my team…If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near government.” ([04:38])
• Adam Fleming (on House mood):
  “…what is the threshold for a friendship with a convicted paedophile that means you wouldn't get hired at all?” ([09:57])
• Laura Kuenssberg (on scandal scope):
  “This is definitely one of the most shocking, if not the most shocking episodes. I don't say that lightly.” ([31:18])
• Nigel Farage (on political leadership):
  “...that’s the trouble with political leadership is you actually become responsible for everything.” ([40:31])
• Laura Kuenssberg (on Labour):
  “Keir Starmer’s leadership is not in a solid place right now.” ([31:34])

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Important Segments & Timestamps

• [03:09] – Day’s events in Parliament—the PMQs showdown.
• [04:38] – Starmer’s historic condemnation of Mandelson.
• [07:19] – Security vetting revelations.
• [09:57] – Debate about thresholds and government vetting.
• [14:39] – The process of document review/ISC involvement.
• [17:29] – Labour MPs show lack of trust in Starmer.
• [21:49] – Discussion of Angela Rayner’s leadership posture.
• [26:55] – Kuenssberg’s verdict: “a scandal of epic proportion.”
• [35:01] – Kuenssberg on reality vs. rhetoric for Reform UK.
• [40:31] – Farage candidly discusses the burdens of leadership.
• [45:29] – Farage grilled on school racism/antisemitism allegations.

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Episode Tone and Takeaways

• The tone is one of stunned seriousness—with even veteran reporters frequently expressing surprise at the political gravity and speed of events.
• Repeatedly, the phrase “astonishing,” “unprecedented,” and “shocking” are used to describe both Mandelson’s alleged actions and the Labour government’s responses.
• There’s palpable sense of peril for Keir Starmer, with both his authority and his political future in jeopardy.
• Laura Kuenssberg’s segments on Reform UK add a broader context of political volatility and outsider parties struggling to translate radical critiques into competent governance.

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Useful for Listeners Who Haven’t Tuned In:
This episode details the most consequential day in British politics in months: Starmer’s government rocked by Mandelson’s disgrace, Labour ranks in open dissent, the police investigating, and the opposition seizing on every word. With expert analysis and key on-the-record moments, the episode also pulls back to ask what it means for the state of Labour and the future of British politics. The latter half offers a sharp, nuanced look at Reform UK’s struggles and the personal dimensions of their leader.

(Advertisements, intros, and outros have been omitted in this summary.)

Transcript

[Adam Fleming]

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[Adam Fleming]

Chris it's a slightly later recording of newscast we are sitting down at quarter past seven on Wednesday the 4th of February.

[Chris Mason]

Yes. And not quite in the sort of Brexitcast sort of half eleven or half midnight or whatever. But there's a, you know, we've awaited for a parliamentary process to reach its conclusion inclusion, haven't we?

[Adam Fleming]

Although there was an opposition party using a parliamentary procedure called a Humble Address to compel the government to publish things that it initially hadn't wanted to publish. So actually it does have quite a Brexitcast feel to it.

[Chris Mason]

Their dear newscaster is Adam's tone of voice taking on a thing that just creates ring binders in my mind.

[Adam Fleming]

Exactly. Also so actually, Chris, just so I'm clear in my mind about what's happened to it, I think we've got two things now. One, there is a process for for the government now releasing all its documents that it generated while vetting Peter Mandelson and deciding whether he should be appointed ambassador in Washington. Although it's quite a convoluted process that's been invented here.

[Chris Mason]

Yes. So in essence, exactly that where the Conservatives used a technique that we can get into when we're properly up and running. And it means that in time the government is going to publish some documents, but not immediately, certainly not today as we record on Wednesday, not least because the police have said hang on. We're doing an inquiry, so be careful.

[Adam Fleming]

And the subplot, or the second point, is that Keira Starmer's authority amongst his own colleagues has taken another big knock.

[Chris Mason]

It has. And I've been actually surprised at how black the mood is now amongst quite a few Labour MPs, all to be.

[Adam Fleming]

Discussed on this episode of Newscast, Newscast.

[Laura Kay]

Newscast from the BBC.

[Nigel Farage]

Fat Boy Slim and me in the.

[Adam Fleming]

Classroom doing our violin lessons.

[Laura Kay]

I was the tattletale in the classroom.

[Nigel Farage]

Can I have an apology, please?

[Chris Mason]

I trust almost nobody.

[Nigel Farage]

Then Daddy has to sometimes do strong language.

[Laura Kay]

Next time in mosque, I feel delulu with no salulu.

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Take me down the Downing Street. Let's go have a tour.

[Chris Mason]

Blimey.

[Adam Fleming]

Hello, it's Adam, the newscast studio, and.

[Chris Mason]

It is Chris at Westminster and we.

[Adam Fleming]

Will be talking to Laura Kay later on. Oh, well, I spoke to her earlier today because she's got a new documentary out on iplayer about reform uk and I also wanted to pick her brains about the whole Mandelson story because she has been reporting on Peter Mandelson for a very, very long time. Right, Chris. So I think we should maybe just do today chronologically, because that's probably the easiest way to understand it. The first big moment was at Prime Minister's questions midday. And basically the mood at that point.

[Chris Mason]

Was, well, it was one where the government had said it was going to. It was willing to publish stuff, documents that it had in its possession relating to the whole business of the appointments of Lord Mandelson as the Ambassador in Washington. Then you have PMQs, and I was told in advance, you know, we could expect the Prime Minister to be pretty punchy and, you know, he was. And. And here's the contrast for newscasters who heard the last edition and that joke a year ago that the Prime Minister cracked at Lord Mandelson's expense in the British Embassy in Washington, referring to him by his first name. There was lots of bonamy and joviality and all the rest of it. Fast forward 11 months because that was at the tail end of February last. And the kind of spitting language and tone of Keir Starmer at lunchtime on Wednesday.

[Adam Fleming]

And here is Keir Starmer doing that in response to a question from Kemi Badenok.

[Nigel Farage]

Mandelson betrayed our country, our Parliament and my party. Mr. Speaker. He lied repeatedly to my team when asked about his relationship with Epstein before and during his tenure as ambassador. I regret appointing him. If I knew then what I know now, he would never have been anywhere near government. And that is why Mr. Speaker, yesterday, the Cabinet Secretary, with my support, took the decision to refer material to the police and there is now a criminal investigation. I have instructed my team to draft legislation to strip Mandelson of his title and wider legislation to remove disgraced peers. And this morning I've agreed with His Majesty the King that Mandelson should be removed from the list of Privy Councillors on grounds that he's brought the reputation of the Privy Council into disrepute.

[Adam Fleming]

So, yeah, Chris, a few things there, just the use of the surname, no full name or Lord, the word betrayal, which again, is quite a big word to use in the House of Commons, and the repeated use of the L word. Lies.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah. I mean, this. This is a Prime Minister who doesn't like to use superlatives. He is. He is moderate in his use of language as his holding position. He also doesn't like to be emotional. I don't think in. In public, doesn't find that particularly easy. It is. It is clearly easier when you are authentically boiling with anger, which he is. And plenty of senior Labour figures are, particularly those who've known Lord Mandelson for a long time, who kind of get that he is a particular character, that he's a risky pick for jobs, that his CV bears that out, but who have found these latest revelations, both the ones a few months ago that led to his sacking and then these ones now as just on another level, and even saying another level doesn't really do them justice.

[Adam Fleming]

And then Kemi Badenok continued, kind of probing what the Prime Minister had known when about Peter Mandelson's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. And then she elicited what some people have described as a bit of a revelation from him. But here's how it played out in the comments.

[Laura Kay]

I am asking the Prime Minister something very specific, not about the generalities of the full extent. Can the Prime Minister tell us, did the official security vetting he received mention Mandelson's ongoing relationship with the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein?

[Chris Mason]

Prime Minister?

[Nigel Farage]

Yes, it did. As a result, various questions were put to him. I intend to disclose to this House all of the national security prejudice to international relations on one side. I want to make sure this House sees the full documentation so it will see for itself the extent to which. The extent to which, time and time again, Mandelson completely misrepresented the extent of his relationship with Epstein and lied throughout the process, including in response to the due diligence.

[Adam Fleming]

Now, Chris, help me understand this here, because I was under the impression that Keir Starmer knew that Peter Mandelson had had a friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and that that friendship had continued after Epstein had been released from prison in the US in 2009. But why did that, that statement from Starmer there, provoke ooze from MPs who thought they'd heard something new there?

[Chris Mason]

I think it did provoke ooze because firstly, they thought this is a kind of exchange and a acknowledgment from the Prime Minister that will have a certain. Yeah, certain amount of legs, if you like, as a clip on social media and elsewhere. Secondly, it confirmed on camera that the Prime Minister knew of the association and for many, that was sufficient grounds, without any further evidence, to have never considered him to the appointment of the job in Washington. I think it is also fair to say that implicitly, it's been assumed for ages that the Prime Minister knew of what was already in the public domain about the relationship between the friendship between Epstein and Lord Mandelson. It would have been more revelatory, it seems to me, just to run the counterfactual, if presented with that question, the Prime Minister had said, no, they had absolutely no idea at all. Because then the clear follow up would have been, well, surely that's a complete lack of curiosity given what you could have found if you'd gone onto Google, basically. So I think it's important to acknowledge that implicitly we had assumed what the Prime Minister acknowledged out loud today. But it's a moment where he is in a very, very tight spot around his judgment. You know, his opponents clearly saw that as a. As, if not a revelation, then an important thing to secure on camera, on the record.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah, it was a moment of clarity. That then meant in the very long debate that came afterwards, Opposition MP after Opposition MP and A few Labour MPs could then say, well, hang on though, what is the threshold for a friendship with a convicted paedophile? That means you wouldn't get hired at all. And that statement or that answer from Starmer sort of open the door to that, that kind of rhetorical device in the debate. Okay, so then we get into the debate and what was happening here was it was an Opposition day debate, which is where the Conservatives, sometimes it's the Lib Dems or the other parties get control of the parliamentary order paper. They made the subject of the debate this afternoon, a humble address which is a mechanism that would force the government to publish all the documents as part of Lord Mandelson's vetting. And the Conservative motion had a lot of documents, including messages between special advisors and government departments that they wanted to. The government proposed an amendment to that that said, well, we reserve the right to hold stuff back if there's national security implications or kind of diplomatic implications for the UK's relationship with other countries. But that provoked fireworks not just from the Conservatives, but also loads of Labour MPs as well. They, they then said, that stinks of a cover up.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, completely that. So this is what I think has led to this kind of more black mood Amongst more Labour MPs, as we record on Wednesday, than I must admit I would have anticipated today, at the beginning of today. And I think the reason for that is this recurring sense from plenty of Labour MPs of having to defend the indefensible as they see it, but then also with this story in particular, because that sense is an accumulation of lots of moments where the government's about turned or they've had to defend something that then the government's changed its mind on or whatever. With the specific on this, there was just, given the gravity of what we've discovered covered in the last few days, this sense from labor, mps are already being hammered by, you know, anyone who they seek to talk to along the lines of why on earth did your government appoint this guy as the ambassador? That they did not want to be seen to be being in any sense sort of lethargic or slow to being as candid or open as is possible to be around this whole thing and to put as much distance as they possibly can between Lord Mandelson and them. So the Conservative motion asked for a huge amount of, of, of information. The government's argument was, was threefold. We're happy to reveal stuff on three conditions. One, is that it doesn't get in the way of national security. Two, that it doesn't imperil international relationships. That means the relationship with the Trump administration, given that the traffic, if you like, around all of this is going to be about London and Washington and Donald Trump and all the rest of it, given the job that Peter Mandelson did. And three, and they sought to use this as a reassurance exercise with MPs, but it didn't work, that this would not be a political decision about which documents were released and which weren't. It would be overseen by the Cabinet secretary, the country's most senior civil servant, and some other legal officials within government. Fast forward a handful of hours. It became pretty clear almost immediately, really, that the government was. That was just not enough. It just wasn't enough. And by that I mean it wasn't enough for Labour MPs, because, remember, Labour's got a majority, so the opposition parties can, can make all sorts of noises and, and often do so effectively and with passion and with zeal and all the rest of it. But numerically, you know, they're in a minority. It was clear within. It was clear within the Commons on Labour's benches from actually early on, Angela Rayner, former Deputy Prime Minister, standing up and saying publicly, look, let's get the Intelligence and Security Committee involved here. Now, let me explain that that is a cross party group of MPs and peers who have additional security clearance to exam that can't be seen in public. But it is parliamentarians, politicians rather than officials, and it includes people from opposition parties and the government has conceded on that. So the isc, as it's known as a shorthand here, will oversee that process, which means that politicians who are savvy around material that is private for good reasons, or so the state concludes this for good reasons, is going to oversee this. The government is frankly really worried that might mean that politics intervenes and that stuff that could jeopardize the relationship between London and Washington ends up in the public domain as a result of this whole Mandelson row.

[Adam Fleming]

And also, it's just a big job, just at a practical level, for these MPs to scan all these documents and work out if something is able to be put in the public domain.

[Chris Mason]

It's a massive job because the breadth and scale of it is significant. And then on top of that, the additional twist that came at about six o' clock on Wednesday evening is a new statement from the Metropolitan Police. Police, because the government had intended to publish some of this material today, the Metropolitan Police saying, look, we are investigating Lord Mandelson and some of this material that could very easily have quickly been published, we think could potentially be prejudicial to any future legal proceedings involving the case that they're looking into. And let's not get ahead of ourselves, but the police are, you know, clearly beginning an inquiry into Lord Mandelson and they think that it wouldn't be a good idea for that to be published. And the government accepts that. So it's running a parallel to alongside, if you like, this whole political process is one of the police saying, well, look, we're doing, we are looking, we're pursuing a criminal inquiry here, therefore don't start presenting stuff out there in public that could get in the way of that. I'm told, by the way, that the Prime Minister was intending to be much more specific at Prime Minister's questions than he was. And it was advice from the police that led to a hasty rewrite of what he did say. One other thing I should mention, Adam, is that I was at a briefing at lunchtime after PMQs about the whole business of, you know, what happens when you appoint someone to be Ambassador to Washington. And there's two things that happen. One is that there is a, an initial process of due diligence that is effectively a examination of what's already in the public domain around someone's character and suitability for the, for the role in terms of, in terms of their background. It's a glorified googling session. Basically secondary to that, after the appointment is out there and has been confirmed, is this process of developed vetting, which is a process that crawls all over all sorts of aspects of your life. It's pretty intrusive, but only a very narrow band of officials see the outcome of that because it is incredibly personally intrusive. It's all about trying to ensure that you can't be blackmailed, for instance. And it's pretty much a binary outcome. The outcome of that is either it's fine or it isn't. There are some circumstances where it can be fine if there are certain mitigations, but the details of that don't go to ministers and they don't go to the Prime Minister because of just how personally invasive it is. And clearly we know, we don't know the specifics, but we know that the outcome of that process was that Lord Madison went to Washington.

[Adam Fleming]

I think the important thing to remember here, and this just was really ringing in my ears as I was listening to this debate this afternoon. Every time a Labor mp, including, as you said, people like the former Deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said, oh, we should get the Intelligence and Security Committee of the, of the House of Commons involved in kind of screening this material that was implying subtextually that they didn't trust their own Prime Minister and Downing street to release the whole story. Yeah, and it's like nobody said that explicitly on the Labour benches, but that is the implication of saying, let's get the ISC involved.

[Chris Mason]

It is exactly the implication. It is precisely that. And it is also an implication, just to take it one notch further from those Labour MPs who articulated a desire for the ASC to be involved, is that they put greater trust in a cross party group of their peers, by which I mean MPs and members of the House of Lords, including those that therefore, by definition who are politically opposed to the government rather than, if you like, the bowels of the state involved, including the Cabinet Secretary. And you heard in PMQ's quite a passionate defence from the Prime Minister about what he felt was a sort of implicit criticism of the integrity of the Cabinet Secretary as opposed to, you know, when that was being proposed, as the, as the, as the mechanism for, for doing this.

[Adam Fleming]

And Chris, have you heard yet from Lord Mandelson on the record, officially?

[Chris Mason]

No.

[Adam Fleming]

Well, that's that then. I mean, what we understand though, about his take on all of this is that he's not acted in any way criminally and he was not motivated at any point by financial gain. That's the gist that we have of what he feels about this.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, absolutely that. And I think he is now aware, in addition to what was our understanding of where his sort of mind was in response to all of this 24 hours ago, I think he is now obviously aware that the context is one of a police investigation, which in this, in these kind of instances often leads those caught up in them to be even more reticent about what they say publicly.

[Adam Fleming]

Do you know what, now that we've sat down and sort of taken a breath from today's news, I'm just thinking back to the end of the so called winding up speech, which is the last speech speech given by the Minister in the debate before the MPs vote, although in this case they actually didn't vote because everyone agreed this is what should happen. And it's a guy called Chris Ward who used to be like a quite close aide to Starmer, kind of behind the scenes and he was just listing the things the government had already done this week and each one is quite a sort of jaw dropping thing to have happened. But of course everyone's just moved on from those things like agreeing with the King that Lord Mandelson would be removed from the Privy Council, which is that select group of people who advise the monarch. That's quite a big deal. And even just back to yesterday Tuesday, the government giving permission to the Cabinet Office to give material to the police that could trigger a criminal investigation into somebody who less than a year ago was one of the government's most high profile figures. Like all of those things are huge and they just happened in the last 36 hours. And we move on from them to all of all the stuff that happened today.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, and one way, and we've seen this continuing today, where Downing street, incredibly conscious that its back is against the wall around all of this. Let's be clear, the Prime Minister's had one of his toughest days today, that they are responding on the record. So in a way where we can quote them directly every time. There's a development in all of this, such as the desperation to put this vast gap between them and Peter Mandelson, given that they volunteered that there wouldn't be a vast gap because they appointed him to the job in Washington. It keeps circling back to that and is now becoming the latest of many sticks, if you like, that the Prime Minister's critics on his own side are using to beat him with.

[Adam Fleming]

And not to make it sound like there's about to be an imminent leadership challenge against Keir Starmer, but the fact it was Angela Raynor sort of leading the charge from the back benches to get the government to where they've ended up tonight feels a bit. Leadership challenging.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

To create a new horrible word.

[Chris Mason]

Yeah, yeah. And. And there is a sense of that, as we record at half seven on. On Wednesday evening, there is a. There is a. I think, you know, you're absolutely right to make that point. And there is a sense of where does the Prime Minister go from here with this lingering in the air? Now, what I can tell you is on Thursday, so tomorrow he's going to be. Be out and about giving a speech, talking about this theme he's constantly trying to get back to, and he constantly gets buffeted away from cost of living and no doubt will face a gazillion questions about Lord Mandelson, Epstein, etc, etc, Etc. It's a perilous. It's perilous. It's a perilous moment, this for the Prime Minister, no doubt about it.

[Adam Fleming]

And we've given Daniela Ralph, our Royal correspondent, an evening off from newscasting today. But there's been a few other royal developments as well. Not Andrew Mountbatten. Windsor has finally, I'm gonna say, been moved out, because I can imagine it maybe wasn't that voluntary From Royal Lodge, his big house in Windsor, Great Park. He's temporarily moving to somewhere else on the way to moving to Sandringham. So that's. And there's also more combing of the Epstein files being done as well and all sorts of other claims and things emerging from that. Right, Chris, thank you very much, Tara. Now, I'm guessing Chris will not have time tonight to tune in to Laura Kay's new documentary that she's been working on for months and months and about Reform uk, but I did have time to watch a sneak preview of it, although you can now watch it because it's on iPlayer 2 for everyone. And then this afternoon at about 2 o', clock, I had a chat with Laura about the documentary because it's it's worth digging into some of the stuff that she uncovered. And also we started the conversation by just getting her take on the Peter Mandelson story because of course her and Paddy were covering it on Sunday when we'd had some revelations from the Epstein files, but not all of the revelations that were that we've been grappling with this week. So here's the conversation I had with Laura on Wednesday afternoon at 2pm.

[Laura Kay]

Hey, this is US Olympic Gold medalist.

[Adam Fleming]

Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic Gold medalist Hunter Woodhull.

[Laura Kay]

As athletes, our lives are about having.

[Adam Fleming]

A clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust.

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[Adam Fleming]

Laura hello.

[Laura Kay]

Hello Adam.

[Adam Fleming]

And people's ears are not deceiving them. It is not Saturday or Sunday. It's Wednesday the 4th of February. We will talk about your documentary, which I watched a couple of hours ago and very much enjoyed in a second. But first of all, the Peter Mandelson story, or Mandelson as the Prime Minister referred to him in Prime Minister's Questions Today. We got your take take on it, where it was on Sunday. Obviously a lot has happened since then. Where's your head at now?

[Laura Kay]

Well, on Sunday, this was a story that was incredibly embarrassing and damaging for Peter Mandelson's own reputation. It gave more pause for thought and concern around Keir Starmer's judgment about giving him the job in the first place. But now we're into a completely different realm, I have to say. It's not just that Peter Randelson had huge questions to answer about his decisions around his social life and his links with the convicted paedophile, many of which had been gone over before. It's not just that there were questions about payments between him and Jeffrey Epstein, which emerged in the early hours of Sunday. There are now a paper trail of questions of a member of Gordon Brown's cabinet given commercially sensitive information to the banking sector during the very moment of an international financial crisis. It's astonishing. And I was talking to somebody about this this morning, talking to one of my contacts who's saying this is an absolute scandal of epic proportion. And even those people who had questioned the wisdom of bringing Peter Mandelson back into government, not just to become American ambassador, but people who questioned the wisdom of Gordon Brown bringing him back to do that job, would have had absolutely no idea that this was all going on. So, I mean, I think it's just taken on an incredibly toxic life of its own and it's very, very difficult for the government to manage it without question.

[Adam Fleming]

And also just doing a little bit of kind of retrospective stuff. I was a very, very baby journalist at Westminster when Peter Mendelssohn came back in 2008 at the height of the financial crisis. You were much more experienced than me then, but he was so, a lot.

[Laura Kay]

Less experienced than I am now.

[Adam Fleming]

He was so central to that bit of that government, wasn't it?

[Laura Kay]

Oh, he was. I mean, he was regarded as the sort of Deputy Prime Minister, you know, for context, for those who are lucky enough to be a lot younger than I am, you know, at that moment. Gordon Brown having in the end managed to get the keys to number 10 and move next door when Tony Blair was eventually forced out, he almost from the moment who moved in was somebody who struggled with some aspects of being Prime Minister. And Peter Mandelson was brought back therefore as a sort of Mr. Fix It. You know, the guy with the cunning, the guy with the guile, the guy who could come back in and give Gordon Brown, Brown's government a story, who could come and give Gordon Brown's government some more political expertise and perhaps a bit of political polish. I mean, what does that sound like? A government that looked to Peter Mandelson to give them a bit more political guile and a bit of more political expertise, you know, and he was seen as a sort of Mr. Fix it at that point. It's well worth knowing that there were questions absolutely about him being brought back into government at this point. And there were always people who looked at him in Whitehall and sort of thought, well, you've just got to be careful because this often ends in tears. That's not to doubt the fact that in many regards he had incredible political expertise and experience. But he was therefore, you know, a big, big player in Gordon Brown's government. He of course is absolutely horrified. Other people who were in government then are absolutely horrified. And you know, it's one thing to imagine that Peter Madison had lots of contacts and he might have, you know, whisper this here and whispered it there with the benefit of getting information back in, if you see what I mean, from contacts, that sort of two way street of how political communication can work, but the idea that he was passing classified market sensitive information outside the government at a moment of genuine, genuine crisis, I have to say I just think it's absolutely astonishing. I really, really do. And you know, over the years I've covered a lot of things, a lot of episodes of politicians misdeeds, a lot of episodes of Politicians, mistakes, a lot of things that you kind of think, oh, my goodness, I can't believe they did that. Whether it was, you know, Chris Hume being alleged to have got his wife to take his speeding points, or Boris Johnson discussing tax changes with Dyson, the Hoover entrepreneur. You know, there've been a lot of things that have popped up where politicians mistakes and misdeeds have caught up with them or emerged into the public glare and caused a lot of outrage. But I think in all the years that I've been doing these kinds of jobs and around the place, this, for me, this is definitely one of the most shocking, if not the most shocking episodes. I don't say that lightly.

[Adam Fleming]

No, no, of course not. And I was just going to say that, that a lot of those other stories, they. They follow a bit of a story arc where there's a kind of inevitability to them about what's going to happen. This does not feel like that. This feels like it could go in multiple directions, that it's very hard to predict.

[Laura Kay]

Oh, completely. You know, there's a police investigation. Who knows that what will. What that will turn up. There could be yet more coming out of these files. There could be all sorts of legal, legal suits to follow still in the States. So I think it's incredibly hard and it would be incredibly daft to predict. All I'll say is we did, Paddy did say at the weekend end is who knows what happens next. But look, there is a scenario where this takes a few more pieces out of the already very wobbly Jenga tower to, you know, the metaphor that, you know, and newscasters know that I love to use, you know, Keir Starmer's leadership is not in a solid place right now. That was not the case last week before this all blew up. That was not the case the week before. It was not the case the week before or the week before. And the focus is again very much on his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and whether or not his backing and his desire to see Peter Mandelson in that job will ultimately cost him his own. And people have asked before, and if that comes to pass, they will ask again. Is there a project Keir Starmer without Morgan McSweeney behind it? So the political damage for Downing street could be absolutely enormous. That said, there are other eventualities who here, you know, we just. We just do not know. But can you imagine a world in which texts or whatsapps between Peter Mandelson and Morgan McSweeney come into the public domain? Who knows what would be in them? I'm not saying I know what would be in them, but the question of the Prime Minister's judgment, and particularly the judgment of his chief of staff, who already has a target on his back, for many labor mps, those are once more back in the frame, even though they are about the mistakes, the terrible mistakes made by somebody else else who they believe betrayed them, let them down. And as you've already talked with Chris about, in terms of what happened in Parliament, to hear a Prime Minister stand at the dispatch box and say he lied and lied and lied was quite something. But, you know, there is not enough distance in the world that Keir Starmer could put between him and Peter Manelson right now.

[Adam Fleming]

And we should remind newscasters that Peter Manelson has not responded to requests for comment on these specific allegations. But the BBC understands his position is that he has not acted in any way criminally and that he's not motivated by financial gain. At least that's our understanding of how he.

[Laura Kay]

That is our understanding. But it's also worth saying, you know, we spoke to him a couple of weeks ago to hear what he thought about what Donald Trump was up to, but also to ask him tricky questions for the first time about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. You know, we spoke to him because it was the first time we'd been able to put those questions to him since he'd been sacked. And he sat there and he said he didn't know anything about Jeffrey Epstein, the sexual side of his life. Messages published now show them laughing and joking about some elements of that, which, if you've seen them, some people will find to have been incredibly distasteful. We know now about his very extensive discussion of business matters and finance. And again, he said, oh, I told Downing street everything, and essentially was, you know, nothing else to know. Those are things that he's previously seen on the record, with which recent revelations make look stretchy, to say the least.

[Adam Fleming]

Right? Now, let's come on to your documentary about reform, which is on BBC2 and available on iPlayer. I highly recommend it. Five stars out of five.

[Laura Kay]

Thanks. No, it's a tough critic.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah, well, I mean, I was always going to give it five, wasn't I? But it's a genuine five. What is interesting, though, is that it doesn't start off like whiz bang, mega scoop, drama, drama, drama. It starts off with you having a conversation basically, with the viewer explaining why you wanted to do this, and also the grief that you get as a journalist from people who think you're giving Nigel Faris too much publicity. But that was a very intriguing way, but also very authentic and honest way of starting it.

[Laura Kay]

Oh, that's interesting. I mean, I think, look, we do live in an era, right, where sometimes people find it objectionable to hear things that they don't like to hear hear or find it objectionable to hear from people who they don't like. And yeah, that's interesting you picked that out. I mean, I think particularly with Nigel Farage, if people haven't watched it yet, it is, maybe it's worth saying, and we felt it was worth putting in the film with a politician of his nature. It is true, absolutely, that people say, ah, you shouldn't speak to him, you shouldn't put him on TV or giving him a platform. Well, if the public is telling us that his party, Reform is their preferred option for government, and they've been telling us that for many, many, many, many, many, many months, it is surely our duty as journalists to ask questions of that party and also to understand frankly what is going on. Because whether you love them or loathe them, and I know that there are people who feel very strongly both ways. Reform has already pulled off something absolutely extraordinary, which is they were on the fringes, they were pretty tiny and they have been absolutely whacking our traditional political parties around the chops in the polls for nearly a year now. Or it is actually, it's roughly a year since the first poll put them ahead. So even if you don't like them, or indeed if you think that they are amazing and they get a rough ride from the media, the idea that we should just, you know, put our fingers in our ears and not try to understand what's going on. I. I think then we're not doing our jobs anyway. Newscasters, let us know what you think. I'm sure you will, because people do have strong views on. On this.

[Adam Fleming]

And the subtitle of the program is Ready to Rule. And actually we're seeing with a question mark. Question mark. Yes, very good. Very important audio edition there. How do we do punctuation on podcasts? That's an interesting. We should set up a working group to address that.

[Laura Kay]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

Ready to Rule.

[Laura Kay]

Yeah.

[Adam Fleming]

And there's an area where they are ruling, which is Kent County Council, having won control of that in the English local elections last year. What do you make of just how that's going? It's not been entirely plain sailing for them.

[Laura Kay]

No, it hasn't. So one of the things that we do in the film is we Spend our cameras spent quite a lot of time with Kent county councillors. Kent is the biggest reform council and for context, this is their first taste of power. You know, reform are running 12 councils in England and they're in charge of billions and billions and billions of pounds. And they've really grappled with it. And we see the counselors at meetings, we see the councilors under some pressure, we see them boast about some of the things that they have been able to do, find some of the savings they say they've saved tens and tens and tens of millions of pounds. What they, however, and you see them really kind of grapple with it, with this, you see them sort of be surprised by what they found. So if we spin back to the local election campaigns in May 2024 and Reform candidates around the country and reform politicians campaigning to be in a council said, well, we're going to get in there, there, we're going to cut waste, we're going to cut tax. Some of them, not all of them said, and we're going to do things differently. We're going to set up this Department of Local Government efficiency, like Elon Musk has in the US and we're going to go in and find all these crazy things and slash away and transform the place. It's proven to be a lot harder than that. And the situation that has ended up in is that sure, in Kent, for example, they have managed to stay, save some money, but they're still going to have to put council tax up by less than the Tories did in the previous year. But you kind of see just the reality dawning that actually their expectation that local government might be full of, to use the words of one counselor, craziness, that's not actually been what their experience is. So this sort of overall message, and I suppose the, the parable, if you like, of that is that reform, like any opposition party, you can make promises in opposition and you can make promises from the sidelines. Once you're actually in the chair having to make the decisions, it can be very, very tough indeed. And there's a rhetoric and there's a reality. There's also reality that politically they found it hard going. There have been quite a lot of splits and fallouts and people being dispatched from the government, from the governing authority. They had to deal with leak, they kicked out a few colleagues. And you see that reform proportionately across the country has lost more of its counselors than the other than compared to the other parties since the May election. And it was interesting when I Asked to. Because we've spoken to Nigel Farage a few times over the last year and our final interview with them for this documentary was just a couple of weeks ago. And I asked him what the worst part of the job had been and, and it's really quite revealing what he says. And I wonder if his opponents might seize on this. Should we have a listen?

[Chris Mason]

Yes.

[Nigel Farage]

Do you know the worst thing about this job? The worst thing about this job is you wake up in the morning and you know a local councillor from somewhere in the country has done something or said something, and guess what? You're the one that's responsible. And I'm more than happy to answer for myself what I get and what I get wrong. But that's the trouble with policy, the trouble with political leadership is you actually become responsible for everything.

[Adam Fleming]

Now, that is classic, not straight from the leadership playbook that everyone else uses. That's classic Nigel Farage, isn't it? On the one hand, kind of bracingly honest and authentic and you're like, oh, yeah, that's just a bloke having a grumble about his job. But equally, we are still in a world where people expect certain things from a leader.

[Laura Kay]

Yes. And with power comes responsibility. I mean, like that phrase, that is like literally the point of being a politician is that so when you make. Make decisions, you are responsible for things. Now, as you say, it's, it's a sort of classic pharism. It's like, oh, well, these cancers get into trouble and poor, poor me, I have to answer for them. And oh, that's a real pain. But I think it's very revealing and I. Of how he is both different to many other politicians who I think we've just never say that they would never say, well, the worst thing about my job is that basically other people in my party and that means that I have to take a load of stuff, stick for it. And I, and I just thought that was a very as, as you said, that was a pretty candid thing of him to say. But for his rivals and opponents, I think that might sort of sum up the problem that basically he likes the fun bits and the rallies and the campaigns and the being on being in the jungle and the, the telly and the stirring up trouble, but the tough bits where you actually have to be responsible are maybe not so much his cup of tea. So I thought that was, that was really, really quite, really quite revealing.

[Adam Fleming]

Yeah. I mean, my takeaway from the documentary, and there's many takeaways, but my main one was Having observed Nigel Farage now for. For more than 10 years as a journalist in various guises and in various places, I don't think I've ever seen him look like he's enjoying the job less than in this program.

[Laura Kay]

That's interesting. I mean, I think, look, there is.

[Adam Fleming]

I mean, that's subjective, obviously, that's just my perception, but I just feel. Feel he doesn't seem as. As jolly and as like he's loving it as he has done in the past.

[Laura Kay]

I think there's a couple of things to say on that. I think they're part of the. To use your word, the arc. Part of the arc of following them. You know, more. More or less. This film, we sort of started kind of around summer, you know, sort of early summertime. And then, as I said, our final interview with him was just a couple of weeks ago. During that time, we have definitely seen the level of scrutiny on reform intensify. No doubt about that, because they've been ahead in the polls for such a long time, they are starting to get much more scrutiny. So that is what comes with success in politics, is that people look much harder at your record and they also look much harder at what you stand for. And they also do things like dig around in your past. And we'll come on to that probably in just a second. And I do think that there has been from time to time an uneasiness in reform about having to do that and a kind of scratchiness and a sort of a bit of a suspicion. And they know they're going to get this scrutiny. I mean, one of the things that, you know, was sort of said to me over the course is, look, we know we're going to get it. You know, this is. People are going to come after us because the establishment are so spooked by our success. We know that this is going to happen, but they're not easy with it. And I think you're right. Najafaraj himself, his demeanor, we've seen that be different on occasion, rather than the sort of his whole shtick of being this sort of cheeky chappie on the sidelines, who was a very influential politician, no question, but was doing so as the. From a position of being a critic and an opponent rather than somebody who sees himself as he says he does now, which is genuinely candidate for prime minister. Now, there will be people to add to that. It's important to say. People will say, well, actually, you've seen streaks of that over the years. He's got a reputation for Falling out with people. You've seen flashes of him not be easy and not be that sort of pantomime kind of, oh, friendly bloke in the pub on occasion. So it's not that we've never. He'd always been like that. But I think your observation, I would agree with that you've seen a kind of a shift in the intensity in which they are looked at and he's not quite as easy with that as you might imagine if you'd, you know, only ever seen him on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me out of Here or if you'd seen him pop up only every now and then over the years, nowhere more. So of course, when it comes to the multiple claims from people witnessing what they say was racist or anti Semitic behavior when he was a teenager back.

[Adam Fleming]

At school, which was at Dulwich College in South London. And here's the exchange you had with him on that.

[Nigel Farage]

If teenage boys together in an all boys school haven't said things to each other, haven't been brutal in some ways in the late 1970s, I'd be very, very surprised. I think there were two people who said they were hurt, right. And if they genuinely were, then that's a pity and I'm sorry, but, but, but, but never ever did I intend to hurt anybody. Never have.

[Laura Kay]

So newscasters will remember, at the end of last year, several of Nigel Farage's former pupils came forward alleging that he had said really, truly dreadful things at school. They were then backed up by others who came forward and signed an open letter, more than 20 of them saying that they had witnessed such behavior too. Nigel Farage's response to it sort of varied a bit over time. From time to time he sort of said, well, I didn't say that. Talking about a specific claim, 1:1 alleging that he had said Hitler was right to a Jewish fellow pupil. Then he sort of relied on a, well, there's terrible banter and maybe sort of some things happened, but I never did anything really wrong. And it was all kind of boys and people say terrible things. Then with some claims as they carried on coming through, he sort of went to a denial and then he sort of said, oh, it's all fancy and it's all made up. So point one one is it's not easy for a politician to defend themselves when they keep slightly changing their story. So we had to ask him about that. Of course you'll hear though, there he gives what I would call a, you know, it's a qualified politician's apology. It's it's an I'm sorry if we've heard that so many times over the years. So he doesn't explicitly deny that he ever did anything wrong. He's not saying that that. But what he is not acknowledging is any fault. And in another part of that exchange, I asked him, you know, like, as a, as a human being, having had those weeks of these allegations coming forward and people saying, look, I was hurt, I was upset, terrible things were done to me at the hands of this man. I said to him, you know, had you ever thought actually oh, maybe I, maybe I did upset people. I actually wrote about it. He said, well, no, straight off the bat, no, never worried about it. But I spoke after we did our interview, I spoke to one of the, one of his accusers, a man called Peter Edwy, who I'm sure people remember spoke to Joe pike at the end of last year. Nigel Farage denied the specific claims made by Peter, but in a statement he told us Farage's non apology at least differs from previous lamentable attempts to excuse his racist insults as banter her or to smear those of us who've spoken up as liars or fantasists. However, urgent questions remain about for this man who seeks high office. Why has he continually denied the repugnant behavior so many of his schoolmates recall rather than acknowledging and apologizing sincerely? And to what extent has his agenda today been shaped by the views he expressed so vociferously at Dulwich? So, but it's an interesting thing and I think that whole episode is it's not resolved. Right. But as ever when it comes to Nigel Farage, you know, there are people for whom something happens and it confirms their views of him on either side. But it's a reminder of how divisive reform are sometimes seen as being. And that can be very, very galvanizing for their, their opponents. Frankly. Another thing that happened during the course was making this film is we saw the other parties really start to crank up their attacks on reform. So it was during the time that we've been making this film that labor started calling Najafraj's policies racist. Remember the prime minister did that with sort of great fanfare at the, at the party conference. So as reform successes continued rather than and like explode or melt away, you've seen their opponents had start to really sharpen their attacks on them. And the allegations about Farage's school days have given them more ammunition. I don't think those senior people reform believe it will make very much difference to their political prospects, but for sure it's not what they would have wanted to spend several weeks talking about at the back end of last year.

[Adam Fleming]

And now, Laura, I'm going to plug your documentary in a fully approved removed punctuation pronunciation way.

[Laura Kay]

Oh, this is a fun game.

[Adam Fleming]

Here we go. Reform. Ready to rule. Just making it really clear. It's a question mark at the end.

[Laura Kay]

Okay, can you say a sentence with an exclamation mark on the end in an audio friendly version?

[Adam Fleming]

And that's the end of newscast.

[Laura Kay]

That's the end of newscast. That would be a question mark.

[Adam Fleming]

Is that the end of newscast? And that's the end of newscast or.

[Laura Kay]

It'S the end of newscast? That would be an exclamation mark.

[Chris Mason]

Newscast.

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Newscast from the BBC.

[Chris Mason]

Well, thank you for making it to the end of another newscast. You clearly ooze stamina. Can I gently encourage you to subscribe to us on BBC Sounds? And then without having to do anything else, our meandering chat will miraculously make its way to your phone.

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