Britan's Mandelson deemed 'worth the risk,' Cabinet minister says

Peter Mandelson's "singular talents" meant he was deemed "worth the risk" to appoint as Britain's ambassador to the United States after checks were carried out, a Cabinet minister has said.

The Labour grandee was sacked from his post on Thursday morning after emails were published showing that Mandelson sent supportive messages to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein even as he faced jail for sex offences.

Business Secretary Peter Kyle rejected that Lord Mandelson was appointed as the United Kingdom's top diplomat in Washington before security checks were completed.

The Cabinet Office undertook an independent inquiry and presented information to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, he said.

He said there were then "political conversations done in the prime minister's office" in an apparent reference to follow-up questions that Starmer is understood to have put to Mandelson based on that information.

These are understood to have included why he continued contact with Epstein after he was convicted and why he was reported to have stayed in one of the paedophile financier's homes while he was in prison.

"Now both of these things turned up information that was already public and a decision was made that based on Peter's singular talents in this area, that the risk of appointing knowing what was already public was worth the risk.

"Now of course we have seen the emails which were not published at the time, were not public and not even known about, and that has changed the situation," he told the Sky News broadcaster.

Mandelson's friendship with Epstein was known before his appointment, but reports this week showed their relationship continued after the financier's crimes had emerged.

He had sent emails from an account which had long been closed and were not available during the vetting process.

Kyle was asked whether the Starmer's office was aware of the emails on Tuesday, two days before Mandelson was removed from his post and a day before Starmer backed him in parliament at Prime Minister's Questions.

He said the prime minister's office had "extracts" of the emails on Tuesday.

"They had what was public - which was extracts of the emails and [...] and immediately, upon having being alerted to extracts of emails, the Foreign Office contacted Peter Mandelson and asked for his account of the emails and asked for them to be put into context and for his response.

"That response did not come before Prime Minister's Questions and then after Prime Minister's Questions the full emails were released by Bloomberg in the evening.

"By the first thing the next morning, when the Prime Minister had time to read the emails in full, having had them in full, and reading them almost immediately of having them, Peter was withdrawn as ambassador."

He said the UK-US relationship was in a "perilous state" when Lord Mandelson was appointed and that while "a lot was known" about his relationship with Epstein, he had apologised and those two things were "weighed up", in comments to the BBC public broadcaster.

"And then I have to say that in that period, we have navigated the most difficult period in the US-UK relationship since the Second World War, and we have delivered for people in Britain time after time after time."

Starmer is facing questions about his judgment as well as when he knew key details about his ambassador's relationship with Epstein.

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch has accused the prime minister of lying.

The party will be pushing for information next week and will use "every mechanism that is available to us to force the truth to come out", shadow education secretary Laura Trott told the BBC.

She said: "We need these documents.

"We need to understand what advice went to the prime minister and when who made these decisions.

"How have we ended up in a situation where the advice for the prime minister is to appoint the best pal of a convicted paedophile to be US ambassador?"

Emily Thornberry, chairwoman of parliament's foreign affairs committee, has demanded answers from the foreign secretary on the department's "developed vetting" process.