Given Peter Mandelson’ s rich heritage of being sacked from governments, Keir Starmer must have expected that his new ambassador to Washington would probably have to be dispatched at some point, rather than end his term gracefully.

He can’t have anticipated that it would have happened so soon, otherwise he would never have appointed him. That failure of judgement is just one of the many reasons that this departure – rather than the exit of Angela Rayner last week – is the most damaging yet to the Labour Government.

Starmer, after all, decided to defend Mandelson throughout Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday – though it was at this session that the diplomat’s fate looked sealed. Not only was Kemi Badenoch unusually adept and surgical in her questions, especially when it came to

See Full Page