Donald Trump sticks the boot into Keir Starmer over Peter Mandelson as he says Labour grandee was ‘a really bad pick’ for US ambassador

Donald Trump has suggested Keir Starmer is a “really bad choice” for the post of US ambassador because of the Peter Mandelson scandal.

In his post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: ‘UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer admitted he ‘made the wrong decision’ when choosing his Ambassador to Washington.

‘I admit, it was a really bad choice.’

Apparently leaving the door open to Starmer for salvation, the President added: ‘But we’ve got plenty of time to heal! President DJT.’

Starmer faced anger and ridicule in the House of Commons yesterday as he tried to blame officials for the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as US ambassador.

The Prime Minister burst into sarcastic laughter as he admitted that his version of events was a “beggar of belief”.

Kemi Badenoch warned that Sir Keir’s account had become “darker and more contradictory” and he faced sustained criticism from his own MPs as he struggled to explain why he gave Mandelson the job before it was scrutinised, despite being warned about his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein and business links to China and Russia.

Sir Keir denied misleading MPs and insisted Mandelson was the victim of a “deliberate” attempt by authorities to keep him in the dark about his failure to vet for the role.

Keir Starmer limped through an already difficult day in the House of Commons yesterday.

Trump explains Starmer’s decision to appoint Mandelson in a post on Truth Social

He admitted it was a mistake to bring back the disgraced Labor member, describing it as ‘wrong’ and insisting he would ‘take responsibility’ for it.

But he claimed he would never have given Labour’s leading candidate the job if he had known he had failed the review in January 2025.

Instead, he angrily blamed the State Department; his senior civil servant, Sir Olly Robbins, was sacked last week for overriding the UK’s Security Review recommendation so Mandelson could take on the role of US ambassador.

It came like this:

• Sir Olly prepared to tell MPs his version of events this morning, amid growing anger among Whitehall mandarins over his treatment;
• Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander admitted there were doubts about whether the Prime Minister could remain in office until the next election;
• MPs questioned why Sir Keir ignored written advice from then Cabinet Secretary Simon Case to conduct a security clearance of Mandelson before announcing his appointment;
• Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee revealed as recently as February that documents relating to Mandelson’s security clearance had been told ‘non-existent’;
• The Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, today agreed to an urgent House of Commons debate on the growing scandal;
• Sir Keir announced a review into whether national security had been breached during Mandelson’s tenure in Washington;
• Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper cut short a trip to Japan to help deal with the crisis;
• Whitehall sources said the next batch of documents on the Mandelson appointment were likely to be delayed until after local elections next month.

Sir Keir faced criticism from all sides in angry scenes in the House of Commons.

Ms Badenoch told Sir Keir his reputation was at stake and warned him: ‘It’s finally time to tell the truth.’

Starmer faced skepticism even from the floors of the House of Commons yesterday

Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has made it clear this is her moment of reckoning

The Conservative Party leader added: ‘We know that the Prime Minister announced the appointment before the investigation was completed; This is an extraordinary and unprecedented step for the US ambassador role.

‘We still don’t know exactly why Peter Mandelson failed scrutiny.

‘We don’t know what risks our country is exposed to, and we don’t know how it is that the Prime Minister has said over and over again that this is a failure of the investigation, that he has gone on television and said things that are patently false, and that not a single adviser or a single official has said what he was told was untrue.’At every turn, at every statement, the Government’s story has become darker and more contradictory.’

Dame Emily Thornberry, Labor chair of the House of Commons foreign affairs committee, said Downing Street’s desire to appoint Mandelson was ‘a priority above everything else’, including national security.

Labor veteran Diane Abbott noted that Mandelson had to resign from the cabinet twice and told the Prime Minister: ‘Peter Mandelson has a past. What this House wants to know is that knowing Peter Mandelson’s history is the same as going back 30 years and saying… ‘Nobody told me’. Nobody told me

anything’. question

So why didn’t the Prime Minister ask?’

Chris Hinchliff, Labor MP for North East Hertfordshire, said it seemed ‘completely unbelievable’ that Sir Olly would reject the inquiry agency ‘on a personal whim’ and suggested he was facing ‘political pressure from No 10 to advance a man for whom a certain faction in the Labor Party have sought moral and spiritual leadership for years’.

Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, called on Sir Keir to resign and said he was ‘in office but not in power’.

He added: ‘We all know the truth: the Prime Minister knew that appointing Mandelson was a huge risk, but decided it was a risk worth taking, a catastrophic error of judgement. Now that it’s reflected on his face, the only right thing to do is to take responsibility.’

Reform MP Lee Anderson and former Labor MP Zarah Sultana were told to leave the House of Commons after branding the Prime Minister a liar.

To MPs’ consternation, Sir Keir claimed he had not misled them – even inadvertently – on numerous occasions when he claimed ‘full legal process’ had always been followed.

‘I did not mislead the House of Commons,’ he said. ‘I accept the information that needs to be presented to the Parliament. But I did not mislead the Parliament.’

He said yesterday: ‘The basis of this is a wrong decision I made. ‘I shouldn’t have appointed Peter Mandelson.’ But he could not explain why only aides and officials, including his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and communications director Tim Allan, were forced to resign because of the scandal.

And Sir Keir could not say why he ignored the advice of the then Cabinet Secretary, Mr Case, in November 2024 (before Mandelson’s appointment was announced) that vetting of a candidate should take place ‘before’ the appointment is announced.