DAN HODGES: I don’t know what happened to Morgan McSweeney’s missing phone. But after another day of deflection and deceit, this I do know for certain: Our Prime Minister is lying his posterior off about it…

I don’t know for sure what actually happened to Morgan McSweeney’s cell phone. But after a day of obfuscation, diversion and outright deception from the Prime Minister and Downing Street, I know this for sure: Keir Starmer is lying about what happened to his former chief of staff’s mobile phone.

Yesterday Starmer made his first comments about the mysterious and, from his point of view, rather coincidental disappearance of the device, which contained a number of messages that could shed light on the scandal surrounding the appointment of Peter Mandelson as Ambassador to Washington.

‘It was stolen. “This was reported at the time and the police acknowledged and confirmed that this had happened,” he said. Then he added: ‘The idea that anyone could somehow have seen that there would be a demand for phones at some point in the future is, in my opinion, a bit far-fetched.’

It’s this second observation, the widely quoted phrase “overexertion”, that puts Sir Keir right. If McSweeney’s mobile phone had been hijacked a full year before the Mandelson scandal emerged, as government ministers initially told us on Sunday, Starmer would have been right. Nostradamus himself would have had difficulty predicting the chain of events that followed.

But as has now been proven, this initial claim was false. It was reported that McSweeney’s phone was actually stolen on October 20, a month after Mandelson was forced to leave his post as Ambassador due to the saga. And at that stage the potential significance of McSweeney’s messages was clear to everyone. Including Keir Starmer himself.

On September 17, six days after Mandelson’s impeachment, the House of Commons rose for its autumn recess.

But in Downing Street, during the parliamentary recess, worried officials were trying to develop a strategy to contain the effects of the political crisis. Specifically, several meetings were held to ‘play out’ what would happen if the Conservative Party chose to introduce the ‘Humble Speech’, a parliamentary procedural tool that could be used to force the Government to publish documents and messages relating to Mandelson.

Yesterday I spoke with a former government advisor who has knowledge of these meetings. They told me flatly that ‘One of the topics discussed was ‘What to do if they come for Morgan’s messages’.

McSweeney and Mandelson left 10 Downing Street last year. Mandelson forced to resign after ties to Jeffrey Epstein were revealed

So Starmer didn’t need Nostradamus to predict the future. His assistants were already doing this for him. And we are desperately looking for ways to prevent McSweeney’s messages from falling into Conservative hands when parliament returns. With Sir Keir’s full knowledge and approval. According to one official, ‘Keir knew everyone was worried about Badenoch delivering the messages. He was informed of this in case he asked directly whether he would release them.’

On 13 October the House of Commons reconvened for a new session. And seven days later, McSweeney’s cell phone disappeared into the night. So yes, there are many aspects of this case that are actually ‘extreme’: increasingly ridiculous and unbelievable excuses are being put forward by the Prime Minister, his ministers and his advisors.

Take, for example, Downing Street’s account of how it dealt with the theft of McSweeney’s mobile phone. Initially, after No 10 received the 999 call detailing the ‘burglary’, the Met simply ticked the boxes, handed out crime reference numbers and declared the case completely unsolvable.

But then the Met released the call recording. And it turned out that Morgan McSweeney had indicated the wrong location for the theft.

When the Met call handler repeated the incorrect location to him, he failed to correct it. He also did not state that he was the Prime Ministry’s Private Secretary. He did not mention that the seized mobile phone was one of the British government’s most sensitive phones. In the following days, the police did not respond when they followed up the incident with not one but two calls.

Most fantastically, when the ‘theft’ was reported, the Government’s security team reportedly did not even bother to contact the Met. On Wednesday, I spoke with a former Government official who had his cell phone stolen on the street. And they explained the process.

They first contacted the No. 10 security team. The team disabled the phone and began monitoring the tracking device inside. They then contacted the Met on behalf of the officer, explained the significance of the crime and provided tracking information.

The officer later contacted the Met, assuring them that he had been informed of the sensitive nature of the device and confirming details of the incident. Then – and this is very important – they sent an officer to the location of the device. It was a block of flats after all and they couldn’t narrow down the exact location of the phone. But as the official told me ‘they took it really seriously and continued to follow up over the next few days’.

‘Keir knew everyone was worried about Badenoch delivering messages,’ according to one official

The person I spoke to was a high-ranking figure in the government. But he is not as senior as the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff. But as they say, ‘the security team and police wanted to make sure this was a random theft and not a targeted operation by the Russians or Chinese.’

As I wrote earlier in the week, Keir Starmer and his government are making fools of us all.

Because that’s the story they really want us to swallow: Peter Mandelson resigned in the middle of one of the biggest domestic and international political scandals in a generation.

Downing Street has strategized on how to contain the crisis, including how to manage demand for the release of the McSweeney/Mandelson emails. A few weeks after these strategy sessions, McSweeney’s cell phone was stolen and the messages disappeared completely.

Moreover, at the time of the theft, the police had been given the wrong location for the crime. The victim didn’t even bother to explain that he was the Prime Minister’s most senior advisor. Or that the device contained some of the most sensitive information in the Government.

Although a tracking device was found on the phone, no attempt was made to track it or locate the phone. Thereupon, no police officer was assigned. In fact, the Government’s own internal security team did not even bother to contact the police to ensure his rescue.

And despite MPs passing a special motion ordering all messages about Peter Mandelson’s appointment to be published, it was withheld from Parliament by Keir Starmer for more than five months. It was hidden from the press. And it was withheld from the British people.

The Prime Minister tried to convince us that this was all a big coincidence. In the coming days and weeks, will we be asked to believe that it’s just a coincidence that other sensitive phones will disappear, other important messages will be deleted, and other important emails will be eaten by the dog?

Is it far? It is far-fetched that the UK is now led by a Prime Minister who seriously believes people will fall for this nonsense.