‘You have to question their judgement’: Furious women MPs turn on Starmer over ‘boys’ club’ scandals
Furious Labor MPs have called on Sir Keir Starmer to appoint a woman in a powerful new role to end the “boys’ club” culture in No 10 exposed by the Mandelson and Doyle scandals that rocked his premiership.
Addressing the recent chaos during a meeting of female Labor MPs and parliamentary colleagues, one of the party’s most senior figures, Harriet Harman, called on the prime minister to fill the vacant first secretary of state post – once held by Peter Mandelson – with a female candidate.
She said the role should be held by a woman and used to “transform the political culture around women and girls in government.”
Sir Keir faced a packed meeting of the Women’s Parliamentary Labor Party following the stinging Prime Minister’s Questions, in which he was accused by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch of running a “boys’ club” and “filling the government with hypocrites and pedophile apologists” following recent scandals involving Mandelson and his former communications chief Matthew Doyle.
Following the decision to grant Lord Doyle last month, new concerns have emerged about the prime minister’s decision; Lord Doyle withdrew the Labor whip on Tuesday over his links to a convicted sex offender.
Sir Keir only defended his decision to take action on Tuesday, weeks after headlines about his connections first emerged, telling MPs during Prime Minister’s Questions that Lord Matthew Doyle “did not give a full explanation of his actions” when the Prime Minister nominated him for the peerage before Christmas.
But critics have pointed out that Lord Doyle’s links to Sean Morton, whom he campaigned after he was charged in 2017 over indecent images of children, were public before they became official precedents in January.
Speaking to Labor MPs after PMQs, Sir Keir again apologized for Lord Mandelson’s appointment and admitted the government needed to do more to tackle structural misogyny and drive cultural change.
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While Starmer was speaking in parliament, one said: Independent Female MPs were “troubled” by recent events, “because we really care about our party and believe it is a tool to end misogyny and abuse.”
Ahead of the meeting, Liverpool Riverside Labor MP Kim Johnson said: Independent: “Doyle’s revelations only confirm that he is unfit to govern.
“Although he had only been in the Lords for a few weeks it was already known that he was a friend of a convicted pedophile and was campaigning for him. Another example of very poor judgement.”
Another female Labor MP said: Independent He was “very angry” and outraged at the glorification of Lord Doyle, saying it showed “a huge level of disrespect for victims everywhere”.
He added of the Labor leadership: “They knew when they hired Mandelson and Epstein, and they knew when they appointed Doyle and Morton to the Lords, so you have to question their judgment.”
Sir Keir is understood to have faced a host of questions about Lord Doyle at the Labor Party’s full meeting in parliament on Monday night, but the peer only escaped the lash 24 hours later.
The development has raised fresh questions about Sir Keir’s decision as it contains echoes of the Peter Mandelson scandal, which cost the Labor leader his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and brought his premiership to the brink of collapse.
Opposition leaders voiced their frustrations with the prime minister in the House of Commons on Wednesday. Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “Appointing one pedophile supporter cannot be excused as ‘unfortunate’. Appointing two shows a disastrous lack of judgement.”
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn added that Sir Keir “appears to be the most gullible former director of public prosecutions in history”.
Earlier in the session, Ms Badenoch said: “The Prime Minister sometimes likes to claim, as he just did, that he cares about violence against women. The truth is that he only cares about victims when he is trying to save his own life.”
Sir Keir said he would “not take lessons from the Conservatives” on standards in public life, pointing to comments by party door and former shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick that there were “not enough white faces seen in Birmingham”.
Ms Badenoch hit back and said: “How dare he criticize us. It wasn’t us who filled the government with hypocrites and pedophile apologists.”
“He can’t build a team, he has no plan, he can’t even run his own office, let alone the country. Now he faces a new scandal of appointing someone who campaigned for a man convicted of taking indecent photographs of girls as young as 10. Isn’t the Prime Minister ashamed that this is his legacy?”
Sir Keir replied: “My legacy is to change my party and win the general election.”
Downing Street rejected suggestions it was run as a “boys’ club” and the prime minister’s spokesman said he did not accept that he had failed to deliver on his promise to end the debauchery.
Sir Keir insisted his senior team was “strong and united” after Cabinet ministers rallied around him with public messages of support after Scottish Labor leader Anas Sarwar called for him to resign.
