PM’s appointment of Mandelson shows ‘utter failure of judgement’ – Conservatives

CONSERVATIVE Party Deputy Chairman Matt Vickers has said that Sir Keir Starmer showed an “utter failure of judgement” over the appointment of Peter Mandelson.

He told GB News: “When this thing broke, he told us that if he knew then what he knew now, he wouldn’t appoint him. It’s very clear, from all what we’ve seen now with these documents that have been released, that he did know then what he knows now, what we all know, and all the reasons that this man should never have been appointed.

“He appointed Mandelson to the most prestigious diplomatic post that this country has to offer, even though he knew about his links to our most vile, disgusting pedophiles ever to walk the earth. The guy was staying at his house whilst he was in prison.

“Utter, utter failure of judgement on behalf of the Prime Minister, and it’s there for everybody to see. And then, worse still, he gave him £75,000 of taxpayers’ money as a golden handshake, as a goodbye. Absolutely disgusting, completely unacceptable.”

He added: “Jonathan Powell himself, the government’s own national security adviser, warned about this appointment, and the Prime Minister went ahead anyway. It’s no good blaming a vetting process.

“The vetting process might have been well, he didn’t say the vetting process been rushed, he said the appointment was rushed. It might have been rushed by this Prime Minister…it’s the ultimate case of jobs for the boys, giving someone such a prestigious post despite the fact they’re linked to this guy.

“Absolutely disgraceful. We shouldn’t there is no excuse for what Starmer did. Utter failure of judgement.

“When we talk about his political nous, I mean, this is a man who’s been involved in Labour Party politics for years. Our Prime Minister turned a blind eye to the fact he was linked to one of the world’s most awful pedophiles and gave him a job anyway.

“I don’t think anything warrants or excuses the Prime Minister’s decision in this situation. He should never, ever have been appointed. We’re now seeing a police investigation about flows of money and flows of information.

“Utterly disgusting, utter shambles. It’s a disgrace to the government, and actually is an embarrassment to this country, that we send someone like him to represent us in the United States.”

On the war against Iran, he said: “Look at what’s happening internationally, you look at the fact there is obviously going to be pressure on oil prices, and what is the government doing about it? It’s stopping us drilling our own oil and gas in the North Sea.

“It’s undermining our energy security. It’s putting hundreds of thousands of people potentially out of jobs, particularly in my part of the world. It’s driving up energy prices. Completely counter-intuitive move, completely wrong.

“And then on top of that, despite the fact that fuel duty has been frozen for 15 years, even when we had a pandemic, even when we were responding to the world economic crash, the last government did not put fuel duty up.

“For every pound you spend on petrol, about 55p of it goes straight to Rachel Reeves in tax. She’s wanting to increase that at this point, when families across the country are suffering as a result of the cost of living, they are about to see petrol prices spike as a result of international events, she wants to slam us for yet more tax.

“Completely the wrong way to go by this government and everybody at home is going to be picking up the tab for that and paying the price.”