[0:00]This could potentially be one of the political scandals of this century. >> Peter Mandlesson was called the prince of darkness. It's not a secret that he
[0:09]was a bad person. For Kier Star, he is fighting for his political life. And to say he lied to me makes it look weak and
[0:18]naive and gullible. Hello and welcome to Electoral
[0:31]Dysfunction with me Beth Rigby, >> Mir Ruth Davidson, >> and me Harriet Harmon. And we are meeting in what has been one of the most
[0:40]major moments I think I've covered in my political career. And I've been at this a long time because we are living through, I think it's fair to say, Kier
[0:50]Stalmer's worst ever week. the Peter Manderson scandal has blown up in his face uh and actually I think threatens
[1:01]to potentially end his premiership. And I weigh my words carefully when I say things like that because I really don't know how this is going to play out. This
[1:11]is a massive moment of jeopardy for the prime minister with some of his MPs now publicly saying that they don't think his position is tenable. I mean,
[1:22]goodness me, what a moment this is. I mean, I I think if we think about political scandals, I I don't want to to be, you know, into the realms of hyperbole here, but but I mean, this
[1:32]could potentially be one of the political scandals of this century because, I mean, we've got a cabinet minister in the middle of an international crisis after the the banks
[1:43]were, you know, were bringing down the world economic order that was taking government secrets and giving them to rich American financier mates. So, you know, to private businessmen in other
[1:55]countries that were able to make decisions that might have acted against the interests of our own government, the government he was serving in. And not only that, he was phoning them up and
[2:05]telling them to lobby his chancellor and lobby when he was business minister and lobby his prime minister to try and get the rules on bankers bonuses changed. So, he was he was acting against the own
[2:16]government that he was supposedly taking cabinet collective responsibility for. and having twice been disgraced previously, you know, for different reasons, nothing to do with any of this. You then have a current prime minister
[2:27]that thought that it was okay to bring this guy back as the chief diplomat to overturn more than five decades, more than half a century of convention where
[2:38]you have a senior diplomat that is our ambassador to the US to bring in a politician to do it, to bring in Peter Mandlesson to do it. um on his say so that that being friends with a convicted
[2:48]pedophile like Jeffrey Epstein wasn't something that he was continuing to be that it was much less of a relationship after his conviction than we thought it was. So also lying to the PM and the PM
[3:00]essentially just taking his word for it. I mean it is it is astonishing. And Ruth, we can't really overstate how serious this is. Because to give you
[3:09]just a sense of it, Peter Manson is now under criminal investigation for allegations that he leaked market sensitive top secret government
[3:19]information to people outside government that they could have profited for. If he is prosecuted and convicted, you face
[3:28]jail time for that. That is the level of scandal that this is at. This is really, really serious. And it's a scandal that is horrific for the last Labor
[3:40]government, but it's not a scandal in the past. It's at the feet of Kier Starmmer's number 10 because he brought Peter Mandlesson back into government as
[3:51]the US ambassador in 2025. And yes, he stacked him in September, but it is just shocking where we now
[4:01]are. And look, I should just say that we need to say right at the top of this that Mandlesson denies any wrongdoing. I need to put that out here and on record
[4:12]here. But this is the story about someone who remained friends with a convicted pedophile. He ended up as the US ambassador. He'd been, as Ruth said, twice sacked from political jobs. And
[4:24]now for Kier Stalmer, he is fighting for his political life. The catastrophic error of judgment not just of the prime minister but his team in bringing
[4:36]Mandlesson back um is now threatening to take him down. And the mood on the benches is darkening, isn't it Harry?
[4:45]Fair to say it certainly is. And what it's doing also is this whole crisis is casting a stain over not just the government and the Labor Party, but
[4:56]politics in this country and feeds into the idea that people have that we're all the same. We're all in it for ourselves and we're all just doing it for money. This is a crisis of the utmost
[5:08]seriousness. >> So, we're going to take you through everything that happened in this podcast. We're also going to explain why the prime minister is in the peril that he is. some of the the sort of
[5:18]intricacies that that we're now finding out because there was that document dump in the states a few days ago. And we'll also talk a little bit about how it is and I know there's people out there that are asking the question, how can it be
[5:30]that if somebody gets sacked for poor behavior twice, they keep getting brought back and put in really important posts. and and maybe Harriet and myself and Beth can can go some way to
[5:40]explaining the network of people that Peter Mandlesson has built up and has cultivated and has supported down the years who have in turn supported him. So you can almost see you won't understand
[5:52]why it happened but you can almost see how it happened. So there is a lot to get through today. Um but if there is anything that you want to ask us, anything you want to hear more about, anything we don't cover in this episode,
[6:02]do please send us your questions. The number on WhatsApp is 07934200LE4 or you can always email us at electoral
[6:11]dysfunctions sky.uk. Okay. Well, look, let let's get to it and this massive week and this huge
[6:21]moment of jeopardy for a prime minister that as we sit here and I look at your basically ashen faces, Harriet and Ruth, none of us really know how this is going
[6:31]to play out at the moment. Um but look just to recap, Peter Manson was sacked as US ambassador last September by Kier Starmmer and he was sacked because a
[6:42]tranch of emails were leaked to Bloomberg between Mandlesson and Epstein that showed a depth of the relationship and friendship that continued well
[6:52]beyond uh Epstein's conviction of uh child prostitution charges and sex trafficking charges. Um and once these
[7:03]emails came into light, the prime minister was under acute pressure. He sacked Mandlesson. There was very very ill feeling on the backbenches. But I think it's fair to say that in the end
[7:15]he was given the benefit of the doubt and the world moved on. Well, over the weekend, there has been a massive uh
[7:24]data dump of Epstein files from the Department of Justice in the US. And the revelations in this uh release of
[7:35]millions of documents has uh raised the issue of Mandlesson in the most unimaginable ways, which Ruth
[7:45]touched on at the beginning. uh leaking sensitive information in 2009. Uh his sheer rudeness about Gordon Brown, who he brought back in to government,
[7:56]telling Epstein allegedly in emails about when Gordon Brown uh is going to leave and stand down as prime minister. That is market sensitive information, by
[8:07]the way. um just the way he talking about Gordon Brown needing needing to be in a sanitarium I think at one point as well as some of the disgusting messages
[8:16]shared between Epstein and Manderson referring to well-hung young men. I mean it is just absolutely toe curling skin
[8:26]crawling staff but it has landed Star in huge difficulties because it has again brought to the four why did he ever let
[8:37]Mandolson back into government and he is now fighting for his political life because there's so many of his MPs that think that this is a catastrophic error
[8:47]of judgment that someone must take responsibility And they think that Kier Starmer, who ran an election campaign promising to do
[8:57]politics differently, to restore trust in politics, to be a man of integrity, that his position at number 10 is no
[9:05]longer tenable because of the tarnish of Mandlesen on his entire government operation is that serious. I think it also falls into two parts because you're
[9:15]right, Beth, because when he was sacked in September, if you remember, it was about the fact that he was friends with EP Jeffrey Epstein. So, it was the fact that he'd written in his 50th birthday card. He'd said, "You're my best
[9:27]friend." Uh, he talked about how close they were. Uh, and the the reason he got sacked was because Kier Starmer said, you know, he basically told me that they'd ended their friendship a long
[9:37]time ago and and I didn't know any of this and this has come as news to me and therefore because you lied to me, you're out. He came under pressure, but he got a little bit of credit for that. Especially because Mandlesson had thought at that point that he could save
[9:48]his job. If you remember, I got very upset about the this idea that he was saying because I'm a gay man, I didn't see any of the pedophilia. I didn't see any of the women. We've had this idea that because he's gay, he didn't see any
[9:59]women doing anything. We know that's nonsense because he's pictured in his pants next to a younger woman in a bathrobe. There's pictures of women taking his socks off. There's also this idea that they have sexualized language between them, him and Epstein. So
[10:11]there's that side of it and and that dredges up this whole part about Epstein and his victims who are also part of this. But then there's something else that we didn't know was that he was taking secret information from the
[10:23]government while he was in government and supposed to be a servant of government and serving the UK at a time of real peril because the banks were collapsing, the economy, you know, the the world economic collapse was
[10:33]happening and he was just handing secret information to his pals that happened to be New York financiers or heading up banks and could make could make commercial decisions to their own
[10:45]advantage about it and he was doing it in an underhand and betraying the government in which he served and therefore betraying the country. I mean, I know it sounds like I'm being grandiose here, but there's a
[10:54]reason that government ministers have to keep some information secret and it is for the good of the nation than the decisions that governments make on all of our behalfs. And and the two sides of
[11:05]this, I mean, it is so much worse than even those of us who were quite condemnatory back in September could possibly have imagined. And I think at the heart of it, the difficulty Star
[11:15]Starma is now in is that his line of defense in the House of Commons on Wednesday, which I have to say went down like a bucket of sick with his MPs, but
[11:25]also in a speech he gave uh on Thursday, is that if he'd known what he knew, he would never have put him back into government. And that uh Mandolen lied to
[11:37]him when he was questioning him around the vetting process. The fact though that Starmer admitted in the Commons that he was aware of Mandolson's ongoing
[11:48]friendship with Epstein post conviction has come back to the point for MPs that it is an unforgivable
[11:59]error of judgment on the part of the prime minister. So here we are on Thursday morning. This morning uh I went down to Hastings where the prime
[12:09]minister was given a speech and he gave a speech that I would describe as fighting for your political life. It was charged with emotion. He was shaking at
[12:20]points. He was visibly angry. It was extremely tense in the room as he tried to explain
[12:29]uh why he took the decisions he made and really I think plead for a reprieve uh from both the country and his MPs to
[12:39]give him a chance to kind of redeem himself around Mandlesson or at least let the evidence come out which the prime minister would argue might make
[12:49]people more sympathetic to the decisions he made. I asked him obviously the question that everyone in Westminster is
[12:57]asking. Should you stand down? Prime Minister, we can all hear your anger, your regret, and most importantly, your
[13:06]apology to victims uh of Epstein for appointing Mandelen as your UN s ambassador. But look, whatever he said or didn't
[13:17]say, it has proved a catastrophic error of your judgment to put him back into your government. Some of your MPs believe you must take
[13:27]responsibility for this in order to restore trust in politics amongst the public. And some are staying publicly now that you should stand down because
[13:39]your positions become unattenable. Why are they wrong? Thank you. >> Well, Beth, as I've said a number of times, I regret the decision to appoint
[13:51]Mandlesson as ambassador. He was asked questions about the nature and extent of his relationship with Epstein, and he told lies.
[14:01]I had no reason at the time to know they were lies. Subsequently, I found out them to be lies. And this week we found out way beyond the lies that we found out in
[14:13]September. We found out uh what he was up to in the aftermath of the '08 crash when most of the government and most of the country was doing its level best to
[14:23]make sure people didn't lose their jobs, their livelihoods and their savings. And at that time he chose to disclose sensitive secrets to Epstein
[14:34]almost simultaneously of receiving them and that is what I meant when I said earlier about the deceit and the standards that I stand for in public
[14:45]life. Yes, at the time I appointed him, I got answers from him which I believe to be true. He painted a picture of barely knowing Epstein.
[14:56]I didn't know that was lies at the time. I regret I didn't know. I've apologized for the fact that I appointed him in the first place, having believed those lies. Thank you, Beth. Uh, Robert,
[15:07]>> what do you say to your MPs? Some are publicly saying this morning they think your position is untenable. >> Please directly, what do you say? >> Firstly, um, let me say I understand
[15:18]their anger and frustration. I am angry and frustrated like them because nobody wants to see uh these uh deceits in public life. They are angry um about his
[15:30]association with Epstein as am I. They're angry about what he did at the tail end of the last Labor government and frustrated as am I uh that um the full information of what was asked and
[15:41]answered when he was appointed can't be in the public uh domain. That is frustrating. Um, as I say, I had hoped uh to deploy some of that at PMQs yesterday because I wanted people to
[15:51]know what was said um and um uh what I received, but frustrating that can't be done. So, I understand uh their frustration, but we must remain focused on what we were elected into government
[16:01]to do, which is to change this country for the better for millions of people and that's what we will do. Uh and today in pride in place, what we've done on the economy are examples, but only examples of what we're doing.
[16:13]Harriet. Um, when he was when you were listening to Kier Starmmer's response there, you were shaking your head.
[16:23]I I mean, you you you both know that that I want the government to succeed and you both know that I want Karma to
[16:32]succeed. And the K Star Dama that I knew of, I didn't know him personally very well, but I I knew of him when he was director of public prosecutions. And if you'd have asked me what he stood for, I
[16:44]would have said uh standing up for human rights, standing up to for for victims, uh standing up for women and girls, standing up for decency and honesty. That's what I would have said. And yet
[16:55]he seems to have drifted so far away from those values in appointing Peter Mandlesson to be the UK's representative
[17:05]in the US. Now, Peter Mandlesson was called the prince of darkness. It's it's not a secret that he was a bad person.
[17:14]And although the degree of awfulness with all the emails is disclosed, you know, a lot of people have been saying, well, how can something be both
[17:24]astonishing but also completely predictable at the same time? And I don't think there's any point um Kia Starmmer being angry with Peter
[17:35]Mandelon. I think he's got to be reflective about himself. Why on earth did Peter Mandlesson even get in the room to be considered for this
[17:45]ambassadorship when so much was known about his bad character? He should not have even been considering him for that post, let alone
[17:57]believing his denials. And I think that it is very very serious for Kier Dharma because it goes to the values of the government and people I think are
[18:08]entitled to have a government that they can believe in that they can believe shares their values that is honest and acting in the public interest and this
[18:18]really challenges that so that's why I think it is so serious for Karma. I don't think it's inevitable that it will bring him down. But it will bring him
[18:29]down unless he takes the action which is really necessary for him to take and that's this. Firstly, he's got to stop blaming Mandlesen and saying he lied to
[18:41]me because actually he should never have been considering him in the first place. And to say he lied to me makes it look
[18:49]weak and naive and gullible. Um, so it it's just completely the wrong thing. He should be reflecting on why he made that
[18:58]appointment, not angry at the evilness of Peter Mandelson. He should also be thinking about a real reset in number 10. Because what you need from your team
[19:10]in number 10 is people who share your values and your principles and who will help you be the best prime minister you can be according to your true self. And
[19:21]clearly that is not what happened because the Kier Starmmer who was DPP would never have appointed somebody like Peter Mandelen to represent the country.
[19:32]But I also think in order to win people's confidence in uh politics in this country, he needs to go back to the manifesto and and do all the things that
[19:43]were promised in cleaning up politics and turbocharge them and bring them forward. And he also needs to bring forward all the uh action that he's promised on women and girls. And I think
[19:54]if he does that, he can win the confidence of Labour backbenches, the confidence of parliament, and the confidence of the country. But I think if he doesn't do that, there's no way
[20:04]this is going to be glossed over. >> I I actually think it's harder than that for him, Harriet. And the reason I think it's harder is because I completely accept what you said about his
[20:15]character. And even though, you know, he's polling badly, he's not got any political capital to burn within the country or anything like that, I think that even his critics would view him as
[20:24]a bit of a political dud. you know, very legalistic, no real vision, not the best communicator, and a bit crap at the kind of politics of politics, but they would never necessarily say that he's a bad
[20:36]person or he's deeply unethical or that that he himself is an unverirtuous kind of a man or he's he's, you know, a charlatan or he's not a hard worker. But I think the problem he has is the
[20:47]defense line that he's running. And as a lawyer and as a criminal lawyer who's been in dozens of courtrooms, he will know how weak this sounds, which is he lied to me. And if I had only known, how
[20:58]could I know he was lying to me? How could I not tell? Well, firstly, how could you not tell that somebody that had been sacked twice for unethical behavior was lying or spinning in order to get a job that they were desperately
[21:09]wanting that they would do anything to get? Well, you know, there is that naivity that you talk about there. There's a credibility there. There's also the fact that up until Prime Minister's questions on Wed this week,
[21:19]he had never admitted that he knew there was an ongoing relationship and he now says that he did know that a relationship between Peter Mandlesson and Jeffrey Epstein was ongoing and he appointed him anyway. So that kicks out
[21:31]one of the legs of his defense uh by his own admission. And then the third kind of piece of evidence here is the fact that it was on the public record way back in 2023. So, the fact that it was
[21:42]on the public record and could have formed part of the vetting means that the idea that, you know, we need to look at our vetting structures because if one guy lies, the whole house of cards falls down, which was part of his defense
[21:53]today when he did his press conference, it just doesn't stack up. And this is why I think he's in trouble because these sorts of more detailed questions he's going to have to answer at some point, which means that this story is going to keep going and going and going
[22:04]until they're answered. So every time he makes a speech or stands up with an announcement, every time he accepts journalist questions, whether it's on the health service or on house building
[22:15]or anything else, he's going to be have to answer for this. And and I don't think he's got the answers. And and I think that that's the point at which somebody within the Labor Party says,
[22:25]"This was supposed to be our phase two. This was supposed to be our great reset from the turn of the year till now. This was supposed to be our two cost of living months and all we're talking about is the prime minister's judgment.
[22:37]He has to go and we have to get back to governing. >> I think he has to move towards it. I think talking about the vetting and waiting for the papers to be published which showed the lies and showed the
[22:48]failing of vetting. None of that helps him because what he's got to do is go towards it and embrace the fact that he made a mistake right from the outset at
[22:58]even considering him. So he needs to embrace the fact that he really made a big mistake. Don't try and blame it on the vetting. Don't try and blame it on Peter Mandlesson for lying, although the
[23:10]vetting clearly failed and Peter Mandlesson did lie. But acknowledge that he made a mistake. acknowledge that he needs people around him who share his values in number 10, who will enable him
[23:20]to stay on track with his principle and values and step up on cleaning up politics and on standing up for women and girls in our own domestic policy. And if he does that, then he can get on
[23:32]with the business of governing. But the speech that he made to on Thursday, you know, nobody in the room was listening. And the reason they weren't listening is because they're all thinking, how on
[23:43]earth did he manage to appoint that sort of person to the most important diplomatic job representing the country? And he's not going to get past this
[23:53]unless he goes towards it, acknowledges it, doesn't blame anybody else, but actually takes action to sort it out. And I think if he does that, then he can get on with governing. But if he
[24:04]doesn't, there's no way forward for him. Harriet, what some of the MPs are talking about is what you are talking about, which is there has to be more
[24:14]than an apology. There has to be some action. There has to be some sort of accountability, someone taking responsibility. And I guess the question
[24:25]that I put to him was, are you going to take responsibility and consider your position? And Ruth, you think that is where it is probably going to end up. Others are saying that Morgan Mweeny,
[24:37]his chief of staff, who has been talked about as the person that was close to Mandolson and that advised the prime minister to take uh Mandlesson into that
[24:48]appointment and put him in Washington that he uh needs to go. When you talk about a reset in number 10, do you think he needs to clean out his team if he
[24:58]wants to survive himself? I think all of those people in number 10 who urged him to appoint Peter Mandolson really shouldn't be in number 10 because their
[25:09]judgment is so so flawed. This is not somebody who it was not evident that they were a bad person. So I think they should just go >> his judgment.
[25:19]>> He's the prime minister and I think he's got having been elected and he's got a manifesto to deliver. He's got to get on with governing the country. But he's got to make sure he has the right people
[25:31]with the right values in number 10. And I think he should literally look through all the people in number 10, especially those in very senior positions, and ask
[25:40]himself, did this person advise me to to appoint Peter Mandel? And if he did, then I'm afraid this person has got to
[25:49]be out of number 10. And there are a lot of women especially who've got good principles and good values and who can help the government to succeed. And he
[25:59]does need a reset in number 10 as well as turbocharging our work on cleaning up politics and on standing up against women violence against women and girls.
[26:09]>> So So what you're saying is if it turns out that his chief of staff uh did advise him uh to appoint Mandlesson, then his chief of staff should stand
[26:19]down. Yes, I think that I mean I don't know whether I mean there's a lot of rumors that um Morgan Mweeny did press him to to take Peter Mandelon as our
[26:30]ambassador. If that's the case then it shows that he's got terrible judgment and that judgment should not be in number 10. So definitely but I think
[26:40]that that's what that Kharma should do. He should recognize that this is an absolute milestone moment and look at all the people who gave him the wrong
[26:50]advice on this fundamental thing and just say, "Right, I need a reset in number 10." Cuz Harriet, what what's also very difficult when you're in my chair trying to read the room and when
[27:02]it's a room of hundreds of MPs, that's quite a hard room to read is where is Star with the party now? And I've made a
[27:11]lot of calls and I am very uncertain as to where this ends for Star in that MPs
[27:21]that I know that have been loyal to him say that they're really struggling to uh cope with this, that they're very upset, that they don't see how he can carry on,
[27:31]but they don't have an idea of how might Karma step down, who might take over, what might that look like. So there's a
[27:39]lot of a sense of fatality around Star's premiership, but not any sense of what might come after. And there's a sort of
[27:49]inertia and defeat and despair. But it's also overlaid with for me a feeling that there's a tinderbox atmosphere that
[28:00]something could ignite if someone chose to resign or uh more revelations came about that
[28:09]would would force star out. But you have such a good reading of the benches. Do you think the mood's changed? We've talked about uh how fast or slow the MPs
[28:20]are moving in the corridors, but you've also talked as well about the silent majority of star loyalists. Is the mood changing, Harriet?
[28:30]>> Absolutely. And as you say, Beth, I've always understood and been in touch with that majority of MPs who um are very loyal to the government and want K star
[28:42]to succeed. But I think that there is absolute dismay now. um amongst all MPs and a recognition that this is a really
[28:52]potentially fatal moment. But what is so frustrating is that I feel very strongly that there is a way out for him that there is a way for him to to lead forward. You know, consistent with his
[29:03]principles and values, but he is not taking that way out at the moment. He's just blaming Peter Mandel, blaming the vetting. That is not good enough. But at the moment MPs, as you say, are
[29:14]paralyzed with anxiety about it and they actually don't think, you know, a a resignation in disgrace of the prime minister and a a a turbulent and
[29:25]divisive leadership election is what this government was elected to do. That this is way off what we were elected to do. But I think the situation is
[29:36]rescuable, but it is not rescuable by what the prime minister was doing this morning. He he's got to understand how bad this is and that this is not a
[29:46]moment to blame either uh the the vetting system or the people who briefed him um or Peter Mlesson's lies. He's got to be reflective and come to terms with
[29:57]his own mistake on this. >> I think that this is where he's struggling. Okay, this is like my star stma sort of uh psychology so forgive me
[30:08]everyone but I think you know what you said at the beginning about the star you knew when he was director of public prosecutions and when I knew him before he became
[30:18]prime minister as and got to know him as leader of the opposition. This was the stma that he would present as you know he wanted to tackle violence against
[30:29]women and girls. He uh talked about principles in politics. He talked about integrity. He stood up if you like for the little guy against the big man.
[30:40]>> But you know, but he's allowed he's allowed Mandles to be a terrible influence, a malign influence on him. But this is why he's really upset is because the star that is being
[30:50]portrayed, the star that is being criticized for this turning a blind eye to Manderson, allowing victims to take a
[31:00]second place. All of that is exactly what Starmer, the human being, thinks he is not. And this is why I think that he is coming out and he is genuinely and I
[31:11]could it was palpable. I think that's why he's furious because he feels like he is being misunderstood. But I think what you're getting at is it
[31:22]doesn't matter what Peter Manderson did or didn't tell you or who advised you what. In the end, you put him back in with enough public
[31:34]record to say, as you were saying, that maybe this wasn't a choice that in Star's hearts of hearts, in his conscience, he would have been comfortable with. So maybe he's quite
[31:45]angry at himself because he's really cocked this up. Yeah. But he he doesn't show any sign yet of having facing up to the fact that it was his doing that
[31:56]brought the malign influence of Peter Mandlesson back into the heart of government. And it's no point being angry about it. He's got to come to terms and and come to understand that
[32:07]and take the necessary action. And also Gordon Brown is very angry with Peter Mandlesson. But it was that leaking of market sensitive information from Peter
[32:18]Mandlesson when he was a cabinet minister to foreign financiers which was what Epstein was and JP Morgan. It was Gordon that put him in that position
[32:28]that enabled him to do it. So I think that all of those who have promoted, supported, colluded with Peter Mandlesson, they have got to ask themselves the question about their
[32:40]responsibility because you see there was a whole load of people, myself included, who understood the nature of Peter Mandlesson. And actually, you know, I wrote in my book which was published in
[32:51]2018, my memoirs, that right from the 1990s, I was saying this man is divisive. he's untrustworthy, that he uh
[33:01]is out for himself, he's not acting in the public interest. And all the way through decades, I was warning that of what he was capable and what he was
[33:12]actually doing. And I was not the only one doing that. Um and and so really I think that for those people who've gone along with Peter Mandlesson who've been
[33:22]either beguiled by him or threatened by him that they've got to ask themselves questions about that. No, no one more so than the prime minister. So being angry
[33:33]about the scale and nature of Peter Mandlesson's wrongdoing is pointless for the prime minister. We can all be angry about that. He has got to reset number
[33:42]10, examine his own responsibility in in this and come to terms with it and actually set the government back on track. Harriet, is there a chance then I mean there is a chance that K star
[33:54]doesn't could go in the coming weeks, isn't there? Do you think there's actually I mean >> if he you know if he doesn't take the
[34:03]path which is necessary yes this will finish him off and that will be you know a tragedy for the government a tragedy for the country and a tragedy for Kama
[34:12]but there is a a pathway out of this but from the Thursday morning speech that is not the pathway that's going to get him out by the way just one you know small
[34:23]anecdote I mean I could tell thousands of anecdotes of uh Peter Mandles son 's, you know, malign influence, but just very recently, you know, I'm um UK
[34:32]government um special envoy on women and girls and you know, we've got a special relationship with the US. So, naturally, I was arranging to go over as special
[34:42]envoy to Washington to have a whole load of events to meet up with US women and Peter Mandlesson literally vetoed it. You know, that was just absolutely
[34:52]typical when we were in government together and I was trying to push through the Equality Act and trying to get more rights, maternity rights for women and paternity rights for for new
[35:03]fathers and he was business secretary all the time. He would be blocking me, blocking me, blocking me. And in fact, we only managed to get the equality bill through because Gordon Brown had to step in and overrule him. We've got a
[35:14]listener message here I'd like to read. This is a WhatsApp from Katherine. Thanks for sending this in. She says, "I've just watched the prime minister's speech. I do believe that K has integrity and was deceived, but I can no
[35:26]longer accept men giving each other the benefit of the doubt around rumor and innuendo. All these men who were friendly with Epstein decided it was politically, financially expedient to
[35:36]cozy up to him because women and girls do not matter." These same men preside over our digital infrastructure and built as a vehicle to suppress and abuse
[35:46]women. After me too, we thought things might change. As a survivor of rape as a child, I feel more like a victim today than a survivor because I can no longer
[35:57]trust that there is any more progress to be made against this violence. First up, uh, Katherine, thank you for showing that and I'm very sorry that that happened to you.
[36:07]>> I just think she's absolutely spot on about that. And perhaps she would have heard Natalie Fleet MP who was herself a survivor of sexual abuse speaking so
[36:17]with such raw emotion in the House of Commons about how women feel about this and Sarah Owenu and Polly Billington. There's been a lot of focus on the fact that Peter Mandlesson was leaking
[36:29]commercially sensitive secrets in the middle of the global financial crisis. But the women in the House of Commons on Wednesday, Wednesday brought it back to
[36:37]how on earth could somebody who'd been involved with helping, not just being a friend of helping somebody who'd sexually abused women, how could they be
[36:49]put in one of the most senior positions? I think that what has been forgotten is and and actually I sometimes uh feel bad about it myself when I'm covering it because I get so involved in the
[37:00]politics of it about what does it mean for the future of the prime minister and his team and the cabinet and actually at the heart of this there are victims and
[37:12]the victims kind of get forgotten in the pelmel of the political uh fallout of all of this. It's not just Kier Dharmmer, although it's most important
[37:21]for him. It's all the other men in the Labour Party who were part of Peter Mandlesson's circle and enabled him to
[37:30]be this toxic malign influence. Um, and I've said I've said during this week, uh, I don't want people to think everybody's like Peter Mandlesson that
[37:41]we're all in it for ourselves. We're all in it for for money. Um and I don't want people to think that because Peter Mandlesson is the exception rather than the rule. It is true he is the exception
[37:53]rather than the rule. But there is a problem with the system as well which enabled him and which colluded him and everybody who was part of doing that needs to reflect on that because there
[38:04]was a whole load of us who've been warning for ages about this problem and it gives us no pleasure at all to see it
[38:11]absolutely come to catastrophe. It's all we've got time for today. Uh we've got through a lot. Um, but if you
[38:22]want to know anything else about the story, send us a message. You know the WhatsApp number. It's 07934200LE4. And you can always email us electrical
[38:32]dysfunction@ sky.uk. >> And don't forget, if you like what you're hearing, hit that follow button to never miss an episode. And we'll be back next week. >> Goodbye. >> Goodbye.
[38:42]>> Goodbye.