Keir Starmer is facing calls to resign after the Guardian revealed that Peter Mandelson failed the developed vetting process over his appointment as US ambassador – but was able to take up the post after the Foreign Office overruled the recommendation.

Here is the timeline of Mandelson’s controversial appointment and the fallout it has caused:

Badenoch was also asked about reporting in the Independent in September last year, which said that sources indicated that Mandelson did not clear security vetting for the role, while MI6 failed to clear the Labour peer largely because of concerns over his business links to China.

Badenoch said:

Back in September, these questions were asked. I find it very hard to believe that the director of communications did not tell anyone or even ask anybody before answering. He did not deny the claims.

That is one of the reasons why I think that they knew more than they are pretending to know. Now, I think it is very significant that we are seeing that questions were asked and answers were denied. This is a cover up, one way or another.

Asked about the Guardian exclusive which revealed that senior government officials have been considering whether to withhold from parliament sensitive documents that show Mandelson failed security vetting before he assumed the role of US ambassador.

Badenoch said:

I think it would be very serious if we find out that the vetting documents are being withheld, documents which are particularly sensitive were to go to the ISC, the intelligence and security committee.

It sounds like the [the intelligence and security committee] has not received all the documents, perhaps, if they have been received they’re being covered up in some kind of way. So they should be sent unredacted documents. Let’s see the full story.

The Conservatives were planning “the next set of actions” if they believed the government was not acting with full transparency, she added. “We are not letting this go, because it shows the rot at the heart of Keir Starmer’s government,” she said.

Kemi Badenoch is not a woman known for pulling her punches, but at a press conference in SW1 this afternoon she was even more pugnacious than usual.

Badenoch repeatedly branded Keir Starmer a “liar”, saying he had repeatedly “put his own self interest above the national interest”. Responding to a direct question about whether the prime minister had lied, she said:

You ask if I believe that the Prime Minister is lying? Yes, I do. The only other alternative is that he is so grossly incompetent he has no idea what is going on. He told me at PMQs, the full due process has been followed.

Now it’s looking like he appointed Mandelson before the vetting was completed. That is not for due process, that is untrue. So he lied.

Badenoch called on the prime minister to resign saying the “buck stops with him” and it was the only “decent” response. She said she was “considering every parliamentary option” and urged Labour MPs to force a vote of no confidence in their leader.

Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth has accused Eluned Morgan, the Labour first minister of Wales, of being “unwilling to speak out” following the latest revelations about the vetting of Peter Mandelson.

ap Iorwerth said:

Keir Starmer says it is ‘staggering’ he was not told that Peter Mandelson had failed security vetting.

What is truly staggering is that he expects the public to believe him. It is now clear that he is either lying or utterly unfit to be prime minister.

In the face of such serious questions, Eluned Morgan’s silence is indefensible.

He added:

At a time when bold leadership is required, we have a first minister in hiding, unwilling to speak out and unwilling to hold her own party boss to account.

The first minister has repeatedly said she will call out Keir Starmer when necessary – this is one of those times when she should be doing so.

She should call on him to resign, out of respect to Epstein’s victims and in the interests of restoring integrity to public life.

The Lib Dems are in buoyant mood, with polls suggesting their best Holyrood results for years and the party targeting ten constituencies as well as encouraging voters to go for them on the peach regional ballot too – this Holyrood election is more unpredictable than most but it’s feasible that this party could play a role in keeping the SNP out of power if it does a deal with Labour.

They launched their manifesto this morning including commitments on improving NHS access, especially for mental ill health, changes to early years schools to have play-based learning until the age of 7, like in Finland, and more support for children with ASN.

Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton insisted there was “no pact or alliance with Labour” – to some laughter in the room given the ongoing row about whether Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar suggested to Reform’s Scottish leader Malcolm Offord they work together to beat the SNP. But his message was clear that after May 7 he’d be open to discussion.

Cole-Hamilton said: “The one thing I share with Anas is a desire for change and the biggest change that Scotland needs is a change of government. And of course, if there’s an opportunity to unseat the SNP – who need to lose power, who need a period of quiet reflection on the opposition benches of this parliament – [with a party that] which shares our values, then of course we will look at that seriously”.

It’s something the Scottish public are already thinking about – recent polling shows that 32% of the Scottish public would be happy to see the Liberal Democrats having influence over the Scottish government, the most popular of all the smaller parties.

The exit of the top civil servant Olly Robbins from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is the latest departure of an official or minister under Keir Starmer’s two-year tenure as prime minister.

Here we take a look at some of the most high-profile resignations since Starmer came to power.

Keir Starmer believes Parliament had a right to know Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting, the prime minister’s spokesperson said.

Asked if Starmer had misled MPs, they said:

He’s very clear that Parliament had a right to know this, and indeed that he had a right to know this, and that it’s completely staggering that UK security vetting recommended against the developed vetting security clearance for Peter Mandelson and that he was not told, the foreign secretary was not told and as a result Parliament was not told.

The Liberal Democrats have asked Keir Starmer’s ethics adviser to investigate the Prime Minister for failing to tell Parliament Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting as soon as he became aware.

In a letter to Laurie Magnus, Lib Dem frontbencher Lisa Smart said the prime minister “appears to have failed in his obligation to correct inadvertent errors ‘at the earliest opportunity’”, as required by the ministerial code.

In a separate statement issued by the Lib Dems, Smart said:

The Prime Minister failed to tell Parliament that he knew Mandelson had been denied vetting on Wednesday, presumably crossing his fingers and hoping the truth would not come out. What a shameful way for a Prime Minister to behave.

To stand in front of the dispatch box and deny Parliament such crucial information looks like a serious breach of ministerial code. That’s why I’ve written to the ethics adviser to report this breach and ask him to investigate at the earliest opportunity.

Starmer made catastrophic errors of judgment from the very beginning of the Mandelson scandal and it seems he has just kept on making them. His position is now untenable.

Downing Street has said it does not accept that the Foreign Office felt pressure to overrule UK Security Vetting’s recommendation against Mandelson receiving developed vetting clearance.

Asked whether Number 10 would accept that the FCDO felt pressured over the appointment, a Downing Street spokesman said:

No. The security vetting process that the Foreign Office led obviously took place following the appointment, as is often the case in these appointments, but at no point – the Prime Minister has said he finds it completely staggering that at no point in that vetting process the fact that UK Security Vetting had recommended against providing Peter Mandelson developed vetting was ever communicated to Number 10.

Downing Street insisted that nobody in Number 10 was told that Lord Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting despite repeated requests for “assurances”.

A Downing Street spokesman said:

Nobody in Number 10, officials or otherwise, had this information.

He added:

The Foreign Office have run this vetting process, and at no point, at any point in any part of this process was anyone in Number 10, PM or otherwise, informed by the Foreign Office that the recommendation of UK Security Vetting was for him not to pass his developed vetting.

Number 10 has, as you would expect, been repeatedly asking for assurances on the facts of this case, including the vetting, and at no point in that process was Number 10 told about security vetting recommending against his vetting.

Parliament had “a right to know” that Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting, Downing Street has said.

Asked whether Keir Starmer had misled Parliament over Lord Mandelson’s vetting, a Downing Street spokesman said:

He’s very clear that Parliament had a right to know this, and indeed that he had a right to know this, and that it’s completely staggering that UK Security Vetting recommended against the developed vetting security clearance for Peter Mandelson and that he was not told, the Foreign Secretary was not told and as a result Parliament was not told.

The spokesman would not be drawn on whether Starmer thought he had been misled by the Foreign Office, saying:

He’s said that it’s staggering that he wasn’t told that he’d failed his developed vetting when he was telling Parliament that due process had been followed.

And this is why he has ordered an urgent investigation into how this decision was taken and why he was not informed earlier.

Keir Starmer has said it is ‘staggering’ and ‘unforgivable’ he was not told that Peter Mandelson had failed vetting.

The prime minister was responding to Guardian revelations that Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting clearance but the decision was overruled by the Foreign Office to ensure he could take up his post as ambassador to the US.

Olly Robbins, the UK Foreign Office’s top civil servant, has already been forced out of his post overnight and there are calls from opposition parties for the prime minister himself to resign.

Starmer is in Paris to chair a gathering of world leaders on the opening of the strait of Hormuz as the revelations sink in in Westminster and Whitehall.

In other news, police have said they are investigating a security incident near the Israeli embassy in London after officers found a number of discarded items in the area.

A statement said Counter Terrorism Policing London was aware of a video shared online overnight in which a group claimed to have targeted the embassy with drones carrying dangerous substances.

Police said the embassy had not been attacked and urgent inquiries were under way. “We do not believe there to be any increased public safety risk at this stage,” the statement said.

A Labour backbencher has said it “doesn’t sound credible” that Keir Starmer was unaware Peter Mandelson had failed his security vetting.

Veteran MP Jon Trickett said:

It simply doesn’t sound credible for Keir Starmer to claim that he was unaware that Mandelson had been denied security clearance.

If the PM did not know, it raises gravely serious issues about the way we are governed.

Either way, the excuses coming from Downing Street won’t cut it on the doorstep in the run-up to the local elections.

Here are some images of Peter Mandelson walking his dog in London this morning.

He has not publicly commented on his failed security vetting, as revealed by The Guardian last night.

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said Downing Street should answer questions in parliament, following the revelations about the vetting of Peter Mandelson.

Speaking as he campaigned in Edinburgh for the Scottish parliament election, Mr Sarwar said the scandal around Mandelson was the “tipping point” which led to his earlier call for Keir Starmer to quit.

Asked if he thought the prime minister had misled parliament, Sarwar told the Press Association:

These are questions that of course have to be answered by Downing Street – in the parliament and also in any appropriate parliamentary committees.

I stated my position back in February, I stand by my position, I don’t recoil from it. And many people will know that the Mandelson scandal was the tipping point for me.

We might have a chance to hear from Keir Starmer directly for the first time since the Guardian’s revelations as he’s just arrived in Paris for talks over reopening the strait of Hormuz.

He will co-host a virtual meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron and then have lunch. Around 40 countries and the International Maritime Organisation are expected to be on the call.

Watch that live here:

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock has insisted that Keir Starmer will not quit over what he described as the Peter Mandelson “horror show”.

“Keir is not going. If we subtract the Mandelson thing over the last day, or the last eons, regardless of the 8 May outcome, it is widely understood that the last thing the Labour party needs is the approach that the party, a party, is more concerned with its own welfare than the condition of the country,” he said.

Speaking at a Best for Britain event unveiling shifting voter sentiment in favour of Labour being more ambitious in relation to its reset with the EU, he said that he believed Starmer would have not have known about the vetting.

“This is a very straight and honest guy who would not have sustained his argument previously for many many months” if he had not told the truth about what he knew about Mandelson’s vetting, he said.

He described the scandal as the “Mandelson horror show”.

Not all Labour MPs are angry about the story. In fact, Patrick Hurley, the MP for Southport, called it “a big fuss over nothing”.

He told Sky News:

Olly Robbins isn’t even a household name in his own household, and the general public will be utterly bemused that this has come up again in the media discourse.

The idea that the prime minister will be forced out over the appointment of someone to an ambassadorial role is like something out of a bad US sitcom that gets cancelled after three shows.

By an order of magnitude, the bigger problem for us is the shock from the Iran war, the ongoing challenge on prices of consumer goods and the very long shadow of Liz Truss’s mini budget. Everything else is a sideshow.

Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth said “there is no trust without transparency” as he called on No 10 to “admit its incompetence”.

In a post on X, he wrote:

No trust without transparency. So many questions remain unanswered and with every passing day the Prime Minister is distracted from the day job and failing those he serves.

It’s time for the No10 operation to come clean or admit its incompetence.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has called for the prime minister to stand down.

Posting on X, Farage said: “It’s time for Keir Starmer to go.”

Farage told broadcasters that the Foreign Office’s top civil servant Olly Robbins is the “sacrificial lamb in an attempt to try and save the Prime Minister”.

He told LBC: “None of this adds up, the idea they weren’t told about the vetting. Remember, in the House of Commons, Starmer actually said that the vetting had told him about the ongoing relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, then outside of the House, in Hastings, he gave a speech in which he said that Mandelson had cleared security vetting.

“They are all over the place on this, it is totally unbelievable and Robbins, he’s the sacrificial lamb in an attempt to try and save the Prime Minister, and it just isn’t good enough.”

Farage said it is not credible or believable that the Government waited until Thursday to reveal security vetting procedures had been overruled because it wanted to launch a “full-scale investigation”.

The Reform UK leader told LBC the explanation is: “Just not credible, not believable in any way at all. I am in absolutely no doubt in my mind that this Prime Minister misled the House of Commons and lied to the country outside of the House of Commons.”

Farage said Robbins is “one of the most professional civil servants in this country” and “there is no way” he would have decided to overrule security vetting procedures alone.

The Reform UK leader told LBC: “There is no way a man like that would unilaterally make a decision of this kind, and, equally, the Prime Minister cannot stand up and say that Mandelson passed security vetting and now claim later he wasn’t told.

“That’s not incompetence, even Keir Starmer is not that incompetent, it is outright, blatant dishonesty.”

The Green Party leader for England and Wales, Zack Polanski, has called for Keir Starmer to resign.

Posting on X, Polanski said:

There’s no way today should end without Starmer’s resignation. Any other outcome would be an absurd scenario where this Labour Government – and all in it – would be laughing in our faces.

The ethics and morality are it (sic) are an important question. Just as vital and urgent is the fact it’s all such a distraction.

We have sky high bills and an energy crisis – we need to end Rip Off Britain. All attention needs to be on a Government capable of doing the basics.

Friday’s newspapers and broadcasters were dominated by the Guardian’s revelations that Peter Mandelson failed his security vetting clearance but the decision was overruled by the Foreign Office to ensure he could take up his post as ambassador to the US.

The story splashed on the front pages of the Daily Mail, Express, Daily Telegraph, The Times, the i Paper and the Financial Times.

The Mail leads with “Starmer on brink as his Mandelson ‘lies’ are exposed”. The paper says party leaders have accused the prime minister of “lying to MPs and say he must now resign”, while the i leads with “Starmer in peril again as No 10 turns on the Foreign Office”.

The BBC on both radio and television, as well as Sky News, Times Radio, LBC and other commercial stations have all been leading with the story on their bulletins.

Here’s a round-up of the papers:

Last night there were calls for Sir Olly Robbins to appear again before Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee to explain what happened – but now questions are being asked as to whether he will be able to give an account of what happened in light of his resignation.

Emily Thornberry, senior Labour MP and the committee’s chairwoman, told Sky News last night: “Perhaps he can tell us… was it his own idea, or was he being leant on elsewhere?

“Or was he, being a civil servant, was he getting direction from elsewhere, and if so, by whom?”

She also pointed to the careful language in a letter she received from Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on the vetting process, which noted that: “The vetting process was undertaken by UK Security Vetting on behalf of the FCDO and concluded with DV clearance being granted by the FCDO.”

Thornberry said: “It says he was vetted, and it says he was appointed, but it doesn’t say it was overridden… I’m saying is that, you know, people have basically been telling us half the story.”

Jones denied reports that senior government officials have been considering whether to withhold from parliament sensitive documents that show Mandelson failed security vetting before he assumed the role of US ambassador.

Asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about the reports, he said “That’s not true”.

Jones said the process required the documents to go to Metropolitan Police and the Intelligence and Security Committee before they are published. He added:

We’ve already published one tranche of documents and we’ll publish another tranche soon.

Asked why the prime minister did not correct the record in the House of Commons when he appeared at prime minister’s questions, Jones said Starmer wanted to wait to have “all the facts” before appearing before the house, which he intends to do on Monday.

Jones repeatedly denied that the prime minister had given a misleading impression about what has happened and had “lost grip” of the situation. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme:

I completely refute the suggestion the PM misled the public or the House of Commons. It’s very clear from his words he was reporting what he had been told and what had been followed.

Challenged on the prime minister’s ability to lead, Jones said:

I don’t think this is a question about the prime minister’s leadership.

Jones told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme that the prime minister only became aware of the Foreign Office’s decision to grant vetted status to Mandelson against the advice of security officials when documents were provided to the Cabinet Office on Tuesday.

The Foreign Office did not tell the prime minister that they granted developed vetting status to Peter Mandelson against the advice of the security and vetting process. The prime minister was only made aware of that on Tuesday evening this week when the documents became available to the Cabinet Office as part of the humble address process (a binding motion to request government papers – JG).

No minister is allowed to see these vetting documents as a matter of principle because we employ security professionals to conduct deeply invasive personal investigations into people’s backgrounds and for those officials to make a recommendation to civil servants on the appointment and employment of individuals.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Darren Jones said he found out yesterday afternoon that the Foreign Office had overruled the vetting recommendation. He said:

Look I find this whole situation astonishing, I found this out yesterday afternoon… the Foreign Office and a small number of other organisations have the right to ignore the recommendations of security and vetting officials when appointing people to sensitive roles.

I immediately suspended the right last night for the Foreign Office and other organisations to be able to use that exemption.

Jones said security officials recommended that Mandelson was not appointed to the role but could not explain why.

I’ve not seen the documents or the detailed information. This is deeply personal information about financial, personal background and particular views and relationships. It’s normal for that information to be kept only by the security officials who conduct this work because it is so invasive into their personal lives.

Back on the morning rounds, Darren Jones, chief secretary to the prime minister, has been addressing the calls for Keir Starmer to go.

Starmer has not considered resigning and did not mislead Parliament, he said.

Asked on BBC Breakfast whether the Prime Minister is going to resign, and whether he has either knowingly or unknowingly misled Parliament, Jones responded “no”.

Jones explained that technically the process was followed correctly because UK Security Vetting undertake their investigations and then make a recommendation to the relevant sponsoring department, who then have the right to reject the recommendation.

As a result, he has now suspended the right for departments to ignore vetting recommendations.

Continuing her criticism of the prime minister, Badenoch told BBC Radio 4 Today’s programme: “The fact is all roads lead to a resignation.”

She said:

The fact is the prime minister is telling everyone that he was told [about the Foreign Office vetting decision] on Tuesday.

The Ministerial Code states that when a minister discovers… that parliament has been inadvertently misled they need to correct the record at the first opportunity. The first opportunity was on Wednesday morning at prime minister’s questions. He gave a long sermon about all sorts of things, refused to answer questions I asked him, and didn’t tell the house, that in itself is a breach of the ministerial code.

Claiming full due process was followed when it wasn’t - another breach, misleading parliament. Breaching the ministerial code by telling people the security services had cleared him.

The fact is all roads lead to a resignation.

It doesn’t matter what story the prime minister is telling, at some point there is deliberate dishonesty – whether it’s the cover up story or the original story - one of these is deliberate dishonesty, they cant all be true, and that’s why I know he is lying.

Sir Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, is among voices calling for the PM to go.

He has said even if the prime minister’s explanation - that he was unaware of the Foreign Office’s decision to overrule Mandelson’s failed vetting until this week – is “true”, he should still resign.

Davey also warned that if the PM doesn’t go of his own volition, his party will “take action” in parliament to remove him.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Davey said:

I don’t think the prime minister can get out of his responsibility by sacking Olly Robbins - the buck has to stop with Mr Starmer.

I think frankly it’s inconceivable on such a sensitive matter the permeant secretary at the Foreign Office wouldn’t have referred to ministers on this.

It’s also a matter of national security, essentially the Foreign Office found that prime minister should not be given top secret information.

Davey said he believed the claim that the prime minister did not know about the Foreign Office’s move until this week was “not credible”.

Let’s imagine they are telling the truth and they did only just learn about this on Tuesday what does that say about the Governmenet and how they operate?

It means people around the prime minister were hiding critical information from him and he took this decision without meeting Mandelson, without knowing about his failed security but knowing about Mandelson’s reputation.

I think the evidence suggests he misled the commons and he misled the public that’s against all the rules and that’s why we’ve called for him to go and I think that if he doesn’t go, we’re going to have to take some action in parliament.

Davey likened the scenario to former Conservative prime minister Boris Johnson’s final days in office.

It’s hard to believe it was inadvertent, it stretches credibility, but even if that is a true story it shows there was total negligence and incompetence at the top of his government...

The PM held the Conservatives to account when he was in opposition when Boris Johnson was clearly lying over partygate and Keir Starmer called for all the accountability and called for Boris Johnson to go... but I’m afraid now he he has to take his own medicine. All the evidence suggests he has to go.