The door of 10 Downing Street is one of the great symbols of British democracy. A democracy which relies on the principles of honesty and integrity. Its current inhabitant has failed to uphold these principles. Boris Johnson must go.

Lee Kuan Yew on avoiding the mistakes of socialist Britain:

🚨NEW: * Vetting led to Mandelson agreeing ‘mitigations’ to deal with security concerns * He was not allowed unsupervised access to former clients * All this was agreed and known about by Downing Street = no need for Robbins to block security clearance spectator.com/article/mandel…

Meanwhile, Sanchez in Beijing last week. China famously never violates international law or EU principles

Liz Truss Simon French I wrote about this for the Institute of Economic Affairs Blog two years ago. iea.org.uk/the-critical-r…

I would have sympathy with this. But Starmer's problem isn't simply his deceitfulness & lack of grip re Mandelson. It's that he did that after being so censorious & unforgiving towards Boris Johnson's much lesser failings.

Starmer now only has 2 options: 1. Do a Philip Scofield and come out as gay. 2. Do a Gary Lineker and come out as black.

What Case now proves is Starmer specifically took the decision to appoint Mandelson without any proper due diligence at all, directly against the advice of his officials. Even though he was a major national security risk. Then lied about it. How is that not a resignation issue.

Surely Starmer can’t survive this?

Peter Mandelson was offered a classified 'high tiers' briefing on 6th January. Olly Robbins didn't become FCDO Perm Sec until 8th January. Robbins got the sack for implementing something that was already a fait accompli when he arrived in the job.

But he hasn’t taken responsibility at all

Starmer very pointedly refuses to answer Kemi Badenoch’s question in relation to our story this morning about Mandelson’s link to Sistema

But he had literally been told that the ‘usual process’ was to vet first, appoint later.

Making the US Ambassador a political appointee was by definition not the normal process

Diane Abbott nailed it this afternoon (yes, really): never mind Starmer's protestations that no one told him...given Mandelson's chequered history, why didn't he ASK?

From computing to space, Britain has an odd habit of innovating its way to the pinnacle of some developing field or other, only to get white line fever and pass the ball to someone else to score the winning try. Usually an American. It's happened so many times it's almost a

I’ve never seen anyone who is as shameless about throwing his staff under the bus as Starmer.

Damning