Sir Keir Starmer came under intense fire at Prime Minister’s Questions over his decision to give jobs to two Labour figures with links to paedophiles.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch tore into his decision to give a peerage to former No10 communications chief Matthew Doyle.
Lord Doyle, who has had the Labour whip removed, has apologised for campaigning for Sean Morton in 2017 after he had been charged over indecent images of children.
But he is now facing calls to lose his peerage altogether, including from Labour Party chair Anna Turley.
The row comes amid the Mandelson scandal and his links to paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
At PMQs, Mrs Badenoch accused Sir Keir of “stuffing” the Government with “paedophile apologists”.
She stressed that the Mandelson appointment was not an “isolated incident”.
She further claimed there was an “established pattern of behaviour” over the PM’s appointment of Lord Mandelson as British ambassador to the US and Lord Doyle to the Lords.
Sir Keir hit back and said Matthew Doyle "did not give a full account of his actions" when he was given a peerage despite his ties to councillor Morton.
Rejecting Mrs Badenoch’s criticisms, he added: “This Government have introduced the most far-reaching violence against women and girls strategy.”
But Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey said: “To appoint one paedophile supporter cannot be excused as misfortune.
“To appoint two shows a catastrophic lack of judgement.”
Downing Street later insisted there is "no established precedent" for stopping a peerage after it has been announced.
Pressed on why Sir Keir Starmer did not prevent Lord Doyle from taking up his seat in the Lords, the Prime Minister's official spokesman told reporters: "There's no established precedent for withdrawing a peerage nomination after the announcement stage.
"That's why we're undertaking wider reform to both vetting and appointment processes."
Sir Keir’s spokesman added that No 10 would not "get ahead" of a Labour probe into Lord Doyle after the party's chairwoman Anna Turley called for him to be stripped him of his peerage.
The Met Police has launched a criminal investigation into claims of misconduct in public office by Lord Mandelson by allegedly passing market sensitive financial information to Epstein when he was Business Secretary in Gordon Brown’s government between 2009 and 2010.
Lord Mandelson is understood to deny wrongdoing but Sir Keir has been slammed for appointing him a British ambassador while knowing he had ongoing ties to Epstein.
Sir Keir survived an attempt to oust him as Prime Minister after Labour’s leader in Scotland Anas Sarwar called on him to resign.
The Cabinet swiftly rallied around the PM, snuffing out moves to try to topple him.
But the two paedophile storms left the Government wide open to attack from Tory leader Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.
In his apology, Lord Doyle said he believed Moray councillor Morton’s assertions of innocence at the time he campaigned for him, but the councillor later admitted having the indecent images.
The peer said he also had “extremely limited” contact with Morton after his conviction.
Labour had suspended Morton after he appeared in court in connection with indecent child images in late 2016.
In a third case, a tweet of Sir Keir campaigning in 2018 with Liron Velleman, who was then a Labour councillor in Barnet, has been deleted.
Velleman, 30, who has since admitted child sex offences, sent someone he thought was a 13-year-old girl a video of his penis and asked her to “show me your bra”, a court was told.
Unbeknownst to him, he was actually in contact with a decoy officer from the Met Police.
Amid the turmoil in his party, Sir Keir has pledged to “never walk away” from his mandate, and insisted he would lead the Labour Party into the next general election.
He also hit out at infighting within his party which was dealt another blow when Health Secretary Wes Streeting published his Whatsapp exchanges with Lord Mandelson.
In them, he said that Labour lacked a “growth strategy” and told of his fears of losing his Ilford North seat at the next general election.
Sir Keir stressed his Government should be “acting together” over the release of files on Lord Mandelson after Mr Streeting published his exchanges with the former ambassador.
The PM was expected to continue efforts to shake up his No 10 operation, with the country’s top civil servant Sir Chris Wormald rumoured to be on his way out in the coming days.
Cabinet Secretary Sir Chris failed to attend a meeting of Parliament’s Intelligence and Security committee on Tuesday, the group tasked with screening the files to be released related to Lord Mandelson’s appointment.
There is speculation he could be replaced by Antonia Romeo, currently top civil servant at the Home Office.
Sir Keir’s chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and communications chief Tim Allan have already departed as the Prime Minister seeks to revive his fortunes after a bruising start to 2026.
