Sir Keir Starmer insisted he never would have appointed Peter Mandelson as US ambassador if he had known the full extent of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein, in his first public comments since sacking the Labour peer.
As he sought to get back on the front foot after his “phase two” plan for government got off to a chaotic start, the prime minister attempted to move on from the fiasco hours before Donald Trump’s historic second state visit.
