Labour MP Tom Hayes has declined to comment on whether the Prime Minister has misled Parliament over Peter Mandelson and said the scandal is not as serious as Partygate under Boris Johnson.
Asked on the Camilla Tominey Show on GB News if the official explanation on Peter Mandelson’s security vetting is stretching credulity, he said: “Let’s talk about the bounds of credibility here, because you’re pulling together two things.
“The first is the security betting failure, the overriding of what the Prime Minister knew. And then separately, the appointment and the performance of Mandelson as the ambassador to Washington.
“On the first, as I’ve set out, the Prime Minister did not know. On the second the Prime Minister has made clear that had he known about Mandelson’s horrific relationship with Epstein, he would not have appointed him.
“So there are two simple answers there that I did separate out. But if you want to talk about in curiosity, and I think this is really important, I don’t know if you saw the breaking news today, really important breaking news, I don’t think GB News has covered, which is that people are going to work every single day.
“They’re working hard, they’re paying taxes. They’re probably rightly unhappy, in some respects, about the level of tax they’re paying. That tax could come down if people elsewhere pay their taxes.”
Asked if the Prime Minister had misled Parliament, he said: “There’ll be plenty of opportunities for MPs to ask questions. There are further Prime Minister’s Questions to take place.
“On Friday, when the Prime Minister went to the country via the media, he told what he knew, and he was asked questions. Then too, on Friday, he was in Paris bringing together world leaders to tackle the problems in our country arising from the Strait of Hormuz closing because we had Donald Trump launch that option of war.”
On why the vetting failure was not disclosed by Sir Keir Starmer during PMQs, he said: “Let’s get into that. If you as Prime Minister are not told about the failure in security vetting or the override, and then you do find out. What are you going to do? You had information kept from you.
“So he instructed his Cabinet Secretary to assemble the facts, and once those facts were assembled, he’s then going to Parliament. Friday, we were all in our constituencies. On Monday, he’ll be coming to the House of Commons, and I hope to see you cover it.”
He claimed the Mandelson scandal does not compare to Partygate under Boris Johnson: “There’s a huge difference between the Prime Minister being denied the information he needs, once he assembles it, going to the House of Commons on Monday, and Boris Johnson, whose staff has parted in Downing Street with suitcases of booze during the pandemic, with the Queen sitting silently and alone in a pew mourning her husband of many decades, whose service to our country was so great.
“For any attempt to draw a false equivalence there to be on this station is disrespectful to your viewers, and I think you know in your heart that what you’re seeing there isn’t equivalent, but you’re pushing it out because, frankly, it will get the clicks, and as a consequence, to get the clicks, it will help you to get more attention.”
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