Watch the moment Business and Trade Secretary Peter Kyle “implores” Camilla Tominey during an intense GB News interview about what Sir Keir Starmer knew about his pick for UK Ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson.
Lord Mandelson was forced to step away from the role after revelations about his involvement with paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The Prime Minister is now under pressure to come clean about what he knew about the links when he first made the appointment back in December 2024.
Camilla asked Mr Kyle about his controversial comments where he equated Nigel Farage with Jimmy Savile for rallying against the Online Safety Act.
Camilla Tominey grilled Peter Kyle on GB News
|
GB NEWS / PA
“But you’re perfectly happy for the Prime Minister to have supported someone who described a convicted paedophile as his best pal?”, she asked.
“I implore you not to put that on me”, Mr Kyle pleaded.
LATEST DEVELOPMENTS
“I am perfectly happy. I think of the victims in this crime. When there is somebody who does something that is supporting, I wanted action taken and I expected it and the Prime Minister did act.
“Do not use the phrase that I was happy because I was certainly not happy about that.
Peter Kyle said Lord Mandelson had performed well in the role
|
GB NEWS
“If you want to talk about the Online Safety Act, I am happy to do so.”
Mr Kyle was otherwise glowing in his praise of Lord Mandelson despite the fact he has been forced to quit.
“What the Prime Minister discovered on Wednesday was materially different to all the information we had before”, he said.
“You have to understand than when Peter was appointed as ambassador, the global trading system had been upended and relationships between America and Britain and other countries had been upended by a very unconventional approach to diplomacy.
“We faced a fundamentally challenging period and we needed to get in some real expertise at that time. Look at what we’ve delivered.
“The first trade deal with America, the best trade deal with America. We are repurposing the special relationship to make it fit for a very, very unconventional period in time.”
Camilla asked: “Are you saying the Prime Minister couldn’t find someone better than Lord Mandelson, with all his history, to do the role?
“He did it in his own interest, not his own interest, because he wanted to keep the Blairites happy, didn’t he?”
Mr Kyle continued to insist that if the Labour Government had known at the time of Lord Mandelson’s appointment what they know now, they would not have gone through with it.
Lord Mandelson was removed from his position as Britain’s ambassador to Washington earlier in the week after the emergence of previously undisclosed correspondence with the convicted sex offender.
The controversial messages reveal that Lord Mandelson encouraged the financier to “fight for early release” in the period immediately preceding his 2008 sentencing.
The correspondence shows Lord Mandelson expressing deep personal regard for Epstein, telling him “I think the world of you” merely twenty-four hours before the disgraced financier started serving his prison term.