Dark mood among Labour MPs as PM tries to contain Mandelson scandal

The Peter Mandelson story - scandal, I think we can now say - has moved so fast over the past few days that it's hard to know where it will have gone by the time you read this, let alone the end of the week.

What is clear, though, is that the mood of Labour MPs has darkened quite significantly over the course of today.

That was displayed most vividly at Prime Minister's Questions.

It is hard to come up with the right adjectives to describe what Sir Keir Starmer said about Lord Mandelson, or "Mandelson" as he kept referring to him, conspicuously not using the title the government intends to strip from him.

"Betrayed" - that was the word Sir Keir used to describe what Lord Mandelson had done to the country, to Parliament and to the Labour Party.

"He lied repeatedly," the prime minister said.

That language was designed to embody the fury and frustration so many Labour MPs feel - including, as he said again and again, Sir Keir himself.

Yet what is concerning Labour MPs this afternoon is what came after: a clear admission from the prime minister that he knew that Lord Mandelson had continued to at least some extent to have a relationship with Epstein after his conviction.

This has for some time been implicit in the government's position. After all, it was public knowledge at the time of Lord Mandelson's appointment to the post of US ambassador. And the prime minister's defence is that he has only learnt subsequently of the true depth of Mandelson's friendship with Epstein.

Still, Sir Keir making that admission has clearly spooked some Labour MPs in a big way.

Some I have spoken to were also spooked by Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative leader, managing to personalise the issue - telling Labour MPs that they risked individually becoming party to a "cover-up".

In the immediate aftermath of PMQs, Labour figures were unanimous about their situation.

A senior source said: "This is bad. It's clearly going to do real damage. And just suck up oxygen from other things we actually want to talk about."

A minister said simply: "It's very, very bad."

Another minister said: "It's pretty bad. We've been in end of days [territory] for a while. Just depends how long the end is."

That is one reason why the government is, as I write, frantically rewriting its proposal for which papers relating to Lord Mandelson it is willing to release.

The government had planned to release a vast array of documents, only excluding those which might affect national security or international relations.

A large chunk of Labour MPs have essentially signalled that they do not trust the government to carry out that sifting process.

It appears that as a compromise position, the Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), a cross-party group of MPs and peers with special security clearance, will play a role in that process.

Tellingly, Angela Rayner, the former deputy prime minister, intervened early in the debate to call for this.

Sitting in the press seats above the House of Commons chamber, I witnessed an intense conclave as a compromise was thrashed out in real time while the debate among MPs was going on.

For five minutes, Jonathan Reynolds, the government chief whip, and the Conservative chief whip, Rebecca Harris, were in talks behind the Speaker's chair, joined by the senior Labour MP Dame Meg Hillier as well as Tory Jeremy Wright, the deputy chair of the ISC.

Midway through they were joined by Sir Alan Campbell, the leader of the House of Commons, while Reynolds took notes on his order paper.

It was a scene reminiscent of the Brexit era when Parliament was stuck at a stalemate and the government had no functioning majority.

Sir Keir theoretically commands one of the biggest majorities in British political history.

The chaos of this debate is just one sign of how quickly the mood in the Labour Party has soured this week.

Sign up for our Politics Essential newsletter to keep up with the inner workings of Westminster and beyond.