“The process was followed.”

This, at least in his own head, seems to be the perennial “get out of jail” card for Keir Starmer.

The idea is that political discretion has almost no role left to play in public life. If the relevant boxes were ticked on the right checklist by the appropriate people in a timely manner, then there is nothing else to be said.

In the warped mind of our Prime Minister, this is why the appointment of Peter Mandelson as our ambassador to the United States is not really his fault.

There are, of course, innumerable fatal flaws in this approach.

Let’s begin by looking at what the “process” involves – or at least what we are now asked to believe it involves.

A highly controversial figure with a deeply chequered past is under consideration for the most senior diplomatic posting at the PM’s disposal. He fails the security vetting process. Senior officials at the Foreign Office decide to conceal this from the Prime Minister and allow the PM to inform Parliament, from the despatch box, that all due vetting processes were followed and complied with.

Starmer reiterates this claim at the launch of some rather obscure government initiative called “Pride in Place” which is entirely dominated by media questions over Mandelson’s appointment.

No one in the senior echelons of government thinks to intervene to inform the Prime Minister that he is, at best, labouring under a misapprehension and has seriously misled both the Commons and the public.

Many weeks later, it suddenly comes to Starmer’s attention that Mandelson actually failed the vetting process rather than passing. He becomes aware of this astonishing development on the night before he is due to appear at the weekly Prime Minister’s Questions in Parliament. Neither Keir Starmer – nor apparently any of his advisers – thinks it appropriate to use this opportunity to apologise about misleading the House and to correct the record.

Instead, he fires the most senior bureaucrat at the Foreign Office, Olly Robbins, and simply lets it be known how furious he is about the whole situation.

We are also asked to accept a level of incuriousness by the Prime Minister and an abundance of jaw-dropping indifference by those who conducted the vetting. Why didn’t Starmer probe about Mandelson’s relationships with China, Russia and Epstein? This wasn’t some irrelevant middle-management posting – but one of the most vital at his disposal.

Why didn’t the head of our security services take it upon themselves to make absolutely sure that the PM was aware that Mandelson had failed the vetting once speculation of his impending appointment was being widely reported across the nation’s media?

There is no way to square this circle without reaching one of two conclusions – either the Prime Minister is running the country duplicitously or he isn’t running the country at all. Either way, he needs to go.

The wider lesson is that politicians and the public should NOT trust the process. Ministers and MPs need to be held accountable for their judgment and discretion – not on whether they are confident that various pieces of paper, with the requisite number of ticks and crosses, have been shuffled from appropriate outbox to inbox.

Vetting should be advisory other than in the most extreme of cases. If the PM is informed that his preferred nominee for a powerful and sensitive position is a known Russian agent, it would surely be an act of treason for him to proceed with it. But if, for example, an excellent candidate is known to be in marginal financial distress, this might not be sufficient grounds for blocking their appointment even if there is a lingering fear of their susceptibility to bribery.  You might conclude that this is something you can mitigate, monitor or find some other way of coping with. Once again, the test is one of judgment and discretion not merely one of process.

The most striking thing is that some sort of case could indeed have been made for Mandelson’s appointment. It could have been argued that the incoming Trump administration required a particular skill set that Mandelson was - more or less - unique in possessing. It could have been explained that a security check had raised a number of issues but having explored these thoroughly the Prime Minister was persuaded – on balance – to proceed. It could have been acknowledged that his past relationship with Epstein might indeed cause offence to the victims of the billionaire paedophile but that “not causing offence” was not an overriding concern when weighed against the wider issues of our long-term strategic relationship with the USA. But these arguments were not put forward – certainly not in any meaningful way. Instead, we have been taken for fools and asked to forgive the Prime Minister because he “followed the process at all times.”

If you live by the process, you die by the process. Although I am conscious of the risk of moving from the frying pan to the fire in a single bound, I still very much hope that this scandal finally removes from office the most useless Prime Minister any of us have ever had the misfortune to live under.

Keep the flag of freedom flying! 

Mark's column was discussed in the first episode of our new "PopCast" podcast. Please remember to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE!