#downing-street

#downing-street

"It's not been our finest 24 hours in government," one senior figure in government acknowledged to me, after mudslinging one way and another, some in public, plenty more in private. I have been making loads of phone calls to patch together the anatomy of another bumpy few days for Downing Street: what those close to the Prime Minister hoped to achieve, what ended up happening and where all this leaves them.

The Conservative Party has written to Sir Keir Starmer demanding answers over the extent of Downing Street's knowledge of Lord Mandelson's links to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The Tories also called for the prime minister to release documents relating to Mandelson's appointment, including evidence that shows how No 10 reacted when they learned of his ties to Epstein. On Sunday, the BBC reported that Starmer explicitly asked Mandelson about his links to the paedophile before deciding to appoint him as ambassador to the US.

No10 has been plunged into lockdown as police investigate reports of a suspicious vehicle. A cordon has been put in place at the southern end of Whitehall.

Downing Street may have to scale back or even abandon deploying thousands of soldiers to Ukraine as the risks are too high.