Labour peer Lord John Hutton, who served as a Cabinet minister under Sir Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, said he doubted the dismissal of Morgan McSweeney, Keir Starmer’s chief of staff, could help save his premiership.

McSweeney is believed to have pressed the Prime Minister to appoint Mandelson as the UK’s ambassador to Washington despite his association with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

Lord Hutton said he thought the handling of the Mandelson scandal could mark the end of Starmer’s time in office.

He told LBC he expected Labour MPs would be having some ‘very serious reflections’ on the direction of government and cast doubt on whether sacking chief of staff Morgan McSweeney would be enough to fix the troubles facing Sir Keir.

He added:

I don’t think the Prime Minister can be rescued by an avalanche of new parliamentary aides or aides in No 10. I think the change has got to come from the very top, not from the other ranks of the Government.

And I don’t know whether that change is possible tonight. It doesn’t really look to me like it is.

MPs approved the release of documents relating to Peter Mandelson’s appointment as UK ambassador to the US yesterday, but a minister told the House the files would not be released right away, suggesting it could take weeks or months.

This is because the Metropolitan Police has asked the Government not to release documents that would ‘undermine’ their investigation into the disgraced peer.

Sir Keir Starmer faced a backlash from his own back benches, including his former deputy Ms Rayner, over an attempt to have some papers ‘prejudicial to UK national security or international relations’ withheld.

Labour MP Andy McDonald said he thought it was ‘reasonable to expect an answer pretty damn quick’ on how Mandelson passed vetting.

Meanwhile, Kemi Badenoch told ITV’s Peston she wanted Downing Street to provide the documents in ’48 hours or so’.

She is holding a press conference in Westminster later this morning, where she is expected to keep pressure up on the Prime Minister.

Read Quentin Letts parliamentary sketch here, in which he describes Sir Keir Starmer as ‘deflating before our eyes’ while Kemi Badenoch ‘kept bayonetting him’:

QUENTIN LETTS: Punctured Starmer was deflating before our eyes…

Through the whistling stillness came Kemi’s insistent interrogations. She was cool, shimmeringly superior. For a third time: did the official vetting of Mandelson disclose the Epstein dirt?

The Prime Minister and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney are safe in their jobs, Steve Reed has insisted.

Asked whether Sir Keir Starmer’s position is secure, the Housing Secretary told BBC Breakfast: ‘Of course it is.’

On Sky News, he was pressed on whether Mr McSweeney is safe in his role, after being blamed by many Labour MPs for pushing for the appointment of his ally Lord Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the US in 2024.

Mr Reed answered: ‘Yes, of course he is.’

Today’s Daily Mail front page leads with the news that Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership is in grave peril after Angela Rayner led a Labour revolt against his handling of the Peter Mandelson scandal.

You can pick up a copy of today’s newspaper for £1.20 to read more.

Peter Mandelson ‘conned everybody,’ Cabinet minister Steve Reed insisted as he sought to stress the Prime Minister and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney were not ‘at fault’.

The Housing Secretary – a loyalist of Sir Keir Starmer – told Sky News: ‘The person at fault here is not the Prime Minister or his team.

‘It is Peter Mandelson who lied, manipulated and deceived everybody, including the media, actually, because he was on the media an awful lot as well. He conned everybody.

‘What matters is what you do when you find out what’s gone wrong. And the Prime Minister couldn’t have been more decisive. He sacked Peter Manson at 5am in the morning as US ambassador months ago.’

Mr Reed said he felt like he had ‘been punched in the stomach’ when he found out about Lord Mandelson’s dealings with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein from the documents released by US authorities.

Sir Keir Starmer admitted at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday that he knew about Mandelson’s ongoing friendship with the convicted paedophile when he appointed him, but said that the peer ‘lied repeatedly’ about the extent of the relationship.

Downing Street then tried to control the release of potentially explosive documents, which provide insight into how the decision was made.

But in the face of a mutiny from Labour MPs – led by former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner – the Government had to back down and cede control to Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee to decide what could be released into the public domain.

Sir Keir will make a bid to focus attention on the ‘grievance’ he will accuse rival political parties of peddling in a speech today, before a crunch by-election in Manchester and May’s local and devolved parliamentary elections.

But the controversy surrounding Lord Mandelson – who has quit the House of Lords, resigned from the Labour Party, been removed from the Privy Council and faces a criminal investigation following new revelations from the so-called Epstein files – has led to intensifying questions about the Prime Minister’s political future.

Good morning and welcome to the Daily Mail’s live coverage as Sir Keir Starmer’s premiership is under growing pressure from Labour MPs.

They are angry at his decision to approve the appointment of Peter Mandelson to the role of ambassador to the US despite knowing about his links to Jeffrey Epstein.

Stay with us throughout today for all the latest updates.