We opted for decency, calm and common sense. Keir Starmer was never a rousing orator, but at least he was a good egg – that was the vibe that got him elected as Prime Minister with such a whopping majority nearly two years ago. An ailing nation needed the antidote to Johnson, Truss and the compromised Sunak. A big dose of boring and sensible would restore stability and, perhaps, some of the public’s faith in politics.

Oh dear. Fast forward to yesterday when we saw the Prime Minister insisting to a packed parliament that he had not knowingly misled it over the vetting of Peter Mandelson. His defence – “I’m staggered at how I was misled” – has sounded increasingly thin, not to say cringey, as the days have passed. The latest revelation, that Mandelson had actually failed his security vetting and the civil service kept it from the Prime Minister, has brought a key question to the fore: why were the Prime Minister and his team so incurious about what vetting might turn up about a man who was a known friend of Jeffrey Epstein, had business links to Russia and China and who had been sacked twice from previous governments?

“Why didn’t the Prime Minister ask?” as Diane Abbott put it. Was it naivete – bad enough – or deliberate, studied disinterest? Could it be that they knew he was a risky appointment and had decided to take the gamble anyway so didn’t really want to know how compromised he was? Keir Starmer put up a trenchant defence in the Commons, laying blame heavily on the decisions of civil servants – to the occasional jeers of opposition MPs – but the questions about his judgment and leadership continue to swirl because it’s not just about Mandelson. That’s just the last hefty........

© Herald Scotland