Keir Starmer with Peter Mandelson at the US ambassador's residence in February 26.

In the end, Keir Starmer had no choice but to dispense with Peter Mandelson’s services as the UK’s ambassador to Washington.

The drip-drip of revelations about the extent of the Labour peer’s friendship with the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein meant that his position had become untenable.

An alleged “birthday book” released earlier this week by the House Oversight Committee in America contained a message from Mandelson in which he described Epstein, who died in prison in 2018, as his “best pal”.

But it was the further revelation, that Mandelson told Epstein in an email that “your friends stay with you and love you” even as he was facing child underage sex charges in 2008, that was the final straw for the prime minister.

In a statement, the Foreign Office said: “In light of the additional information in emails written by Peter Mandelson, the prime minister has asked the foreign secretary to withdraw him as ambassador.”

Nevertheless, Labour MPs are furious that the PM did not act sooner,........

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