Morgan McSweeney was clear at the outset of his evidence that he advised in favour of Peter Mandelson’s appointment as UK ambassador to Washington, and apologised for that. But crucially Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff stopped short of taking full responsibility. He put that at the feet of the Prime Minister.

McSweeney argued other senior advisors and ministers were consulted and if it had just been him arguing for Mandelson’s appointment, it would not have happened. “It wasn’t my decision. It was the Prime Minister’s decision,” he said. McSweeney, the quietly spoken Irishman, was appearing before the Foreign Affairs Committee as part of its evidence-taking into the what-the-hell-happened-about-Mandy inquiry.

If Starmer had hoped his former aide would exonerate him, he was to be disappointed. It was only a partial mea culpa; McSweeney said his enthusiasm for Mandelson’s appointment was “a serious mistake”. At the heart of his misjudgement, he said, was his understanding at the time that Mandelson’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein was as “a passing acquaintance” – and when he later discovered he was much closer to the convicted paedophile it was like “a knife through my soul”.

McSweeney denied he had “railroaded” Mandelson’s appointment despite concerns and rejected committee chair Dame Emily Thornberry’s suggestion that the appointment of his former mentor had become an “obsession,” and that Mandelson was his “hero”.

“I don’t think that’s true,”........

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