By Iain Dale

This afternoon’s three hour debate in the House of Commons showed Parliament at both its best and worst.

There were some excellent speeches and a lot of cross party agreement on what went wrong with the appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to the United States.

The fact that out of 416 Labour MPs only about 40 or 50 were present was not unexpected. The fact that only two of them made speeches was perhaps also not a surprise.

The opposition benches, as one might expect, were quite full, and as such the deputy speaker imposed a six minute limit on speeches.

David Davis, Emily Thornberry, Kemi Badenoch, Ed Davey and Stehen Flynn all made excellent speeches, which were a mixture of examining the issue in forensic detail (David Davis), impressively eloquent bluster (Stephen Flynn), detailed attack on the competence........

© LBC