Dr Luke Evans is shadow minister for health and social care
“I want the truth!” Shouts Tom Cruise. “You can’t handle the truth!” Barks back Jack Nicholson.
It is one of the most famous lines in A Few Good Men. But what makes that courtroom scene endure is not the drama. It is the principle behind it. The case stops being about what happened and becomes something far more uncomfortable. Who is responsible?
That is the real question – despite Labour’s attempts last night to evade it – facing Keir Starmer over the Mandelson affair.
Because this is not, in the end, about process. The Prime Minister has spent weeks deferring to process, civil servants and the team around him. In fact, it is about power, direction and whether responsibility can be quietly passed down when things go wrong. Starmer has tried to separate his decision from the consequences that follow, but the public aren’t buying it.
The facts are not in serious dispute.
The Prime Minister chose Lord Mandelson for one of the most sensitive diplomatic roles available. Security vetting raised concerns. Those concerns were overridden, especially given pressure from Number 10. The appointment proceeded. The Prime Minister got what he wanted.
And when questions came, we were told that “due process” had been followed. Even this doesn’t hold water as we now know the then-Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, in November 2024, advised that Mandelson should have security vetting before being appointed.
But this isn’t even the central point anymore. In evidence given by Sir Olly Robbins in November 2025, he said: “It was clear that the Prime Minister wanted to make this appointment himself.”
Going further, Robbins said “The FCDO was informed of his decision and acted on it, and, via the Foreign Secretary, sought and obtained the King’s approval for the appointment.” He finished “the Prime Minister took advice and formed a view himself, and we then acted on that view.”
That matters. It changed the argument entirely.
Because the Government’s defence rests on separation. The decision sat at the political level, we are told. The process sat with officials. If something went wrong, it happened somewhere in between.
That is precisely the argument that collapses in A Few Good Men. In that film, no written order is ever produced. No direct instruction is neatly recorded. And yet the court recognises a simple truth. When authority sets the direction, an expectation, others do not act in a vacuum; they go on and act in its shadow. That is the shadow that hangs over this sorry affair.
If officials understood the Prime Minister’s settled view and acted within that understanding, then responsibility does not stop with them. It returns to where that view was formed. You cannot claim decisive authority on the way in and plausible deniability on the way out.
And yet that is exactly what we are being asked to accept.
We are asked to believe that a Prime Minister can personally determine the outcome, while remaining detached from the system that delivers it. That he can shape the direction, but not own the destination. That when the machinery of Government bends around a political decision, the responsibility lies only with those who turned the gears.
That is not how leadership works, nor how accountability works. And it is not how public trust is sustained.
Despite the Prime Minister using the word “process” over 100 times in his statement last week, this is not about whether civil servants followed procedure. It is about whether a settled political choice shaped the system itself. Robbins’ testimony is clear. This was not drift. This was direction, and when direction comes from the top, so does responsibility. As even Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff, admitted in evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee yesterday: “It wasn’t my decision. It was the Prime Minister’s decision.”
The public instinctively know this. They do not expect perfection, but they do expect honesty about how decisions are made and who stands behind them.
The question is no longer abstract. If the decision was his, is the responsibility not his? And if that responsibility is being avoided, what are Labour MPs prepared to do about it? After the vote yesterday evening on whether to send the Prime Minister to the privileges committee, it seems nothing.
Because in the end, the public can handle the truth. It is the Labour backbenches that can’t.
Dr Luke Evans is shadow minister for health and social care
“I want the truth!” Shouts Tom Cruise. “You can’t handle the truth!” Barks back Jack Nicholson.
It is one of the most famous lines in A Few Good Men. But what makes that courtroom scene endure is not the drama. It is the principle behind it. The case stops being about what happened and becomes something far more uncomfortable. Who is responsible?
That is the real question – despite Labour’s attempts last night to evade it – facing Keir Starmer over the Mandelson affair.
Because this is not, in the end, about process. The Prime Minister has spent weeks deferring to process, civil servants and the team around him. In fact, it is about power, direction and whether responsibility can be quietly passed down when things go wrong. Starmer has tried to separate his decision from the consequences that follow, but the public aren’t buying it.
The facts are not in serious dispute.
The Prime Minister chose Lord Mandelson for one of the most sensitive diplomatic roles available. Security vetting raised concerns. Those concerns were overridden, especially given pressure from Number 10. The appointment proceeded. The Prime Minister got what he wanted.
And when questions came, we were told that “due process” had been followed. Even this doesn’t hold water as we now know the then-Cabinet Secretary, Simon Case, in November 2024, advised that Mandelson should have security vetting before being appointed.
But this isn’t even the central point anymore. In evidence given by Sir Olly Robbins in November 2025, he said: “It was clear that the Prime Minister wanted to make this appointment himself.”
Going further, Robbins said “The FCDO was informed of his decision and acted on it, and, via the Foreign Secretary, sought and obtained the King’s approval for the appointment.” He finished “the Prime Minister took advice and formed a view himself, and we then acted on that view.”
That matters. It changed the argument entirely.
Because the Government’s defence rests on separation. The decision sat at the political level, we are told. The process sat with officials. If something went wrong, it happened somewhere in between.
That is precisely the argument that collapses in A Few Good Men. In that film, no written order is ever produced. No direct instruction is neatly recorded. And yet the court recognises a simple truth. When authority sets the direction, an expectation, others do not act in a vacuum; they go on and act in its shadow. That is the shadow that hangs over this sorry affair.
If officials understood the Prime Minister’s settled view and acted within that understanding, then responsibility does not stop with them. It returns to where that view was formed. You cannot claim decisive authority on the way in and plausible deniability on the way out.
And yet that is exactly what we are being asked to accept.
We are asked to believe that a Prime Minister can personally determine the outcome, while remaining detached from the system that delivers it. That he can shape the direction, but not own the destination. That when the machinery of Government bends around a political decision, the responsibility lies only with those who turned the gears.
That is not how leadership works, nor how accountability works. And it is not how public trust is sustained.
Despite the Prime Minister using the word “process” over 100 times in his statement last week, this is not about whether civil servants followed procedure. It is about whether a settled political choice shaped the system itself. Robbins’ testimony is clear. This was not drift. This was direction, and when direction comes from the top, so does responsibility. As even Morgan McSweeney, the Prime Minister’s former chief of staff, admitted in evidence to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee yesterday: “It wasn’t my decision. It was the Prime Minister’s decision.”
The public instinctively know this. They do not expect perfection, but they do expect honesty about how decisions are made and who stands behind them.
The question is no longer abstract. If the decision was his, is the responsibility not his? And if that responsibility is being avoided, what are Labour MPs prepared to do about it? After the vote yesterday evening on whether to send the Prime Minister to the privileges committee, it seems nothing.
Because in the end, the public can handle the truth. It is the Labour backbenches that can’t.