LONDON

With the Mandelson/Epstein scandal still fresh on voters’ minds, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Wednesday faced mounting questions over his decision to appoint a former aide to the House of Lords despite the aide’s links to a convicted pedophile.

In Prime Minister’s Questions, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch accused Starmer of having an “established pattern” of “stuffing government with hypocrites and pedophile apologists,” clearly also referring to the Lord Mandelson scandal, which is still simmering.

The new row centers on the appointment of Matthew Doyle, Starmer’s former communications director, to the House of Lords, Parliament’s unelected upper chamber. The controversy erupted when The Sunday Times reported on Doyle’s past support for Sean Morton, a convicted sex offender.

After being charged over indecent images of children in December 2016, Morton was suspended from the Labour Party in January 2017. Morton ran for the House of Commons that May as an independent, unsuccessfully. Despite the charge, Doyle campaigned for Morton. That November, Morton admitted to the offences.

Doyle last month took his seat in the House of Lords, and was suspended by the Labour Party on Tuesday.

Badenoch pressed Starmer on why he had given Doyle a “job for life,” as seats in the House of Lords typically last a lifetime. In response, Starmer said Doyle had not given “a full account of his actions” when he was given a peerage.

- ‘Catastrophic lack of judgement’

Starmer was appearing at his first Prime Minister’s Questions since surviving Monday’s attempt to force him from office over the scandal of Lord Mandelson, who Starmer appointed Britain’s ambassador to the US despite Mandelson’s links to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Questioned about Doyle, Starmer told MPs that he had “accepted responsibility” and apologized for the mistakes he made, though this further misstep is likely to increase pressure for him to step down.

Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey also criticized the Doyle appointment, linking it to Starmer’s 2024 decision to appoint Mandelson US ambassador.

“To appoint one pedophile supporter cannot be excused as misfortune,” Davey says. “To appoint two shows a catastrophic lack of judgement.”

Stephen Flynn, Westminster leader of the Scottish National Party, also challenged the prime minister, saying Starmer “appears to be the most gullible former director of public prosecutions in history.”

On Thursday, Starmer said he was "sorry" for believing Mandelson's "lies" and appointing him ambassador to the US, as pressure continued to mount after he admitted to knowing about Mandelson's ties with Epstein.

Mandelson was sacked last September, but recently released Epstein files suggested that he shared confidential information with the convicted sex offender when serving as business secretary in 2009.

Mandelson has also stepped down from the House of Lords and the Labour Party.

The US Justice Department recently released more than 3 million files related to the Epstein case under a law passed last November.

Epstein was found dead by suicide in a New York City jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking charges involving underage girls.