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Wes Streeting replies with an emphatic ‘no’ when requested if he is nonetheless pals with Peter Mandelson.

The Health Secretary, who has traditionally been very shut with the Labour grandee, says: “Whether or not his behaviour has hit a criminal threshold is for the police to decide.

“But what we have seen in current days regarding the leaking of extremely confidential, extremely delicate, probably market-sensisitive info is so jaw-droppingly silly and outrageous that I do not want a replica of the ministerial code in entrance of me – or a replica of the legislation of the legislation – to know that what he did couldn’t have been completed with any affordable clarification or justification.

“What we have seen -not just in the release of this set of Epstein files, but in the previous release – is evidence there in black and white of a gross betrayal of two Prime Ministers, of our country’s national interest, of Epstein’s victims – those women and girls who were not believed as they campaigned for justice – and it’s a betrayal of our values.

He adds Peter Mandelson “was not the particular person we thought he was”.