Pressure grows on PM over ex-minister’s Jeffrey Epstein links as Tories criticise move to withhold some records

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Keir Starmer will attempt to get ahead of the widening scandal over Peter Mandelson’s conduct with the expected release of files relating to his appointment as Britain’s US ambassador, in what a minister has described as “drawing a line in the sand”.

The Conservatives had been preparing to force the publication of the records – including what Mandelson may have told Starmer about his relationship with the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein before being appointed to Washington – with a motion in the Commons.