Parliament was at its best and worst during Mandelson debate, writes Iain Dale

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 of the Prime Minister (Kemi Badenoch), explaining why this all matters to Epstein’s victims (Ed Davey) and rigorous questioning of government actions (Emily Thornberry).

Florence Eshalomi is one of the most impressive Labour MPs and someone who should undoubtedly be a minister. No one can explain why she isn’t. She, too, was excellent, making some excellent points whilst ostensibly remaining quite loyal.

And then came the up to now unheard of Labour MP for Rugby, John Slinger. Rarely have I seen an MP embarrass himself so comprehensively on the floor of the House.

He spent most of his six minutes talking about Andy Coulson, trying to turn the whole issue back on the Tories. You could almost see what was going through the minds of other Labour MPs.

"A***licker" was no doubt one word which occurred to most of them.

In these situations the whips always alight on an obscure backbencher who has pretensions of climbing the greasy pole of ministerial office.

These MPs become known as ‘whips’ narks’. They will literally do anything for preferment.

Thing is, when it comes to another reshuffle they are invariable overlooked. Mr Slinger not only deserves to be overlooked, he deserves to be ignored by everyone who covers politics for a living. I know I’m not ignoring him, but his audacity was shameful in the extreme.

Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty, resplendent with a new beard, drew the short straw and answered for the government. He’s an emollient character and well liked across the House.

He did have a bit of a go at Kemi Badenoch but his general approach was to try to dial down the temperature and emerge unscathed from what must have been a very uncomfortable three hours for him.

Did this debate change the dial? Probably not, but one conclusion I did draw is that this issue won’t be going away anytime soon and that the only way the prime minister can lance the boil, to an extent anyway, is to issue a personal and heartfelt apology to Epstein’s victims from the Despatch Box when Parliament returns in mid October.

I wonder what further details will have emerged by then.

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Iain Dale is on LBC 7-10pm Monday to Thursday.

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