Lord Peter Mandelson should 'never have been appointed' as ambassador to the US, Yvette Cooper has said, as she sidestepped a question on whether Sir Keir Starmer is a strong and effective leader.The Foreign Secretary described the disclosure of messages over Lord Mandelson's appointment as an 'unedifying process', a day after the Government released a second tranche of more than 1,000 pages of documents.Some of the messages proved embarrassing for ministers - including for Sir Keir, whom Lord M

Lord Peter Mandelson should 'never have been appointed' as ambassador to the US, Yvette Cooper has said, as she sidestepped a question on whether Sir Keir Starmer is a strong and effective leader.The Foreign Secretary described the disclosure of messages over Lord Mandelson's appointment as an 'unedifying process', a day after the Government released a second tranche of more than 1,000 pages of documents.Some of the messages proved embarrassing for ministers - including for Sir Keir, whom Lord Mandelson described as 'consistently going for direction B'.